. / QJotnell Unittecaity Siibracti Stljaca, SJeui gotk BERNARD ALBERT SINN COLLECTION NAVAL HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY THE GIFT OF BERNARD A. SINN. 97 1919 The date shows when this volume was taken. To renew this book copy the call No. and give to the librarian. ^lii|U..M.O-:|^fi. HOME USE RULES All Books subject to recall All borrowers must regis- ••• ter in the library to borrow books for home use. r'"'-^ " ^^^ books must be re- turned at end of college year for inspection and -repairs. Limited books must be returned within the four week limit and not renewed. Students must return all QE£iZS^^mm"'t 2_ ^ otuaenrs must return au ....•.^..J.1^jU^..jQ W. books before leaving town, Officers should arrange for ••W&V^J-g-]-9S0"K-£i- ^^^ ^^^'^ °^ ^°°^= wanted during their absence from town. ; Volumes of periodicals ,x and of pamphlets are held jv in the library as much as .' „ possible. For special pur- poses they are given out for a limited time. Borrowers should not use i their library privileges for , '! the benefit of other persons. I', Books of special value ;■ and gift books, when the '^j giver wishes it, are not allowed to circulate. Readers are asked to re- port all cases of books marked or mutilated. Do not deface books by marks and writing. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 1924 092 886 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092886013 PAUL JONES Founder of the American Navy COMMEMORATION EDITION PAUL JONES FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN NAVY BY AUGUSTUS C. BUELL WITH A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER BY GENERAL HORACE PORTER, LL.D. IN TWO VOLUMES Volume I CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK .•.•.•.'.•. 1906 txS '-fe '? Copyright, 1900, igo6, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TROW DIREOTOHY PRINTINQ AND BOOKBINDINO COMPAHV NEW YORK CHARLES HENRY CRAMP BUILDER OF NAVIES THE AUTHOR INSCRIBES THIS HISTORY OF PAUL JONES FOUNDER OF a NAVY PREFACE Paul Jones's character and achievements entitle him to a conspicuous place among the great men of the American Eevolution, and yet the details of his extraordinary career are little known. His fame, in the broad sense of enduring interest, ranks with that of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, and Robert Morris ; and, in his own partic- ular province, he stands absolutely alone. To the average student of American history, men- tion of our Eevolutionary Navy instantly suggests the name of Paul Jones, and no other. Yet, not- withstanding such singular distinction as a gener- ality, but little is correctly known in detail as to the actual life and the real character of the man. The daily lives, the individual incidents, and the per- sonal characters of our other very great men in that epoch are as open books. These men spent their lives in our country, and after they had passed away the materials for their histories were left in friendly hands. The reverse was true of Paul Jones. He resided PREFACE in this country from the spring of 1773 till the fall of 1777. After that, though continuing in the ser- vice of the United States and passing some part of his time here at intervals between 1777 and 1787, his actual domicile was France, and from 1787 till his death, in 1792, he did not appear in this country at all. He left no family to preserve with filial care the voluminous and valuable records he had pre- pared. Some of these records were in the English language ; others, and in many respects the most valuable, were in French. Aiter his death his pa- pers were scattered. Some of them found their way to the United States, others to Scotland, and yet others remained in France. The papers that found their way to America and to Scotland fell into hands incompetent to make the best historical use of them. They were published in both cases ; but in a fragmentary and disjointed manner ; and this evil was aggravated by efforts on the part of editors to explain things they could not themselves comprehend, or in some instances to cor- rect what their ignorance of correlative facts led them to consider errors in the originals. Thus, be- tween the division of his papers and the incapacity of his editors, Paul Jones suffered as nearly as could be without throwing them into the fire the destruction of his literary relics in America and Scotland. The papers that remained in France PEEFACE fared better; but as they relate almost wholly to that period of his career which had no direct con- nection with American history, little use of them has been made in our tongue. On such a basis numerous biographies and in- numerable sketches of Paul Jones have been pub- lished during the last hundred years. Through all of them runs a vein of mystery which, in its turn, has made his name the sport of novel-writers, and the prey of fiction for three generations. The result has been distorted views of his character and imper- fect conceptions of his career. But there was no mystery about his career, had the materials for a plain history of him been intelligently handled. On the contrary, his Ufe, as indicated by his own singularly frank writings, and as mirrored in the copious discussions of him and his character in the papers of his great contemporaries, was free from mystery, and in most respects extraordinarily open and above-board. It is by no means on his own literary relics that a real history of Paul Jones must be based. As is true of every famous man, the materials for such a history of him must be sought in the records of his contemporaries and colleagues, as well as, or to a greater extent than, in his own. The present volume represents an efibrt to com- bine the most important or most interesting parts PEEFACE of each element — his own papers on the one hand, and those of his contemporaries on the other. Whether successful or not, the effort has been at least earnest. The author gratefully acknowledges his debt to many admirers of the name and fame of Paul Jones for assistance in the preparation of this work. Among them he must make special acknowledg- ment of his indebtedness to the late Dr. Francis Wharton, who first encouraged him to undertake it many years ago, and thereafter gave him aid and suggestion beyond the power of anyone else to give ; the Hon. Ainsworth E. Spofford, Librarian of Congress, who has freely given to the author the benefit of his marvellous bibliological equip- ment; Andrew H. Allen, Esq., Chief of the Eolls and Librarian, Department of State, for copies of manuscripts and documents not otherwise accessi- ble ; Professor J. Harvard Biles, Chair of Naval Architecture, University of Glasgow, for aid in se- curing historical documents from the Admiralty archives of Great Britain ; M. Adolphe Letellier, C.E., M.A., of Paris, for aid and suggestion in re- search among the archives of France, and for intro- ductions that gave access to certain private collec- tions of rare books and pamphlets ; the late General Prince Wittgenstein, and the families of Prince Kor- sakoff, and the late Admiral Greve of the Eussian PEEFACE Navy, for assistance in research of the history of Paul Jones in the serrice of that Empire. It may, perhaps, be not improper to add that in his work the author has been stimulated by an in- stinct of heredity. His effort has been to write a history of Paul Jones as truthful as a great-grand sire's services under Paul Jones were faithful. A. C. B. Philadelphia, June 15, 1900. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Sailor and PiiANTEB 1 CHAPTER II Founding the American Navy 23 CHAPTER HI Cruises of the Providence and the Alfred . . 44 CHAPTER IV In Command of the Ranger ........ 69 CHAPTER V The French Alliance 92 CHAPTER VI The Capture of the Drake 109 CHAPTER VII An Appeal to King Louis 141 zuf CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII PAOB On the Bon Homme Richard ........ 173 CHAPTER IX The Battle with the Sbkapis ....... 303 CHAPTER X A Diplomatic Duel 246 CHAPTER XI AlMEE DE TELISON 394 ZIV ILLUSTRATIONS Portrait of Paul Jones Frontispiece Prom a miniature in The Hermitage, St. Peteraburg. FACING PAGE Map of the British Isles 110 Showing track charts of the Ranger amd the Bon Homme Richanrd. Outboard Profile of the Bon Homme Richard. 170 ProTti a print in Pierre Gerard's " Memoir du Combat,'* Plan of the Battle of the Bon Homme Richard AND THE SBRAPIS . . 306 A redra/t/roTn the original sketch by Paid Jones, PAUL JONES FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN NAVY CHAPTEE I SAILOR AND PLANTER In the middle of the eighteenth century an hon- est, hard-working Scottish peasant lived near the fishing hamlet of Arbigland, Parish of Kirkbean, County (or, as it was then called, Stewarrty) of Kirkcudbright, in the Western Lowlands, on the north shore of Solway Firth. His name was John Paul and his occupation was partly that of gardener to the Honorable Eobert Craik, a country squire and member of Parliament, and partly that of fish- erman. John Paul, like most Scotchmen in humble cir- cumstances, was the father of a large family. He had four sons — William, Adam, Eobert, and John Paul, Jr. — and three daughters — Elizabeth, Janet, and Mary. William, the eldest, bom about 1730, was adopted in 1743 by a well-to-do and childless Vir- ginia planter named William Jones, a native of Kirk- bean Parish and a distant relative of the Pauls, while he was on a visit to his old Scottish home. Vol. I.— 1 1 PAUL JONES and by virtue of the act of adoption took the name of William Paul Jones. Of Adam and Robert Paul no trace is left. Elizabeth died before reaching the age of twenty. Janet and Mary followed their brother William to Virginia as soon as they arrived at maturity. Mary married, first a man named Young, who died, and she then became the wife of a planter named Loudon. Janet became the wife oi a watchmaker in Norfolk, Va., a Mr. Taylor, who had emigrated from Dumfries, Scotland, and after- ward returned thither. The history of these six children of John Paul does not take up much space and none of them would have had even such scanty claim to the notice of mankind but for the fifth child and youngest son of the family, John Paul, Jr., who was bom on July 6, 1747. His history has been written ia three lan- guages — English, French, and Eussian— and though for more than a hundred years the theme of many busy pens, the half of it has not yet been told. Of his maternal ancestry the only record extant is that left to history by Edward Hamilton, author of the Aberdeen life of Paul Jones. His mother was Jeanne Macduff, daughter of an Argyll Highlander named Ian Macduff,* an armorer or gunsmith by * Dr. Robert Sands, editor of the Janette Taylor CoUeotion of the Jones papers, published at New York in 1830, aays: "The Macduffa were a respectable rural race in their own district ; and some of them had been small landed proprietors in the Parish of Kirkbean for an im- memorial period." But Edward Hamilton, writing several years afterward (1848) and having the Janette Taylor Collection before him, personally investigated the subject and established by the parish records of Dumfries, as well as by authentic neighborhood lore, the Highland origin of Jeanne Macduff. At the time John Paul married her they were both in the employ of Mr. 2 SAILOE AND PLANTEE trade, who migrated early in the eighteenth cen- tury from Inverary to Dumfries, in search of a wider market for his skill. Jeanne was a little girl when her father descended to the Lowlands ; but she was bom a " Hieland lassie." There may have been his- toric pertinence in Hamilton's terse suggestion that " Little John Paul was clearly his mother's boy ; at heart a Hielander!" Hamilton himself was a Highlander, and after two generations had softened the asperities of the Eevolutionary struggle, he was, perhaps, glad to enroll Paul Jones among the " He- roes of the Heather." But apart from any such racial predilection, it is not to be denied that there were qualities in the character of Paul Jones and in- stincts exhibited in his career that bespoke the fierce blood of the Gael rather than the placid strain of the Briton. The suddenness of temper, the swift- ness of hand that he restrained with difficulty — if at all ; the exultant valor, the scorn of peril, and the deathless grit that made him the conqueror where others might have succumbed, were perhaps the heritage, not of the peaceful farmer and fisher folk from whom his father sprimg, but of his mother's ferocious ancestors in the Grampian Hills. It might be an interesting study in comparative eth- nology to trace the savage instinct of foray that mastered him more than once, back to those " plaided Craik — John Patil as head gardener and also game-keeper and fish- warden ; and Jeanne Macduff as lady's maid to Mrs. Craik. The posi- tions of head gardener and game-keeper were frequently filled by the same person on estates of moderate size such as that of Mr. Craik. The duties of the " fish-warden " were simply to prevent " poaching " in the two or three small salmon streams that flowed through Mr. Craik's estate into the Nith. 3 PAUL JONES clans " whose " early education " Ajrtomi sings in the lay beginning : Come hither, Evan Cameron, Come stand beside my knee ; I hear the river roaring do'wn Unto the wintry sea. It may have been that, with the thrift and shrewd- ness of his father's Lowland race, there blended in him a dash of other blood, and that the " Hieland lassie's boy " was, after all, more Celt than Saxon. Little John Paul enjoyed a scanty childhood. No institution of learning more pretentious than a Scotch parish school opened its doors to him ; and as soon as he was strong enough to steer a fishing yawl or haul a line, his studies were ever and again interrupted by the hard necessity of helping to win a humble living from the waters of the Solway. Yet he grew rapidly in body and in mind alike, so that at the age of twelve he was as well knit, hardy, and capable as boys usually are at sixteen. Even at the early age of twelve, his love of the sea, his aptitude for its pursuits, and his disregard of its perils, had become subjects of remark throughout that sturdy neighborhood ; and for a year or more he had constantly besought his father to let him go over to Whitehaven and ship aboard some vessel bound for the New World, where his brother William, whom, by the way, he had never yet seen, had already found home and fortune. Whitehaven was then the principal seaport on the Cumberland coast of England, on the southeast shore of the Solway, and about twenty-five miles 4 SAILOR AND PLANTER from Arbigland by water. It was then to the Ameri- can and West Indian trade what Liverpool is now, and the principal commercial port on the northwest coast of England. Among the enterprising and prosperous ship-owning merchants of Whitehaven was James Younger, Esq., also a Lowland Scotch- man, bom at Old Carlaverock Castle, on the Dum- fries shore of the Mth, a few miles from Arbigland. In the summer of 1759 Mr. Younger was at Arbigland, looking for sailors to man one of his ships about to sail for the Chesapeake. Late in the afternoon one day the attention of the villagers was attracted to a small fishing yawl beating up against a stiff north- east squall, to gain the shelter of the small tidal creek that formed the boat-harbor of the hamlet. Mr. Younger did not think she could weather it. As the little boat neared the landing-place Mr. Younger saw that her " crew " consisted of a boy and a man — the boy steering, handling the sheets, and command- ing ; the man simply " trimming the boat " by sitting on the weather -rail. Among those watching the boat was old John Paul. He did not seem alarmed. "That is my boy John conning the boat, Mr. Younger," he said. "He will fetch her in. This isn't much of a squall for him ! " As soon as the boat was alongside and made fast, little John Paul was introduced by his father to Mr. Younger, who congratulated him on his seamanship and said that if his father would let him go he would ship him as master's apprentice in a fine new vessel he owned, just fitting out for a round voyage to Vir- ginia, the West Indies, and thence home. Between this flattering offer and the importunities of the 5 PAUL JONES boy, old John Paul yielded, and little John Paul went to Whitehaven with James Younger, Esq., duly bound shipmaster's apprentice, and fully destined for the ocean. Such was the sea-birth and such the Neptune's christening- of the Founder of a New Sea-power — the Father of the American Navy. A few days thereafter the stout brig Friendship, of 148 tons, James Younger, owner, Kichard Ben- nison, master, and John Paul, master's apprentice, sailed from Whitehaven, and after an uneventful voyage of thirty-two days, dropped anchor in the Eappahannock Eiver near the present site of the sleepy old Virginia village of XJrbana. The trading voyages of those days were leisurely affairs ; the triangular round-trip from England to the North American Colonies, thence to the West Indies, and thence back to England, usually lasted about six months, of which perhaps three months were spent at sea and the other three in various ports discharging and taking on cargo and conduct- ing barter or exchange. The anchorage of the Friendship was only a short distance down the Eappahannock from the landing-place of William Jones's plantation, and, as part of the ship's business was with that worthy planter, little John Paul found abundant opportunity to visit ashore as the guest of his eldest brother, William Paul Jones, then a man of thirty, married, and managing the plantation, flour-mill, and trade of his adopted father, William Jones. The old Scottish-American planter took a great fancy to little John Paul, and wished to adopt him also, offering to get him released from his in- 6 SAILOK AND PLANTEE dentures to Mr. Younger. But the boy preferred tie sea-career he had chosen, and so, when the business of the Rappahannock was done, he sailed away in the Friendship for Tobago and Barbados, whence he returned to Whitehaven in the early spring of 1760. For four years John Paul continued in the service of Mr. Younger. He advanced so rapidly in sea- faring skill and general attainments that in 1764 he made a round voyage as second mate, and the next year was first mate. In 1766 Mr. Younger retired from the shipping business, and released John Paul from his indentures. Some writers of John Paul's history say that Mr. Younger failed in business at this time. But the fact that he was elected to Par- liament in 1766, and held the seat for that borough until 1771, would not seem to prove the truth of that statement. At any rate, when he released John Paul from indenture, Mr. Yoimger gave to him for a nom- inal consideration a sixth interest in a ship called King George's Packet, and sold two-sixths to her master, Mr. Denbigh. In this ship John Paul went again to the West Indies in 1766. Trade with the west coast of Eng- land was slack that year. So Captain Denbigh and his first mate, John Paul, resolved to try the traffic with the west coast of Africa. This was nothing else than the slave-trade, but at that time it was con- sidered legitimate business, and it formed the basis of fortunes still extant by heredity in the hands of the most distinguished modern philanthropists of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Captain Denbigh and John Paul made two voy- 7 PAUL JONES ages in the King George between Jamaica and the Guinea coast, with fair profit. On arriving at Kingston, Jamaica, at the end of the second slaving voyage in 1767, John Paul declined to undertake a third one, and Captain Denbigh bought his sixth interest in the ship. Though not yet twenty-one years old, John Paul now foTind himself the pos- sessor of about one thousand guineas (say, $5,000) in gold — then fully equal in purchasing power to three times that sum now — as the result of eight years' constant seafaring. He decided to visit his brother William, in Virginia, and to go thence home with a view to getting a command of his own. Unable to find a ship bound for England by way of the Chesapeake, he took passage in the White- haven brig John o' Gaunt, Captain Macadam. Soon after clearing the Windward Islands yellow fever broke out on board, and the captain, mate, and all but five of the crew died within a few days. John Paul and the five surviving sailors proved to be " immunes " from yellow fever, and they navigated the John o' Gaunt safely to Whitehaven with her valuable cargo, Paul in command. On arrival at Whitehaven the owners of the ship gave to John Paul and his five faithful sailors a ten-per-cent. share in the cargo for what was then termed " summary salvage." These owners were Donald Currie, Beck & Co., then the principal mer- chant ship-owners of Whitehaven. They had a new, full-rigged ship, about ready to sail on a round voyage to the West Indies, the American coast, and home. They offered the command of this vessel to Captain Paul, who was also made supercargo, and 8 SAILOR AND PLANTER they gave him a " lay " of ten per cent, on the net profits of the round voyage without investing a shil- ling of his own. This was in October, 1768. He commanded this ship — the John — for three round voyages, visiting his brother William Paul Jones at Eappahannock twice during the time. Old Wil- liam Jones had died in 1760, and by the terms of his will had made John Paul the residuary legatee of his brother in case the latter should die without issue ; provided that John Paul would assume, as his brother had done, the patronymic of Jones. On his visit to Eappahannock in 1769, Captain John Paul legally qualified under the provisions of the will of Willam Jones by recording his assent to its require- ments in due form. He continued in the service of Currie, Beck & Co. in the meantime forming a con- nection with the firm of Archibald Stewart & Co., of Tobago, the other junior partners being Mr. Seaforth Young and Captain John Cleaveland. His third voyage in the John involved Captain Paul in serious trouble. On the outward voyage the crew was reduced by fever to five or six hands. One of these, a huge Jamaica mulatto named Munro — or " Mungo " — Maxwell, became mutinous, and Captain Paul, being the only officer able to keep the deck, found it necessary to subdue him with a belaying- pin. Maxwell died soon after the arrival of the ship at Tobago, though not until he had shipped on another vessel. Captain Paul surrendered to the authorities, made a full statement, and asked an im- mediate trial. He was exonerated by the Judge Surrogate of the Yice -Admiralty Court of Tobago, the Honorable James Simpson, after the usual ex- 9 PAUL JONES animation of the accused and witnesses, and the de- cision of Judg-e Simpson was approved and certi- fied by the Honorable William Young, Lieutenant- GoTemor of the colony. However, upon his return to Whitehaven, notwith- standing this exoneration. Captain Paul was put on trial for murder on the high seas. This prosecution seems to have had some malice behind it, and gave the young Captain considerable trouble. He was fi- nally acquitted on two grounds: first, that there was a reasonable doubt as to whether the death of Maxwell was actually caused by the injuries he received from the hands of Captain Paul ; and, second, if his death, which occurred on board another ship, the Barce- lona packet, about three weeks after he received the injuries, was due to those injuries, it had been shown to the satisfaction of the court that Maxwell was mutinous on the high seas, under circumstances calculated to lodge plenary power in the hands of the master of the vessel; and that, therefore, the homicide was justifiable because it was the only means of maiataining the discipline necessary for the safety of the ship and crew. Captain Paul was a witness in his own defence. In the course of his examiuation the King's counsel ( prosecuting attor- ney) asked him : " Captain Paul, are you, in conscience, satisfied that you used no more force than was necessary to preserve discipline in your ship ? " To which he answered : " May it please the most Honorable Court, sir, I would say that it became necessary to strike the mutinous sailor, Maxwell. Whenever it becomes necessary for a commanding 10 SAILOK AND PLANTEE officer to strike a seaman, it is also necessary to strike with a weapon. I may say that the necessity to strike carries with it the necessity to kill or to completely disable the mutineer. I had two brace of loaded pistols in my belt, and could easily have shot him. I struck with a belaying-pin in prefer- ence, because I hoped that I might subdue him without killing him. But the result proved other- wise. I trust that the Honorable Court and the jury will take due account of the fact that, though amply provided with pistols throwing ounce balls, necessarily fatal weapons, I used a belaying-pin, which, though a dangerous, is not necessarily a fatal, weapon." Captain Paul was acquitted. Currie, Beck & Co. then offered him command of a new ship, one of the largest hailing from Whitehaven, ready to fit out for a voyage to North American and West Indian ports. But before she began to take in cargo, the East India Company chartered her as an " extra ship " to take out stores, passengers, and recruits for regi- ments serving in India. This ship was called the Grantley or Grantully Castle, of 420 tons burden. Captain Paul took her around from Whitehaven to Plymouth, where the stores, passengers, and recruits were taken on board, and she sailed for India, ac- cording to the records of that time, early in 1771 with several other East India ships under convoy. The round voyage consumed nearly a year, the ship returning to Whitehaven early in 1772 — prob- ably in March or April. The records of this voy- age are meagre. Captain Paul refers to it in his writings at the time only to express wonder that 11 PAUL JONES " the King leaves the Cape of Good Hope in posses- sion of the Dutch, when its situation as a command- ing station on our route to India is of such prime importance." And he also is "surprised that the French have been let keep so long the Isles of France and of Bourbon, lying as they do like lions in our path to our Eastern possessions whenever we happen to be at war with France." From this it would appear that Captain Paul was a zealous and loyal subject of His Britannic Majesty in 1771-72. After his return to Whitehaven, early in 1772, his ship was temporarily laid up for overhaul, as was usual after East India voyages, and Captain Paul then took command of another ship, bound for the West Indies and American ports. During all these years Captain Paul had been an indefatigable student not only of the problems of his own profession, but of the French language, which he had mastered, and of Spanish, in which he had become fairly proficient. He had also made himself conversant with the naval history and tactical the- ories of his time, so that by 1773, when he reached his twenty-seventh year, there was probably no reg- ular naval officer of his age in the British service better educated or more accomplished in profes- sional acquirements than he. More than half of his life, young as he was, had been spent at sea; and though only twenty-seven years old, he had for ten years held positions of command, from mate of a West Indiaman to captain of an East Indiaman. The course of study he had pursued and the knowledge he had acquired were outside the ordi- nary sphere of a merchant captain in those times. 12 SAILOR AND PLANTER Most men of his class then were content to be capa- ble navigators, and, for the rest, aspired to little more than holding the confidence of their owners and having a good time ashore at each end of a voy- age. But this narrow horizon did not satisfy the restless mind of John Paul. He was by no means ascetic in tastes, or gloomy in temperament. But he had no liking for revelry, and nothing bored him so much as those jolly coffee-house dinners or tavern drinking-bouts that formed the staple amusement or recreation ashore of the typical merchant cap- tains of his time. When in port he invariably sought the society into which the merchants and bankers with whom he dealt could introduce him ; where his rich fund of observation could be drawn upon to interest men and women of intellect, and where he could figure, as was always his ardent ambition, in the character of a cultured man of the world. To this aspiration his martial figure, classically handsome face, and courtly bearing always lent resistless aid ; and his active mind, richly stored with anecdote and expe- rience, which an almost miraculous memory and a supreme command of language kept ever at his tongue's end, made him a man of mark in every Colonial port where his ship anchored. The result was that while the average of captains ashore would be swapping yarns in coffee-houses or carousing in taverns. Captain Paul would be passing his even- ings in port at dinner with the elite of Colonial so- ciety, from New York all the way down the coast to Charleston, and thence to all the principal towns in the Bi:itish Antilles from Barbados to Jamaica. 13 PAUL JONES During this period he made the acquaintance of such men as the Livingstons of New York, the Mor- rises of Philadelphia, the Hursts, Granbys, Ayletts, Lees, Parkes, and Washingtons of tidewater Vir- ginia, Hewes of Edenton, N. C, the Pinckneys, Lau- reuses, and Eutledges of Charleston — all men then on the verge of the most colossal destinies known to human annals. If, in all this seeking the society of the people of prestige and power, or in all this study and self- training so far beyond the average of his class, John Paul foresaw in dream or in fancy the glories the near future had in store, he has left to us no hint of it. To ascribe such foresight to him would be to assume that he was almost superhuman. The prob- ability is that he foresaw no more than other men of equal opportunities do, and that his choice of society and studies was simply the dictate of a proud nature, a clean mind, and a lofty ambition in the broadest sense, and without special ulterior design. Lord Nelson said : " A naval officer, unlike a mil- itary commander, can have no fixed plans. He must always be ready for the chance. It may come to- morrow, or next week, or next year, or never ; but he must be always ready ! " This instinct of destiny may have lurked in the recesses of Captain Paul's mind, and perhaps he was unconscious of its influence upon him ; but he was surely "ready for the chance" when it came to him. The brig Two Friends proved to be the last mer- chant command of Captain John Paul. She sailed from Whitehaven early in November, 1772, bound first for Lisbon, thence for the Madeira Islands, 14 SAILOE AND PLANTEE thence for Tobago, thence for the Chesapeake, and thence home. It must have been a lucky voyage, because he made all his ports of call, transacted all necessary business at each port, and anchored in the reach of the Rappahannock just below his brother's plantation the 17th of April, 1773 ; only a little over five months out of Whitehaven in a quite circuitous trip. He foxmd his brother dying of what was then known to pathology as inflammation of the lungs, or lung fever. In our time it is called pneumonia. The legend is that William Paul Jones was still breathing when his brother John Paul reached his bedside, but he never rallied enough to recognize him. In a few hours he died. Then, through the succession established by the will of William Jones, John Paul became John Paul Jones, sinking his old name that he had already made well known and universally respected, in a new name that he was soon to bequeath in a blaze of glory unto all immor- tality. The voyage of the Two Friends, so far as con- cerned trading, was now over. In the Rappahan- nock she had only to take on board some bales of " winter-cured tobacco-leaf " and a quantity of furs and peltries. This was soon done. Then Captain John Paul Jones turned the command over to his first mate, Mr. Lawrence Edgar, and settled down to the idyllic life of a Virginia planter. As Colonial plantations were then, in tidewater Virginia, the Jones estate was not large. A quaint old Colonial record, dated in the year 1761, on transfer by will, describes it as containing "about 3,000 acres of prime land, bordering for twelve furlongs on the 15 PAUL JONES right bank of the Eappahannock, running back southward three miles, 1,000 acres cleared and under plough or grass, 2,000 acres strong, first-growth timber, grist-mill with flour-cloth and fans, turned by water power ; mansion, overseer's house, negro quarters, stables, tobacco-houses, threshing-floor, river wharf, one sloop of 20 tons, thirty negroes* of all ages (18 adults), 20 horses and colts, 80 neat- cattle and calves, sundry sheep and swine, and all necessary means of tilling the soil." Into such a fortune John Paul passed in one day, and exchanged the deck of a merchant brig for the broad acres of a Virginia plantation in the last days of the Colonial regime ; days that, though the last, were the brightest, as sunset is always brighter than high noon. Few pictures of the real Colonial life have been handed down to us. No such social conditions have ever existed anywhere else, and none such can ever exist anywhere again. It was a blending of the wilderness and the garden, a union of aristocracy and democracy, an amicable agreement between freedom and slavery never known before and never to be known again. It was a long, thin fringe of opulent civilization whose front doors looked out upon a trackless ocean and upon whose back doors frowned a savage forest. And yet that long, thin * The articles of tiust which the Frazier Brothers executed in May, 1775, when Jones placed his property in their hands ad interim, give the number of negroes on the plantation as twenty-two, of whom eight were under thirteen years of age. This decrease from the nunaber stated in 1761 was due to the fact that William Paul Jones had manumitted sev- eral slaves during his possession of the estate, and had never bought any new ones. 16 SAILOE AND PLANTER fringe of civilization, with the devil on one side of it and the deep sea on the other, bred and nurtured the race of men and women that won for us our inde- pendence. With such a race and with such destinies Paul Jones cast his lot and linked his fortunes in 1773. Of his life for two years as a Virginia planter but little record remains, and that is nearly all embraced in a few quaint paragraphs in his letters to Joseph Hewes. His brother, William Paul Jones, had served with Major George Washington's battalion of Virginia Provincials in Braddock's fatal expedi- tion. Among the flotsam and jetsam of Braddock's defeat had been a Highland soldier of Dunbar's British Regiment, who, though badly wounded in the leg by an Indian bullet, still managed to keep on his feet. William Paul Jones took care of this poor Highlander and brought him to his plantation, where he stayed in the capacity of "land-steward" or " head-farmer." The tough Highlander survived his rescuer, and when Paul Jones succeeded to the estate and the name, he found old Duncan Macbean in actual control. It did not take Paul Jones long to perceive that the perfect order and complete effi- ciency which he found prevailing in every part of the establishment were due to the vigilance and fidelity of old Duncan Macbean. He left his Scotch over- seer as he had found him, master of the plantation and all its belongings. This arrangement left Jones free to indulge his social propensities at will. He was a bachelor, only twenty -eight years old, and, though he kept up the full state of the hospitable old Jones mansion, there Vol. I.— 2 17 PAUL JONES were no women in the house except colored servants, and his table had no hostess. The good Colonial dames of the neighborhood rallied to his rescue. By turns they presided at his dinners and chap- eroned the young people at his boating parties in his big sloop. Naturally, they exercised their in- genuity to make a match for him. But, acute as the Colonial dames may have been, and charming as their daughters unquestionably were, there is no record that the heart of the sailor-planter was ever touched by one or by the other. There is a tradi- tion that for some time he showed partiality for the society of Miss Betty Parke, a relative of the lady known to fame as Martha Washington; but Miss Parke became Mrs. Tyler in 1775, while Paul Jones remained single and free. Events thickened about that time. The years of grace 1773 and 1774 saw the gathering of the clouds from which flashed the lightning of Bunker Hill and rolled the thunder of the Declaration of Inde- pendence. Like any other man trained to read the omens of the ocean-sky, Paul Jones watched the gathering of the clouds and listened for the pre- monitory sounds of the storm to come. Freed by the fidelity of old Duncan Macbean from the drudgery of plantation management, he spent all his time in study and observation. He went to Williamsburg and attended the sessions of the House of Burgesses, where he heard the eloquence of Patrick Henry and the stately logic of Thomas Jefferson. He journeyed in November, 1774, to Edenton,to commune with his friend Joseph Hewes and to assure him that, whenever the hour might 18 SAILOE AND PLANTER strike, they could all know where to find Paul Jones. Eetuming from Edenton by way of Norfolk in December, 1774, Jones stopped at the latter town to visit friends. During his stay he attended a public ball at which were also present several officers be- longing to a British sloop-of-war of eighteen guns, then lying in the harbor. In a letter to Joseph Hewes, written the day after the event, Jones says : . . . The insolence of these yoTing oflSeers, in par- ticular when they had gotten somewhat in their cups, was intolerable, and there could be no doubt that they repre- sented the feeling of their service generally. As you may hear imperfect versions of an aflair brought on by the inso- lence of one of them, I will take the liberty of relating it : In the course of a debate, somewhat heated, concerning the state of afiairs, a lieutenant of the sloop-of-war, Parker by name, declared that in case of a revolt or insurrection it would be easily suppressed, if the courage of the Colonial men was on a par with the virtue of the Colonial women I I at once knocked Mr. Parker down, whereupon his com- panions seized him and all hurried from the scene, going aboard their ship. Expecting, naturally, that the affair would receive further attention, I requested Mr. Gran- ville Hurst, whom you know, to act for me ; suggesting only that a demand for satisfaction should be favorably considered and that he should propose pistols at ten paces ; place of meeting, Craney Island ; time, at the con- venience of the other side.* * Recent biographers, notably Mr. Abbott, have endeavored to create the impression that Paul Jones was opposed to the practice of duelling. Whatever may have been the amiable intentions of these writers in the light of the latter half of the nineteenth century, their statements, if true, would place Jones in a sorry light with respect to any part of the 19 PAUL JONES To my infinite surprise no demand came, but this morn- ing, on the ebb tide, the sloop-of-war got under way and sailed, it is said, for Charleston. Trusting that you will approve my conduct and that you will not be misled by any contrary versions that may reach you, I remain, etc. This affair soon found its way into the Colonial newspapers and was viewed as an indication of a grave state of things. While there had been much bitter talk, this was the first actual collision that had occurred on the soil of Virginia between a Colonist of high social rank and an officer wearing the King's uniform. It added no little fuel to the flame. It was said the reason why Lieutenant Parker did not demand satisfaction was that none of his brother officers would act for him, holding that his language was brutal and his chastisement deserved. It was even said that he was forced to resign. But this cannot be true, because he was present at the bombardment of Fort Moultrie not long afterward by the British squadron under Sir Peter Parker, his relative, and was severely wounded in that memorable action. So far as Paul Jones was concerned, he seems to have regarded it as a trivial affair, and never re- ferred to it except in his letter to Mr. Hewes ; and eighteenth century. All gentlemen, and particularly all naval officers, recognized the code in those times. Jones was not only no exception, but, if anything, was inclined to the other extreme. The fact that he never fought a duel was wholly the fault of the other side in the quarrel. On several occasions he gave several men the most ample opportunity of single combat. In a word, Paul Jones was any itind of a fighting man ; and he was as many kinds of a fighting man as could be joined in one person. His skill with the pistol in single combat or any other kind was proverbial. 20 SAILOE AND PLANTER his aim in that letter was clearly nothing but to pre- vent Mr. Hewes from being misinformed as to his conduct. But it was enthusiastically approved by the high-spirited Colonial dames and their daugh- ters, who saw in the young sailor-planter of the Eappahannock a chivalrie knight, ready to resent aspersion upon their fair names at the muzzle of a duelling-pistol. Soon after this affair Jones returned to his plan- tation, where he passed the winter, excepting occa- sional trips to Williamsburg to keep in touch with the political leaders of the Colou}'^. During this winter he became acquainted with Thomas Jeffer- son and also with Philip Livingston, of New York, who visited Virginia to confer with Washington, Jefferson, and the Lees on the situation. In one of his journals — ^that of 1782 — Jones says : At this time [January, 1775] outbreak of hostilities was believed to be certain. Colonel Washington, Mr. Jefferson, and Mr. Livingston agreed that it would be better to post- pone the open rupture if possible to the next year, that the widely scattered Colonies might have opportunity to arrive at a more complete concert than had been reached up to that time. But they also agreed that the disposition in Boston and the other New England Colonies was to force the issue, and in that frame of mind they were likely to bring on a clash of arms as soon as the snow was off the ground. I regretted much that in all my sailings to Colonial ports I had never once touched at Boston, and so had no acquaintance with its people except as I had met them trading in the West Indies and elsewhere. But the other gentlemen assured me that, though of Puritan stock and slow to anger, the New England Colonists could not be ar PAUL JONES appeased when once roused, which was their condition at this time. They all expected the first blow to fall in or near Boston, and were sure that it could not be long de- layed. Mr. Livingston had recently been at Boston, and his reports of conferences he had with the Adamses, Mr. Otis, Dr. Warren and others were of the utmost gravity. Among the things he said was that open and armed re- sistance to the King's authority would have been offered some time before had the New England people been as sure as they now were that the Middle and Southern Colonies would support them. Colonel Washington, Mr. Jefferson, the two Lees, and in fact all the Virginians of note, agreed that, whatever the Boston people might do, or whenever they should act, they must be sustained at all hazards ! I availed myself of these occasions to assiire Colonel Washington, Mr. Jefferson and all the others that my ser- vices would be at the disposal of the Colonies whenever their cause should require service on my own element, which would, of course, be coincident with the outbreak of regular hostilities on the laud. 89 CHAPTEE n FOUNDING THE AMERICAN NAVY Eaely in the spring of 1775 Jones went to New York in his sloop, making a leisurely trip and spending some time in the waters and among the islands of the eastern shore, at his favorite sports of gunning and fishing. The crew of his sloop included two of his own stalwart young slaves, Cato and Scipio. He was in New York the 21st of April, 1775, when the news of the battle of Lexington reached there. In his journal he says : The first to apprise me of the news was William Living- ston, Esquire, whom I chanced to meet in King William Street, and in a short time it was promulgated through the town by means of leaflets issued from the printing-presses. This caused an immediate change of my plans. I had fully intended to prolong my voyage to Boston by going through the Sounds, being extremely desirous to see that town and make the acquaintance of its people ; to which end I had already obtained letters from Mr. Livingston and others introducing me. But now I hastened the completion of my business in New York. I had intended to charter a ship there for a voyage to Tobago and possibly to the old country, but now I abandoned that purpose and on the 34th set sail for home, picking up my moorings on the 27th at the plantation. I at once took steps to put myself in communication with Mr. Hewes and other members of the Continental Congress whom I had the honor to know. 23 PAUL JONES The first Session of the Congress, meeting at Philadelphia, September 4, 1774, had made no provision whatever for the raising of forces either by land or by sea ; which I thought an unwise omission, as it left the first shock to be borne by the individual Colony in which it might occur, and put upon the Congress when it should again assemble the necessity of beginning de novo to create a general military organization in the midst of hostilities. But now this issue could no longer be avoided, and the best must be done that could be. Under date of April 27, 1775, the day of his ar- rival home, Jones wrote a letter to Joseph Hewes, sending copies of it to Thomas Jefferson, Eobert Morris, and Philip Livingston. The material part of it is as follows : It is, I think, to be taken for granted that there can be no more temporizing. I am too recently from the Mother Country and my knowledge of the temper of the King, his Ministers and their majority in the Commons is too fresh to allow me to beUeve that anything now is or possibly can be in store except either war to the knife or total submis- sion to complete slavery. I have long known that it is the fixed purpose of the Tory party in England to provoke these Colonies to some overt act which would justify martial law, dispersion of the legislative bodies by force of arms, taking away the charters of self-government and reduction of all the Worth American Colonies to the footing of the West India Islands and Canada — that is, to Crown Colonies under military rule ; or, perhaps to turn them over to the mercies of a Chartered Company as in Hindostan, all of which I have seen. I cannot conceive of submission to complete slavery ; therefore only war is in sight. The Congress, therefore, 24 FOUNDING THE AMEEICAN NAVY must soon meet again, and when it meets, it must face the necessity of taking those measures which it did not take last fall in its first session, namely, provision for armament by land and by sea. Such being clearly the position of affairs, I beg you to keep my name in your memory when the Congress shall as- semble again, and in any provision that may be taken for a naval force, to call upon me in any capacity which your knowledge of my seafaring experience and your opinion of my qualifications may dictate.* to> He did not have long to wait. But while waiting, he heard early in May that two French frigates had put in at Hampton Roads. He at once loaded his sloop with delicacies of the season and ran down to the Eoads, where he found the two frigates under command of Commodore (or Capitaine de Vaisseau) de Kersaint, senior officer, with " the Sailor Prince of France," Louis Philippe Joseph.f Duke de Char- tres, second ia command. *So far as our research of the literature or records of that period en- ables us to judge, Jones was original in his Imputation of an ulterior mo- tive to the overt acts of oppression which the Tory party in England inflicted upon the American Colonies during the six or seven years imme- diately preceding the Revolution. All sorts of reasons for this oppres- sion were ascribed ; but Jones seems, in 1775 at least, to have been alone in his perception of a purpose behind them to provoke the Colonies to resistance which could be made the pretext for depriving them of their local self-government, and for reducing them to the status of Crown Col- onies, or of charter proprietaries lijce the domains of the East India Company. t This young prince, eldest son of the Duke of Orleans and heir-ap- parent to that title, had been selected in 1774 to succeed the Duke de Bourbon-Penthievre in the office of High Admiral of Prance. The voy- age on which he came to our shores in 1775 was a " cruise of instruction," under the tutorship of Commodore, afterward Admiral, Kersaint, one of the ablest officers in the French Savy. Louis Philippe Joseph was a 83 PAXIL JONES This was the beginning' of an acquaintance which was soon to prove of vast value not only to Paul Jones personally, but to the cause of the infant na- tion at large. When Jones reached the deck of the frigate La Terpsichore, the young Duke greeted him cordially, and then Jones informed him that his sloop alongside was laden with fresh provisions from his own and neighboring plantations, which he begged His Boyal Highness to accept, with the compliments of the season. He made no secret with the young Duke and Commodore Kersaint that his object was to obtain information as to the plan, de- sign, and construction of hull, arrangement of bat- tery, spars, rig, and other technical particulars, for the guidance of the Marine Department of the new American Government, which he assured them would be formed within two months, and which would fight it out with England to the bitter end. Kersaint was naturally conservative, as he was the senior French officer on the coast and had just heard the news from Lexington, which made the convivial prince, bnt able and ambitions, and he was also imbned with the liberal, not to say, republican, sentiment then luxuriantly growing in France. In this respect he was alone in the Boyal Family, and it has been said that one reason for assigning him to the navy was the desire to separate him from political connections and literary associations which the King and Queen and the Ministers of State did not approve. He had a few years before married Mary Adelaide de Bourbon-Penthievre, daughter of the High Admiral. She was one of the most beautiful and accomplished women of her time ; granddaughter of the Count de Tou- louse, High Admiral of France at the beginning of the Eighteenth Cen- tury, Commander of the French fleet in the great battle off Malaga in 1704, and regarded as one of the ablest naval commanders in the history of Prance. The Count de Toulouse was a son of Louis XIV. by Madame de Montespan, and it was said that her great granddaughter, Mary Ade- laide, inherited all the beauty and wit of that famous woman. FOUNDING THE AMERICAN NAVY situation delicate for neutrals. But the young Duke de Chartres took an enthusiastic fancy to Jones and allowed him to obtain the most complete data of the new frigate, even to copies of deck plans and sail plan which he caused his carpenter to make. Jones was the guest of the Frenchmen two or three days and invited them to visit his plantation. But the outbreak at Lexington had made it impolitic for them to accept entertainment ashore from persons known to be hostile to King George, and they sailed away, bound for Corunna, Spain. It is worthy of remark that the American frigate Alliance, built a year later, was constructed almost precisely on the dimensions and general lines of the new French frigate La Terpsichore, and mounted exactly the same battery — twenty-eight long twelve- pounders on the gun deck and ten long nines above. Jones soon received encouraging responses from all four of the leaders to whom he had written, and he at once put his house in order. During May he appointed the Frazier Brothers, of Port Eoyal, trus- tees of his estate, ad interim, and made other neces- sary dispositions for prolonged absence. The Continental Congress met in its second ses- sion May 10, 1775. On June 14th a provisional Ma- rine or Naval Committee was appointed to " consider, inquire and report with respect to organization of a naval force." At first this Committee consisted of Robert Morris, chairman ; Philip Livingston, Benja- min Harrison, John Hancock, Joseph Hewes, and Nicholas Van Dyke, members. At a session held June 24, 1775, this Committee, on motion of Mr. Hewes, authorized the chairman "to invite John 37 PAUIi JONES Paul Jones, Esquire, gent., of Virginia, Master Mar- iner, to lay before the Committee such information and advice as may seem to him useful in assisting the said Committee to discharge its labors." Jones received this invitation at his home the 1st of July. On the 14th he sailed in his sloop for Philadelphia, arriving there on the 18th, "having been," as he expressed it, " much bedeviled by calms off the Eastern Shore. I could have been more ex- peditious by land." Reporting in person to the committee, a list of inquiries in writing was handed to him, embracing two general subjects: first, "The proper qualifica- tions of naval ofi&cers," and, second, " The kind or kinds of armed vessels most desirable for the service of the United Colonies, keeping in view the limited resources of the Congress." To these formal in- quiries was appended a suggestion that any infor- mation he might wish to impart concerning the out- fitting and supply of such vessels for cruising would be gratefully received and carefully considered. Mr. Jones was informally assured that it was the intention of Congress to offer him a commission among the first officers authorized to be employed, but, as the matter was entirely new, much delibera- tion would be required in so important a step as that of laying the foundation for a regular navy, and therefore it would be some little time before any officers could be permanently commissioned. In the meantime the committee requested Mr. Jones to "act as member of a commission of experienced persons to survey and report upon the condition, availability, and the expediency of purchasing cer- 88 FOUNDING THE AMERICAN NAVY tain vessels then in the Delaware at the disposal of the Congress." To these duties Paul Jones bent all the tremen- dous energy of his nature. The "commission of experienced persons" consisted of four merchant captains besides himself, with Robert Morris as ex-offido Chairman. But Jones at once assumed the lead ; and he led the commission so completely that it is hardly possible now to identify the other four merchant captains who were his colleagues, except one — Nicholas Biddle, of Philadelphia. The work of this commission was no sinecure. About twenty vessels of all descriptions were offered. Of these ships, one of considerable size and five smaller craft were accepted by the commission. The large one is known to history as the Alfred ; and of the five small ones the history of only two, the Reprisal and the Lexington, can be accurately traced. Four of the ships had already seen service ; the other two — those just named — were new. The Reprisal, under command of Captain Lambert Wickes, had the honor of carrying Dr. Franklin tc France, and she afterward made some unimportant depredations on the commerce of the Channel coast. The Lexington also crossed the ocean and was capt- ured by a British sloop-of-war soon after her arrival in European waters. Her chief claim to distinction rests on the fact that Richard Dale was her first lieutenant when captured. The most important of the ships " surveyed and reported upon" was the Alfred. This was a ship built at Maryport, Cumberlandshire, England, about 1766. She was of 440 tons burden and had been em- 29 PAUL JONES ployed in the North American trade. In 1770 she was bought by a company of Philadelphia merchants trading to the East Indies. Aiter two round voy- ages to the Bay of Bengal, Bencoolen, and Batavia, she had been repaired at Philadelphia, and but for the outbreak of the Revolution would have sailed on her third India voyage in June, 1775. At that time all East India ships carried more or less arma- ment even in time of profoimd peace, for protection against the pirates who swarmed on the Indian Ocean, or, for that matter, nearer home. As an Indiaman the Alfred was pierced for sixteen guns, long nine-pounders, amidships. When Paul Jones had surveyed her he reported that " her ton- nage, stability, and scantling will enable her to mount a battery of twenty-four long nines on the gun-deck and six six-pounders on the quarter-deck, and her berthing and hammock spaces will accommodate a complement of 220 officers, seamen, and marines. This will make her the full equivalent of a twenty- eight-gun, nine-pounder, light frigate of the stand- ard British navy rate. She has buoyancy and balance or stability enough to carry twenty-two twelve-pounders on her gun-deck ; but I doubt if the beams are strong enough, and besides, we have not the twelve -pounders at hand! I therefore rec- ommend that she be bought and armed as above." The provisional Marine Committee approved this report, bought the ship, and on the 25th of August, 1775, requested Jones to take charge of the work necessary to convert her into a light frigate of the rate and class proposed. From this he had no doubt that he would be appointed to command her 30 FOUNDING THE AMERICAN NAVY when finished and equipped for sea. Before the work of fitting out had progressed very far, Jones found that he could get hold of eight old English twelve-pounders. He at once procured these, and by fishing the gun-deck beams of the Alfred amid- ships, and providing extra stanchions, made her strong enough to carry them. So, as completed, she had a gun-deck battery of eight twelve-pounders amidships and twelve nine-pounders forward and aft, with eight six-pounders for the quarter-deck. Among other things, the Alfred needed new sheath- ing. Copper bottoms were almost unknown*in 1775. The first experiment with copper sheathing had been tried on the British frigate Alarm in 1761, and it was repeated on the frigates Aurora and Stag in 1769 and 1770 respectively. But it was not until 1783 that the use of copper sheathing became general. In the Alfred the sheathing was simply pine boards from three-quarters of an inch to one inch thick, fastened with small nails to the plank- ing. There were no dry-docks anywhere then, so that the only way by which the bottom of a ship could be newly sheathed was by " heaving her down," as it was termed. Sometimes, where there was not much tide, the ship would be hove down at a wharf. This was the case with the Alfred. Jones hove her down at the Christian Street wharf, Phila- delphia, in September, 1775, and kept her there, first on one side and then on the other, until her whole underwater body was thoroughly repaired and newly sheathed with pine boards. This and other needful repairs and alterations were enough to keep almost any man fully occupied 31 PAUL JONES in superintendence ; but while it was going on, Jones found time to draft replies to the general in- quiries of the committee on the subjects of naval personnel and matenel respectively. These two documents were laid before the committee, in writ- ing ; the one on personnel under date of September 14th, and the one on materiel dated October 3, 1775. On the subject of personnel Jones addressed the committee in the form of a letter to Joseph Hewes. At the outset he said, personally, to Mr. Hewes : " I choose this form of communication partly because I can write with more freedom in a personal letter than in a formal document, and partly that you may have opportunity to use your judgment in revision before laying it before the Honorable Committee. Please, therefore, use all, or any part, or none of it, as your judgment may dictate." Mr. Hewes laid the whole letter before the Com- mittee without a word of revision, as follows : As this is to be the foundation — or I may say the first keel-timber — of a new navy, which all patriots must hope shall become among the foremost in the world, it should be well begun in the selection of the first list of officers. Tou will pardon me, I know, if I say that I have enjoyed much opportunity during my sea-life to observe the duties and responsibilities that are put upon naval officers. It is by no means enough that an officer of the navy should be a capable mariner. He must be that, of course, but also a great deal more. He should be as well a gen- tleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor. He should not only be able to express himself clearly and with force in his own language both with tongue and pen, but he should also be versed in French and Spanish for 32 FOUNDING THE AMERICAN NAVY an American officer particularly the former — ^for our rela- tions with Prance must necessarily soon become exceedingly close in view of the mutual hostility of the two countries toward Great Britain. The naval officer should be familiar with the principles of international law, and the general practice of admiralty jurisprudence, because such knowledge may often, when cruising at a distance from home, be necessary to protect his flag from insult or his crew from imposition or injury in foreign ports. He should also be conversant with the usages of diplo- macy and capable of maintaining, if called upon, a digni- fied and judicious diplomatic correspondence ; because it often happens that sudden emergencies in foreign waters make him the diplomatic as well as military representative of his country, and in such cases he may have to act with- out opportunity of consulting his civic or ministerial supe- riors at home, and such action may easily involve the portentous issue of peace or war between great powers. These are general qualifications, and the nearer the officer approaches the full possession of them the more likely he will be to serve his country well and win fame and honors for himself. Coming now to view the naval officer aboard ship and in relation to those under his command, he should be the soul of tact, patience, justice, firmness and charity. No meritorious act of a subordinate should escape his atten- tion or be left to pass without its reward, if even the reward be only one word of approval. Conversely, he should not be blind to a single fault in any subordinate though, at the same time he should be quick and unfailing to distinguish error from malice, thoughtlessness from incompetency, and well-meant shortcoming from heedless or stupid blunder. As he should be universal and impartial in his rewards and approval of merit, so should he be judicial and un- bending in his punishment or reproof of misconduct. In his intercourse with subordinates he should ever Vol. I.— 3 33 PAUL JONES maintain the attitude of the commander, but that need by no means prevent him from the amenities of cordiality or the cultivation of good cheer within proper limits. Every commanding ofacer should hold with his subordinates such relations as will make them constantly anxious to receive invitation to sit at his mess-table, and his bearing toward them should be such as to encourage them to express their opinions to him with freedom and to ask his views without reserve. It is always for the best interests of the service that a cordial interchange of sentiments and civilities should sub- sist between superior and subordinate oflftcers aboard ship, Therefore it is the worst of policy in superiors to behave toward their subordinates with indiscriminate hauteur, as if the latter were of a lower species. Men of liberal minds, themselves accustomed to command, can ill brook being thus set at naught by others who, from temporary author- ity, may claim a monopoly of power and sense for the time being. If such men experience rude, ungentle treatment from their superiors, it will create such heart-burnings and resentments as are nowise consonant with that cheerful ardor and ambitious spirit that ought ever to be character- istic of ofBcers of all grades. In one word, every com- mander should keep constantly before him the great truth, that to be well obeyed he must be perfectly esteemed. But it is not alone with subordinate officers that a com- mander has to deal. Behind them, and the foundation of all, is the crew. To his men the commanding officer should be Prophet, Priest and King 1 His authority when off shore being necessarily absolute, the crew should be as one man impressed that the Captain, like the Sovereign, " can do no wrong! " This is the most delicate of all the commanding officer's obligations. No rule can be set for meeting it. It must ever be a question of tact and perception of human nature on the spot and to suit the occasion. If an officer fails in this, he cannot make up for such failure by severity, aus- 34 FOUNDING THE AMERICAN NAVY terity, or cruelty. Use force and apply restraint or ptin Ishment as he may, he will always have a sullen crew and an unhappy ship. But force must be used sometimes for the ends of discipline. On such occasions the quality of the commander will be most sorely tried. Tou and the other members of the Honorable Committee will, I am sure, par- don me for speaking with some feeling on this point. It is known to you and, I presume, to the other gentlemen, your colleagues, that, only a few years ago, I was called upon in a desperate emergency and as a last resort to preserve the discipline requisite for the salvation of my ship and my fever-stricken crew, to put to death with my own hands a refractory and wholly incorrigible sailor. I stood jury trial for it and was honorably acquitted. My acquittal was due wholly to the impression made upon the minds of the jury by the testimony of my crew. . . . I do not reproach myself. But it is a case to illustrate the truth of what I have already said, namely, that the commander should always impress his crew with the belief that, what- ever he does or may have to do, is right, and that, like the Sovereign, he "can do no wrong" ! When a commander has, by tact, patience, justice, and flrmness, each exercised in its proper turn, produced such an impression upon those under his orders in a ship of war, he has only to await the appearance of his enemy's top- sails upon the horizon. He can never tell when that mo- ment may come. But when it does come he may be sure of victory over an equal or somewhat superior force, or honorable defeat by one greatly superior. Or, in rare cases, sometimes justifiable, he may challenge the devotion of his followers to sink with him alongside the more powerful foe, and all go down together with the unstricken flag of their country still waving defiantly over them in their ocean sepulchre! No such achievements are possible to an unhappy ship with a sullen crew. All these considerations pertain to the naval officer 35 PAUIi JONES afloat. But part, and often an important part, of his career must be in port or on duty ashore. Here he must be of affable temper and a master of civilities. He must meet and mix with his inferiors of rank in society ashore, and on such occasions he must have tact to be easy and gracious with them, particularly when ladies are present ; at the same time without the least air of patronage or affected condescension, though constantly preserving the distinction of rank. It may not be possible to always realize these ideas to the full ; but they should form the standard, and selec- tions ought to be made with a view to their closest approxi- mation. In old established navies like, for example, those of Britain and France, generations are bred and specially educated to the duties and responsibilities of officers. In land forces generals may and sometimes do rise from the ranks. But I have not yet heard of an Admiral coming aft from a forecastle. Even in the merchant service, master mariners almost invariably start as cabin apprentices. In all my wide acquaintance with the merchant service I can now think of but three competent master mariners who made their first appearance on board ship "through the hawse-hole," as the saying is. A navy is essentially and necessarily aristocratic. True as may be the political principles for which we are now contending, they can never be practically applied or even admitted on board ship, out of port or off soundings. This may seem a hardship, but it is nevertheless the sim- plest of truths. Whilst the ships sent forth by the Con- gress may and must fight for the principles of human rights and republican freedom, the ships themselves must be ruled and commanded at sea under a system of absolute despotism. I trust that I have now made fairly clear to you the tremendous responsibilities that devolve upon the Honor- 36 FOUNDING THE AMERICAN NAVY able Committee of which you are a member. You are called upon to found a new navy ; to lay the foundations of a new power afloat that must some time, in the course of human events, become formidable enough to dispute even with England the mastery of the ocean. Neither you nor I may live to see such growth. But we are here at the planting of the tree, and maybe some of us must, in the course of destiny, water its feeble and struggling roots with our blood. If so, let it be so I We cannot help it. We must do the best we can with what we have at hand 1 It does not seem necessary to say that, as a whole, this letter of Paul Jones to the Marine Committee of the Continental Congress in 1775 embodies the logic and philosophy of naval organization and the elements of sea-power to-day quite as fundamentally as it did then, or as they ever can be embodied un- der any conditions conceivable in the future. The letter was read by George Washington, to whom Mr. Hewes submitted it before handing it to the committee. Mr. Hewes records Washington aa saying after he had read it : " Mr. Jones is clearly not only a master mariner within the scope of the art of navigation, but he also holds a strong and profound sense of the political and military weight of command on the sea. His powers of usefulness are great and must be con- stantly kept in view." Clear, forcible, and philosophical as was Paul Jones's review of the qualities and qualifications of the ideal naval officer, the information and advice he offered to the committee on the subject of ships and their armament was no less wise and sound. Early in the session a scheme, originated in New England, 37 PAUL JONES had been presented to the committee providing for the construction of six ships of the line of seventy- four guns, and six frigates of thirty-two guns each. This scheme being part of the matter submitted to Jones for his opinion and recommendation, he dis- posed of it as follows : At this stage of our fortunes I think it unwise to at- tempt ships of the line. Such vessels are too large and costly both in building and keeping in commission, and require too many men for our present resources. Their use is mainly strategical, for which purpose they must operate in fleets and squadrons, calculated to fight ranged battles or to make extensive demonstrations or to protect military expeditions over sea, or to overawe inferior powers. The posture of our affairs does not present such re- quirements. We cannot hope to contend with Britain for mastery of the sea on a grand scale. We cannot now nor for a long time hope for conditions admitting of such an attitude. As it is, only four powers are able to maintain fleets of the line capable of standing up in ranged battle. They are England, Prance, Spain, and the Netherlands, and their fleets are the growth of centuries. Besides these strategical and political considerations there are mechanical reasons against attempting ships of the line. Such vessels are nearly always built in the public dockyards abroad. It is seldom, even in England, that a private shipyard is entrusted with the building of a llne-of-battle ship. In the dockyard is always an ac- cumulation of timber of the scantling sizes required in such ships, which is kept seasoning for years before being put into frames and siding of ships. We have no dockyards, no seasoned timber of scantling sizes suitable for ships of the line. Hence, if we build them — which few of our ship- yards can do — we must put green timber in them, fresh cut 38 FOUNDING THE AMEEICAN NAVY from the forests. Ships so built must be most perishable. In short, every element of our situation seems to me to con- demn the project of building ships of the line. Even supposing all the above considerations to be laid aside or overcome, we may yet survey the financial side. A seventy-four-gun ship on modem lines must be at least of 1,600 to 1,650 tons burthen. My information as late as two years ago, based upon Parliamentary estimates and dockyard reports in England, is that a seventy-four, built at Chatham in 1773, cost between £19 and £20 per ton, when armed and equipped, ready to take on crew and sea- stores. In the present state of our resources I do not be- lieve we could do as well, notwithstanding our cheaper and more plentiful supply of tim.ber ; at least of standing tim- ber ; because the other elements of building, such as metal for fastenings, armament, etc., would be much dearer than in England. But supposing we could do as well, our seventy-four-gun ship of 1,600 tons must cost at least £28,500 to £30,000. Besides, as ships of that class must mount at least twenty-four-pounders on their lower gun- decks, where are we to get the guns ? And even so, we would when done, have only a green timber ship for our £30, 000 that must begin dry-rotting in her hull almost be- fore her rigging is set up. Nor would I go to the other extreme and counsel the flt- ting-out of small vessels able only to harass the enemy's commerce. That character of sea-warfare, important as it is, may, I think, be left in the main to the enterprise or cupidity, or both, of private individuals or associations who will take out letters-of -marque and equip privateers. Tou perceive that I now come to consider a class of ships we do need ; that is, frigates. This class, rating from thir- ty-two to thirty-six guns, can sustain long voyages which the smaller craft cannot do. We can build a frigate in half the time required for a seventy-four, and at little if any more than half the cost. My latest knowledge of the cost of a frigate built in England is one of thirty-six guns com- 89 PAUI, JONES missioned in 1774, of 820 tons, costing, ready for sea-stores, £13,400. I am sure we could do as well as that here, and besides, there is much timber on hand in our private ship- yards, or at least the larger ones, both In New England and on the Delaware, cut some time ago, seasoned, and intended for large merchant vessels, that could be worked into the frames, planking, and spars of thirty-two-gun, or even thir- ty-six-gun, frigates. I have the general plans and dimensions of the latest thirty-six-gun, twelve-pounder frigate of the French Navy. [This was La Terpsichore.] Her dimensions are as follows: Length on the gun-deck 142 feet " of keel for tonnage 123 " Extreme breadth 37 " Depth of hold 13 " Burthen in tons 848 to 850 Main-deck battery. 26 long 12s Quarter-deck battery 6 " 98 Forecastle battery 6 " 98 Complement, all hands 313 I would undertake to arrange for the building of such a frigate here in Philadelphia, within sight of the place where the Committee sits, and guarantee that her cost, ex- cept the guns, but otherwise ready for crew and sea-stores, should not exceed £15,000, and I think it could be kept within £14, 500 by careful economy. It would be wise to provide lor the building of at least six such frigates. I would not counsel smaller ones, such as twenty-eights or even thirty-twos ; because the drift of progress is to make frigates heavier all the time, and anything inferior to the twelve-pounder, thirty-six-gun frigate is now behind the times. On the other hand, I would take a step further than the English and French have yet gone in frigate design. I would create a class of eighteen-pounder frigates to rate 40 POUNDING THE AMERICAN NAVY thirty-eight or forty guns. Thus far eighteen-pounders have not been mounted in single-decked ships. Take the ship described above, add eight feet to her length, two feet to her breadth, and one foot to her depth of hold. That will give you a burthen of 1,000 tons or very nearly. She will carry twenty-six long eighteens on her gun-deck and fourteen long nines on quarter-deck and forecastle. By this means we shall have a ship of frigate build and rate, but one-half again stronger than any other frigate now afloat. In addition to the six already proposed, to carry twelve- pounders, it would be wise to provide for at least four of the new class of eighteen-pounder frigates that I propose, and, if possible, six. We should, at the earliest moment, have a squadron of four, five, or six frigates like the above — either or both classes — constantly in British waters, harboring and refit- ting in the ports of France, which nation must from self- interest alone, lean toward us from the start, and must sooner or later openly espouse our cause. Keeping such a squadron in British waters, alarming their coasts, intercepting their trade, and descending now and then upon their least protected ports, is the only way that we, with our slender resources, can sensibly affect our enemy by sea- warfare. Rates of insurance will rise ; necessary supplies from abroad, particularly naval stores for the British dockyards, will be cut off ; transports carrying troops and supply-ships bringing military stores for land operations against us will be captured, and last but not least, a considerable force of their ships and seamen will be kept watching or searching for our frigates. In planning and building our new frigates I would keep fast sailing, on all points, in view as a prime quality. But no oflQcer of true spirit would conceive it his duty to use the speed of his ship in escape from an enemy of like or nearly like force. If I had an eighteen-pounder frigate of the class above described, I should not consider myself justi- 41 PAUL JONES fled in showing her heels to a forty-four of the present time, or even to a fifty-gun ship built ten years ago. A sharp battle now and then, or the capture and carrying as prize Into a French port of one or two of their crack frigates, would raise us more in the estimation of Europe, where we now most of all need countenance, than could the defeat or even capture of one of their armies on the land here in America. And at the same time it would fill all England with dismay. If we show to the world that we can beat them afloat with an equal force, ship to ship, it will be more than anyone else has been able to do in mod- ern times, and it will create a great and most desirable sen- timent of respect and favor towards us on the Continent of Europe, where really, I think, the question of our fate must ultimately be determined. Beyond this, if by exceedingly desperate fighting, one of our ships shall conquer one of theirs of markedly superior force, we shall be hailed as the pioneers of a new power on the sea with untold prospects of development, and the prestige if not the substance of English dominion over the ocean will be forever broken. Happy, indeed, will be the lot of the American captain upon whom fortune shall confer the honor of fighting that battle 1 The rest of this unique paper is an apology for its length and an assurance that " the opinions offered are based upon long and arduous experience at sea, and drawn from diligent study of the modes and ef- fects of maritime warfare." Mr. Hewes says that this paper " summarily put an end to consideration of ships of the line, and the programme of new ships authorized by the Resolu- tion of December 13, 1775, was, with a few changes, laid down on the lines traced by Paul Jones." Six twelve-poimder frigates, though rating thirty-two 42 POUNDING THE AMERICAN NAVY instead of thirty-six gxms, were at once authorized •, and the next year one eighteen-pounder frigate was ordered to be built at Salisbury, Mass., and another was contracted for at Amsterdam by our Commis- sioners to France, Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane, to be built in the shipyard of the Dutch East India Company.* •These two ships, as originally ordered, were to be bmlt on the lines and plans of La Terpsichore as expanded hj Paul Jones for an eighteen-pounder frigate. But the one ordered built in New England, which became the Alliance (built at Salisbury, on the Merrimac), was actually laid down and constructed on the original lines of the French frigate as furnished by Jones, with the single exception that her length was increased by seven feet. When completed she was armed with twenty-six long twelve-poundera on the gun-deck and ten smaller guns — nines and sixes — on the quarter-deck and forecastle. The one contracted for in Holland was laid down on Jones's expanded lines, but was further lengthened by five feet. This vessel will receive attention later, in these pages. She was known at first as the Indien, and after some vicissitudes found her way into our navy as the South Carolina. She was planned to carry thirty long eighteen-pounders and fourteen long nines. But a Dutch officer named GUlon, who was employed by Silas Deane to super- intend her construction, altered the battery-plan by substituting short thirty-six-pounders for the long eighteens. These short guns were the precursors of the "carronade" invented about twenty years later. They were then known as "Swedish guns," from their origin in that country. 43 CHAPTEE in CRUISES OP THE PROVIDENCE AND THE ALFRED AsotiT the middle of December, 1775, the com- mittee recommended the appointment of five cap- tains, five first lieutenants, and eight junior lieuten- ants. There had been earlier appointments by- individual Colonies, but this was the first national navy list — the foundation of the American Navy. The senior captain, Ezek Hopkins, was nominated commodore, and the four other captains were Dud- ley Saltonstall, Nicholas Biddle, Abraham Whipple, and John B. Hopkins. Paul Jones was placed at the head of the list of lieutenants. This arrangement had been the subject of heated debate in the committee, between Mr. Adams, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Hewes, of North Carolina. Mr. Adams was the particular champion of Dudley Saltonstall ; Mr. Hewes of Paul Jones. In his de- scription of this debate, Mr. Hewes does not mince words. He says : The attitude of Mr. Adams was in keeping with the al- ways imperious and often arrogant tone of the Massachusetts people at that time. They contended that they had shed the first blood, both their own and that of the enemy. They urged that they had already yielded everything to Virginia and Pennsylvania in the organization and command ol 44 THE PEOVIDENCE AND THE AI/FEED the Army ; that they, representing the principal maritime Colony, were entitled to the leading voice in the creation of the Naval force. Mr. Adams went so far as to say that Mr. Saltonstall, a native of the Colony and having com- manded none other than Colonial vessels, stood on a differ- ent footing from Paul Jones, who had never commanded any but English ships with English crews, had no ac- quaintance with Colonial seamen and, in fact, had not been a resident of the Colonies more than about two years. As between such antecedents, Mr. Adams declared there could be no ground for debate. I then proposed to make six cap- tains instead of five, thus placing Paul Jones at the foot of that list instead of at the head of the lieutenants. To this Mr. Adams demurred on the ostensible ground that there would be no ship for him to command. I then perceived that this was a cunning ruse of Mr. Adams who wished to keep Jones in the grade of lieutenant so that Captain fcJaltonstall, who was to command the Alfred if Mr. Adams could bring it about, might have the benefit of Jones's ser- vices as first lieutenant of that ship. The Committee having adjourned, I felt it my duty to apprise Mr. Jones of all the facts. I had some apprehen- sion of an indignant protest from him, knowing his ex- tremely sensitive spirit, but was most agreeably disap- pointed at his reply. He said: "I am sorry Mr. Adams holds a poor opinion of me ; but I am here to serve the cause of human rights ; not to promote the fortunes of Paul Jones. If, by devotion to the one I can secure the other, well and good. But if either must wait, let it be my fortunes. Do not debate the point further with Mr. Adams. Let the Resolution go as it is. Leave me at the head of the lieutenants' list. I will cheerfully enter upon the duties of first lieutenant of the Alfred under Captain Saltonstall. Time will make all things even. " The next morning I had the satisfaction of relating all this to Mr. Adams, and that he felt the implied rebuke was plainly evident. 45 PAUL JONES The resolution as agreed upon and reported from the committee was passed by the Congress, Decem- ber 22, 1775. By its provisions Ezek Hopkins was made senior officer of the Colonial or Continental Navy, then consisting of four ships — the Alfred, Captain Dudley Saltonstall; the Columbus, Cap- tain Abraham Whipple ; the Andrea Doria, Captain Nicholas Biddle ; and the Cabot, Captain John B. Hopkins. The first lieutenants, after Paul Jones, weare Rhodes Arnold, Eli Stansbury, Hersted Hacker, and Jonathan Pitcher. The junior lieutenants were Benjamin Seabury, Joseph Olney, Elisha Warner, Thomas Weaver, James McDougall, John Fanning, Ezekiel Burrows, and Daniel Vaughan. Of the captains in this list New England surely had the lion's share. Mr. Adams succeeded in get- ting for his section four out of five — the two Hop- kinses, Saltonstall, and Whipple. Pennsylvania, through the pertinacity of Eobert Morris, got one — the brave and accomplished, but unfortunate, Nicholas Biddle. Out of the total number — five captains and thirteen lieutenants — but two names live with any lustre whatever — Nicholas Biddle and Paul Jones. What the career of Nicholas Biddle might have been, had the fortunes of war been kind to him, may be inferred from the fact that his brave life ended almost before his career had be- gun by the blowing up of his little thirty -two-gun frigate, the Eandolph, in his desperate attempt to measure strength with the British ship Yarmouth, of exactly twice his force — sixty-four guns — about sundown, March 7, 1778, off Barbados. Just before his ship blew up, Biddle, satisfied by twenty minutes' THE PROVIDENCE AND THE ALFEED broadsiding that Ms little frigate was no match for the English two-decker at that sort of work, was wearing round to close with the enemy and lay him on board ; and at the moment of the explosion he was so near the accomplishment of his purpose that several of the Yarmouth's crew were injured by frag- ments of the Randolph's hull and spars that fell on board the enemy. That the Randolph was well han- dled and bravely defended is attested by the losses in the Yarmouth while the little frigate was alive and fighting. And for even this sad fragment of our naval history the country is indebted to four survivors of the Randolph's gallant crew who were picked up by the Yarmouth herself, floating on a piece of the Randolph's wreckage, five days after the battle. The story of these four survivors and the suffer- ings they had endured while afloat from the evening of March 7th to the morning of the 12th on a piece of wreck, without food or water, so impressed the humane Captain Vincent, of the Yarmouth, that he did not treat them as prisoners of war, but shortly afterward, when approaching the American coast, hove to off Savannah and sent them ashore under a flag of truce, not even exacting from them a parole. One of them was a youth of not over twenty years, son of a prominent and opulent South Carolina merchant. He had been a volunteer midshipman in the Randolph. His name, which will appear more than once in these pages further on, was John Mayrant. So much digression for the sake of Nicholas Bid- die's memory needs no apology. The pity is that 47 PAtTL JONES fate made his story so soon told. Speaking' of the " fiTe captains," long afterward, Paul Jones him- self said : " Four of them were respectable skippers ; and they all outlived the war ! One of them was the kind of naval captain that the God of Battles makes. That one was Nick Biddle — poor, brave Nick !— and he died in hopeless battle with a foe double his own strength — half of his hapless ship going' down and the other haK going up by explosion of his maga- zine!" Though sixth on the list, and only the senior lieu- tenant, Paul Jones was the first of the pioneer officers of our infant navy to receive his commission, which was handed to him in the old Hall of Inde- pendence, Philadelphia, by John Hancock in person, shortly after noon, December 22, 1775. The other officers, above and below him, received theirs at different times as they reached Philadelphia or re- ported at Independence Hall. Immediately after receiving his commission, Paul Jones, accompanied by Mr. Hancock, Eobert Morris, Joseph Hewes, John Langdon, Philip Livingston, Anthony Wayne, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Har- rison, Charles Carroll, William Pinckney, and others like them, to the number of twenty -five or twenty- six, went on board the Alfred, which was moored about a cable's length off Chestnut Street wharf Captain Saltonstall had not yet arrived from Boston. John Hancock directed Lieutenant Jones to take command of the Alfred pro tempore and to " break her pennant " — the naval phrase meaning to place a man-of-war in commission. Obeying this order, Paul Jones flung out the first American flag ever 48 THE PROVIDENCE AND THE ALFRED shown on a regular man-of-war. This was not the Stars and Stripes, but the " Pine-tree and Eattle- snake " emblem with the motto " Don't Tread on Me ! " Though he had the honor of hoisting it for the first time aboard ship, Jones never fancied this emblem. Some time later, in one of his journals, he said of it : I was always at loss to know by what queer fancy or by whose notion that device was first adopted. For my own part I could never see how or why a venomous serpent could be the combatant emblem of a brave and honest folk fighting to be free. Of course I had no choice but to break the pennant as it was given to me. But I always abhorred the device and was glad when it was discarded for one much more symmetrical as well as appropriate, a year and a half later. The pioneer squadron of our new navy, as has been remarked, consisted of four ships. Of these the Alfred was the only one ready for commission December 22, 1775. The other three were in various stages of preparation the Doria, Nicholas Biddle's ship, being the most advanced. As for the squad- ron as a whole, the inexperience or incompetency of the new officers, the almost resourceless condition of the infant government, and the generally inchoate, not to say chaotic, state of affairs, kept the little fleet in port until February 17, 1776, when it cleared Cape Henlopen and stood to the southward and eastward, bound on an expedition against what was then called Fort Nassau, New Providence Island, in the Bahamas. This cruise lasted from February 17th to April 8, Vor,. 1—4 49 PAUL JONES 1776, when the squadron came to anchor in the harbor of New London. Of its operations, the less said the better. They consisted of a desultory descent on New Providence Island in the latter part of February and a running fight off the east end of Long Island, April 6th, with the twenty-gun Brit- ish sloop-of-war, Glasgow, in which the latter, all things considered, had the better of the action. So far as Paul Jones was concerned, his subordinate position made it impossible for him to prevent the errors or be responsible for the failures of the cruise. Perhaps the most salutary as well as most noteworthy result of the whole affair was the dis- missal of the " Commander-in-Chief," Ezek Hopkins, from the navy, by resolution of Congress, on Janu- ary 2d, following, after a fair and exhaustive investi- gation. Another result was the temporary retire- ment of Captain Dudley Saltonstall from active service ; though he was not dismissed, and received another command a year or more afterward. On the whole, the New England ^ro^e^es of John Adams in our pioneer navy list reflected little credit on their patron, and less on themselves. Though this ill-assorted and luckless squadron broke up in the spring of 1776 and resolved itself into a series of courts-martial, votes of censure, and dismissals from the service, its fate brought forth at least one good result. It showed Congress that war itself is wiser than statesmen in the selection of warriors ; that the first effect of the blasts of battle is to winnow the chaff and the wheat apart; and that powder and ball are no respecters of political influence or family connections. Incidentally it also 60 THE PEOVIDENCE AND THE ALFRED contributed to give Lieutenant Paul Jones an inde- pendent command and freed him, as the sequel proved, forever from the incubus of imbecile supe- riors. His first command was indeed a small one, but it was all his own, and, fortunately for his fame and the glory of the American Navy, the order by virtue of which he assumed it instructed him to re- port directly to the head of naval authority, the Marine Committee of the Congress. !Prom that mo- ment to the end of his eventful career Paul Jones was always the ranking officer on his station, and never afterward served under the orders of any senior. The command which he assumed on May 10, 1776, at Newport, was that of the Providence, sloop -of- war, fourteen guns and one hundred and seven men. He took with him, besides his two negro boys, Cato and Seipio, nine men from the Al- fred's crew, and as these, with three others he found in the Providence, followed him through all his fortunes and through almost inconceivable vicis- situdes of their own for the rest of the Revolu- tionary War, or until they fell in action, his history would manifestly be incomplete without mention of their names. They were John C. Robinson and Richard Wallingford, of Philadelphia ; Henry Lunt, Nathaniel Fanning, Henry Gardner, Owen Star- buck, Samuel Stacey, and Charles Hill, of Massa- chusetts, and Thomas Potter, of Baltimore, whom he took from the Alfred. The three faithful fol- lowers whom he found in the Providence were Nathan Sargent, of Portsmouth, N. H. ; "William Hichborn, of Salem, and Anthony Jeremiah, of Mar- tha's Vineyard. All these were native Americans 61 PAUL JONES except Eobinson, and one of them could surely "read his title clear " to American birthright, because he was a full-blooded Narragansett Indian ; like most of the remnant of his race then lingering on Martha's Vineyard, a sailor and a whaleman. This was An- thony Jeremiah. So far as we can ascertain, no other full-blooded American Indian has ever served in our navy. Jones sailed at once in the Providence to New York, where he took in stores and shipped a crew of regular seamen, the old crew of the sloop being, with the exception of a dozen or so, landsmen — mainly soldiers loaned from the army. Completing his out- fit, Jones returned to Newport through the Sound — being unable to get directly out of New York in con- sequence of the blockade — and on the 14th of June, 1776, sailed on a general cruise ranging from Ber- muda to the Banks of Newfoundland. All things considered, and viewing success as the most im- portant test of priority, this cruise of the little Prov- idence, under command of Paul Jones, in the early part of 1776, may, we think, be fairly described as the first real, effective cruise of an American man- of-war. It surely and beyond dispute was the first one that reflected credit on our flag or hurt our enemy. This cruise, in view of the small size and feeble force of the ship, was remarkable alike in boldness, pertinacity, and success. The seas traversed by the Providence were full of English cruisers, all superior in everything except in the resource and alertness of her commander and the courage of her crew. She captured sixteen vessels of various descrip- 52 THE PROVIDENCE AND THE ALFRED tions, of which eight were manned and sent in, and eight were destroyed at sea. The little sloop was chased twice by British frigates, and on one of these occasions narrowly escaped capture by manoeuvre so daring and unexpected that the frigate, in the haste of her attempt to circumvent it, was taken all aback, with so much damage to her rigging that the Providence got out of gunshot before the frigate could bring her gims to bear again. The manoeuvre consisted in clawing to windward until the frigate had gained the lee-quarter of the Providence near enough to open with her port bow chase-gun, and then suddenly wearing round off the wind and run- ning dead to leeward ; while the frigate, endeavoring to box short about, came into the wind, lost steering way, and was taken aback under a press of sail by a squall. While in this condition Jones crossed her within half gunshot on the other tack, and before the frigate could get squared away again he was out of reach of her guns and running off before the wind, which was the sloop's best point of sailing. Jones was always as candid with himself as with others. He never assumed or pretended anything. In the course of a characteristic letter to Mr. Hewes, dated two days after the Providence arrived in port, he says : Now that I have told you how we escaped, I hardly feel equal to the task of explaining to you why we did. Clearly, we should not have escaped, judging by the usual rules of sea-manoeuvre. If the frigate, instead of trying to box about as he did in a fresh breeze which he was standing as close-hauled to as his trim would stand, had simply fol- lowed my mancBuvre of wearing around under easy helm, 53 PAUL JONES trimming his sails as the wind bore, I could not have dis- tanced him much in the alteration of the course, and he must have come ofl the wind very nearly with me, and before I could get out of his range. But he put his helm the other way to, luffed into the teeth of a little squall that I saw already cat's-pawing to windward when I wore my ship, and so he broke his steering way, got taken aback, and let me have the chance to show him a clean pair of heels on my little sloop's best point of sailing. I do not take to myself all the credit for this. I did the best I could, but, after all, there was more luck than sense about it. The fact is, it was one of those singular cases often happening at sea, where the fortune of a lucky sailor beats all kinds of calculation, and where a good or bad pufE of wind foils all kinds of skill one way or the other ! Be all this as it may, I got off scot-free, as you will see by the post-date of this letter ; leaving my big adversary to clear away his sheets and reeve preventers at his leisure ; meantime an- swering his distant broadsides by now and then a musket- shot from my tafCrail by way of derision. The old saying that "discretion is the better part of valor," may in this case, I think, be changed to "impudence is — or may be, sometimes — the better part of discretion ! ' ' Some idea of the industrious character of this resolute cruise of the Providence may be formed from the fact that the prize-crews put aboard the eight captured ships that were manned and sent in absorbed sixty of her crew of one hundred and seven, leaving only forty-seven officers and men for duty, all told, when the ship reached port. During this cruise in the little Providence, Jones, besides the havoc he wrought at sea, made two dar- ing incursions ashore ; one was at Canso, in Nova Scotia, where he released several American prison- 54 THE PEOVIDEJSCB AND THE ALPEED ers, who promptly joined his crew. He also took and burned three vessels belonging to the Cape Breton fishery, and brought away a fourth with a cargo of salt fish. The other descent was on Isle Madame, where he destroyed a number of fishing- smacks, dispersed the Tory garrison, and captured several stands of arms, with a considerable quantity of ammunition. Limitations of space alone forbid greater detail of these interesting operations, the chief value of which, after all, was the fact that they served to call public attention to the remarkable character of the man, and thereby to pave the way for exploits of broader significance. This character and these pos- sibilities of usefulness on the part of Jones have been surveyed by Alfred Mahan in a way that leaves little task for any other pen. In a paper on " John Paul Jones in the Bevolution " (Scribrwr's Magazine for July, 1898), Captain Mahan sums up this little cruise as follows : What is chiefly interesting in these incidents, trivial in their immediate results, is the clear impression left upon his mind of the essential importance of a navy to the American cause, and that the best use to be made of the small force that could be put afloat was to direct it, not so much upon the enemy's commerce at sea, in transit, as upon his coasts and commercial stations, where his ship- ping would be found congregated, with insufficient local protection. Commerce-destroying, to use the modem phrase for an age-long practice, is a wide term, covering many different methods of application. In essence, it is a blow at the communications, at the resources, of a country ; in system, it should be pursued not by random prowling, 55 PAUL JONES by individual ships for individual enemies, as they pass to and fro, but by dispatching adequate force to important centres, where the hostile shipping for any reason is known to accumulate. From his experience as a mariner, and from his habits of observation and reflection, Jones knew in his day that there were many such exposed points in the British dominions, on their coasts. Small squadrons di- rected upon them could do a maximum amount of injury; for the shipping caught in a defenceless port would be with- out the power of escape, and could be destroyed also with- out embarrassment concerning the disposition of prisoners, who would need only to be landed. Let a single ship of war — commerce-destroyer — meet twenty or thirty merchant- ships at sea, he can take but a few ; the rest scatter and escape, and the prisoners must be cared for. Comer the same squadron in port, and neither difBculty, as a rule, exists. Moreover, Jones's plan contemplated destruction, not capture ; injury to the enemy, not prize-money pri- marily. The latter he recognized as a necessary concession to the sordid weakness of the mass of mankind ; for himself, glory, distinction, was the prime motive. This is satisfac- torily shown, not only by the general utterances of his letters, which might be forced, but by his plans and his acts. Self-seeking in him took the shape of loving mili- tary success, not money. . . . Jones was not called upon — more is the pity — ^to play a part in the great navy, but to adapt very limited means to the attainment of con- siderable ends. In this brief — and, for him, quite casual — survey, Captain Mahan practically exhausts general analysis of the perceptions, the aims, the sense of limitations, and the springs of effort that made the career of Paul Jones. And his survey, aside from its intrinsic value, derives incalculable historical worth from the fact that it bears the impress of an authority on the 56 THE PEOVTDENCE AND THE ALFRED annals and the ethics alike of Sea-Power, uniTersally accepted as final. Two kinds of news greeted Jones on his arrival in port. One was a letter from Thomas Jefferson enclosing his commission as Captain in the Conti- nental Navy, by act of Congress. The other was a letter or letters from his trustees and agents in Vir- ginia, the Frazier Brothers, informing him that during the month of July previous his plantation had been utterly ravaged by an expedition of British and Tories under Lord Dunmore ; all his buildings, including his mill, burned to the ground ; his wharf demolished, his live stock killed, and every one of his able-bodied slaves of both sexes carried off to Jamaica to be sold. The enemy had also destroyed the growing crops, cut down the fruit- trees ; in short, the Messrs. Frazier informed . him nothing was left of his once prosperous and valuable plantation but the bare ground. His comment on this affair is characteristic. Writing to Mr. Hewes and enclosing copies of the Messrs. Fraziers' letter, he says : . . . This is, of course, a, part of the fortunes of war. I accept the extreme animosity displayed by Lord Dunmore as a compliment to the sincerity of my attach- ment to the cause of liberty. His lordship is entitled to his own conception of civilized warfare. He and his know where I am and what I am doing. They can affect me only by ravage behind my back. I do not complain of that. But I most sadly deplore the fate of my poor negroes. The plantation was to them a home, not a place of bondage. Their existence was a species of grown-up childhood, not slavery. Now they are torn away and carried ofE to die 57 PAUL JONES under the pestilence and the lash of Jamaica cane-fields, and the price of their poor bodies will swell the pockets of English slave-traders. For this cruelty to these inno- cent, harmless people I hope some time, somehow to find opportunity to exact a reckoning. Tou will see by the enclosed letter of William Prazier, Esquire, that my good and faithful old overseer, Duncan Macbean, escaped the clutches of Lord Dumnore and has joiued General Morgan's Riflemen. He has, I presume, taken with him the fine Lancaster rifle of my late brother. It is the best rifle I know of in Virginia, and if Duncan has it, all is well. It could not be held in steadier hands or sighted by a surer eye. For many years Duncan has had no equal as a deer-stalker in the Tidewater country. The old Highlander is now close to three-score years, and always limps a little with his old wound of Braddock's defeat ; but he is hale and hearty and many good fighting years are left to him. As I have not the honor to know General Morgan personally, I hope you will kindly mention old Duncan Macbean to him in my behalf and with my best recommendations. 1 am now more than ever glad that I brought with me my two black boys, Cato and Scipio. They were well trained in river and bay sailing on the sloop, and now, in the two cruises we have made in the Alfred and the Provi- dence, they are become prime seamen. Their brothers and sisters have been carried off by the British marauders, and now they talk of nothing but vengeance. I have given them their full papers, [meaning papers of manumission] dated even with my Captain's Commission, October 10, 1776. Another most serious concern to me is that this destruc- tion cuts off my source of revenue. During the three sea- sons of my ownership, 1773, 1774, and 1775, the net income from the agriculture, trade, and nulling of the plantation was nearly 4, 000 guineas in the aggregate, over and above aU necessary outlays. Since my coming to Philadelphia 58 THE PROVIDENCE AND THE ALEEED in June a year ago, I have lived on this surplus, having drawn from the public funds only £50 in all that time ; and this not for pay or allowances, but to reimburse me for expense of enlisting seamen. Since July, 1775, I have drawn to Philadelphia about 3,000 guineas in prime bills. Of this, some 900 guineas remain on balance in my favor in the Bank of North America or in the hands of Mr. Ross. This is all I have in the world except an interest in the firm of Archibald Stewart & Company of Tobago, which, being under the enemy's control, is of course unavailable. It thus appears that I have no fortune left but my sword, and no prospect except that of getting alongside the enemy. Mr. Jefferson's letter enclosing Paul Jones's com- mission as captain enclosed also a list of captains as decreed by Congress in the resolution dated Oc- tober 10, 1776. In tMs list Jones stood number eighteen. He at once resented this injustice in his reply to Mr. Jefferson's letter, and he forwarded copies of the reply to Robert Morris, Joseph Hewes, Philip Livingston, and to General Washington him- self. In this letter he said that, according to all re- ceived rules of precedence in civilized naAries, he should have been at least the sixth captain, because the law of December 22, 1775, placed only five cap- tains above the senior lieutenant, which he himself was at that time ; and therefore any subsequent ad- dition to the number of captains should have been made in view of his prescriptive right to the first lineal promotion. This, he urged, was simply a matter of precedence or seniority, according to law made by the Congress itself, and any departure from 59 PAUL JONES it must stultify its authors. To this reasoning he added, with a trace of bitterness: Surveying the names and locations of the twelve captains who have been graciously appointed to supersede me while I was afloat in the Providence and therefore not in position to plead my own cause, I perceive that nine of them hail from New England. This gives rise to a suspicion in my mind that Mr. Adams may have taken advantage of my absence cruising against the enemy and thus debarred from watchfulness of the happenings ashore, to promote at small cost to himself several more of his respectable skippers of West-India lumber-droghers at my expense. If their fate shall be like that of his share in the first five captains last year, I can only say that Mr. Adams has probably provided for a greater number of courts-martial than of naval vic- tories ! You are well aware, honored sir, that I have no family connections at my back, but rest my case wholly on what I do. As I survey the list of twelve captains who have been newly jumped over me by the act of October 10th, I cannot help seeing that all but three are persons of high family connection in the baiUwick of Mr. Adams I Please do not understand me to complain. I only state facts, easily proved. ... I speak now only in the interests of method and regularity of procedure. . . . The 17th of October, by the next post, he wrote to Eobert Morris as follows : . . . It is to the last degree distressing to contem- plate the existing state and so-called establishment of our naval force. The common class of mankind — sailors in particular — are actuated by no nobler principle than that of self-interest, of gain, of personal advantage. This is what determines the choice of all the fearless adventurers, the hardy seamen, the whalemen, etc., all along this coast, 60 THE PEOVIDENCE AND THE ALFRED teeming as it is with the highest quality of fighting sailors, to enlist by choice in privateers rather than in our Conti- nental men-of-war. Therefore, unless the personal emolu- ment or chance of it for individual seamen shipping in our navy can be made superior or at least equal to that in privateers, it can never become respectable ; it certainly cannot become formidable. . . . The British Navy, our foe, best regulated and most firmly established of any in the world, gives to its crews the whole value of all prizes. Holding this practical fact in view, I need use no argument to convince so sensible a statesman as yourself of the neces- sity of making the emoluments of our Regular Navy sea- men equal if not superior to theirs. We have had proof that a navy may be ofiQcered on almost any terms, though we cannot be sure, without the hard trial of cruising or of battle, or both, that the oflBcers will be equal to their commissions. But, if mistakes be made in selecting ofBcers, they can be corrected by subse- quent courts-martial, dismissals, or even shootings ; as in the case of the English Admiral Byng some years ago in the last French war, with the history of which you are familiar. This is not true of the common sailor-men. I have been dealing with sailors ever since my thirteenth year and ever since I was seventeen years old I have, in one rank or an- other, commanded them. I trust you will not deem me egotistical if I say that such experience qualifies me to get along fairly well with sailors. I like them and I know how to make them like me. And with sailors, as they average- up, liking a commander and being of a will to fight for him to the last gasp, are quite the same thoughts. I will give you an illustration. In the Alfred, where I was only first lieutenant, there were many fioggings. Every one was ordered by Captain Saltonstall. ... In the little Prov- idence, with 107 hands aU told, from May 10 to October 7, the period of our whole cruise, the gratings were not rigged a single time for flogging ; there was no cat-o'-nine tails aboard, because I threw the only one we had in the sea the 61 PAUL JONES first day out, ana I never punished any man more than talking to him, like a father or, in extreme cases, stopping his grog for three days. . . . The comparative results of the two cruises speak louder than any words at my command in commentary on the two modes of exercising authority. The regulation as to prize money made by the Congress, January 6th, 1776, by which the Government reserves one- third is, in my judgment, unwise. If our enemies, with the best established and most formidable navy in the universe, have found it expedient to assign all prizes to the cap- tors, how much more is such policy essential to our infant fleet ; but I need not use argument to convince you that the emoluments of service in our navy ought to be made equal if not superior to that of our enemies. One more suggestion and I am done : Thus far officers have been appointed on recommendation of members of the Congress, their qualifications being taken for granted. The results have been by no means happy. Every can- didate for commission should be examined by a board composed of persons qualified to judge as between fitness and unfitness in all respects. This would prevent persons creeping into commissions without ability or qualifica- tion, which has to my certain knowledge been true in several eases. Then promotion itself should in the main be regulated by seniority with only such exceptions as may become justly due for display of extraordinary merit, or achievement above the common run. Were such regu- lations adopted and practiced in our navy they would pre- vent numerous disputes and even duels, which in the present hap-hazard procedure will be unavoidable. I enclose herewith copies of list of prizes, ship's log, and roster of my crew, which please lay before the Hon- orable Committee, to be joined to my official report dated 7th inst. Also please cause to be appended to my said report the following : " Of the conduct of my officers and men I can hardly 62 THE PROVIDENCE AND THE ALFRED gpeak without emotion. Some conception of the quality of my seamen may be formed when the fact is known that, of the eight prizes sent in, the last three had as prize-masters the following named able seamen, as I had no more officers of any grade to spare, five out of eight having been already sent in, thus leaving me only three oflBcers in the Providence. The able seamen whose knowl- edge of navigation and other prime qualifications led me to entrust command of valuable prizes to them are Na- thaniel Fanning, of Salem, Nathan Sargent, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Henry Gardner, of Nantucket. They all brought their prizes in safely, as follows : Mr., Fan- ning, the brigantine Kingston Packet, from Jamaica ; Mr. Sargent, the brigantine Defiance, from Isle of Jersey ; Mr. Gardner, the brig-sloop Portland, whaler, from Hull, England. "Where all behaved so well I cannot bring myself to single out individuals. If question should be asked in the Committee why no special mention is made I offer the ship's roster as a whole with the remark that their conduct was uniformly such as to admit of no distinc- tions. However, it may not be amiss to speak of three, who, belonging to races considered inferior, may be more entitled to credit than their shipmates of the higher race. These are Anthony Jeremiah, of Martha's Vineyard, a full-blood Narragansett Indian, and Cato Jones and Scipio Jones, negro boys, formerly my own slaves, but set free by me on the 10th of this month." The foregoing suggestions and recommendations of Paul Jones were at once taken under considera- tion by the Marine Committee. On October 30, 1776, only thirteen days after the date of his last letter to Eobert Morris, a resolution was adopted in com- mittee partially embodying his views as to prize money. On the 30th of November following a new 63 PAUL JONES list of captains was prepared, embodying a rear- rangement of lineal rank, in which Jones's name was placed next after that of Nicholas Biddle, or the sixth in line. This resolution, however, was not considered by Congress. The " political skippers," as Jones used to call them, had influence enough to smother it in a pigeon-hole. The first response to the report and letters of Jones in relation to his cruise in the Providence came in the shape of an order from the Marine Com- mittee to take command of the Alfred, which had been partly refitted at Newport during the summer, and, if he could enlist a sufficient number of seamen, make a short cruise to the eastward in that ship, with the Providence in company. This order reached him on the 4th of November, 1776. About two hundred seamen were available, and Jones did not wait to enlist more. He assigned about one hundred and forty men to the Alfred and sixty to the Providence, with such stores and outfit as he could get, and on November 7th put to sea. This cruise lasted only thirty-three days, terminating with the arrival of the Alfred and Providence in Boston Harbor, December 10, 1776. But during that short time Jones had captured seven ships of the enemy. Two of these were the most important and valu- able prizes yet made by the Continental Navy. They were the Mellish, an armed transport bound for Halifax and New York from London, with quar- termaster's supplies for the British Army in the Colonies, and the Bideford, bound for Quebec, with similar supplies for the forces then assembling in 64 THE PEOVIDENCE AND THE ALFKED Caxiada under Sir Guy Carleton. These ships were taken off the south coast of Newfoundland. They had been under conToy of the Milford, a British frigate of thirty-two gxins, but had separated from her in a gale, and so fell easy prey to the Alfred and Providence. When Jones ascertained the value of these prizes he decided to convoy them into Boston, partly because the season was too far advanced for further cruising, partly because his ships were short-manned and poorly stored, but mainly because he wished to exhaust his power of preventing their recapture. Two days after the capture, when the Alfred and Providence had shaped their course for Boston with the Mellish, Bideford, and two lesser prizes under convoy, the Milford hove in sight, ac- companied by another armed transport and letter- of -marque, and at once hauled up in chase of Jones and his prizes. Signalling to the Providence and the prizes to crowd all sail to the southward and westward, Jones dropped to leeward in the Alfred until he could make out the force of the enemy. This he did before dark. The Milford was a dull sailer, which gave Jones choice of position; for the Alfred, feeble as she was in other respects as a man-of-war, sailed fast, and was very weatherly. He decided to keep between the Milford and his prizes during the night and next day, or as long as there was danger of recapture, but not to risk the chances of an engagement. The Milford succeeded in keeping up the chase all night and the next day, and actually did retake one of the prizes — the least important of all — which, having sprung her foretopmast, and being a duU- VoL. I.— 5 65 PAUIi JONES sailing brigantine, fell astern. But the Mellish and Bideford escaped, ajid Jones took them into Boston the 10th of December, 1776. His first act, after dropping anchor, was to write a letter to Eobert Morris, with copy to Joseph Hewes, explaining why he had declined battle with the Milf ord. In it he says : . . . You may, perhaps, think it strange that I de- clined close quarters with an enemy's ship of so little nomi- nal superiority of force to my own. But I think, when you have read my reasons, you will approve my discretion. A little before sundown I made the enemy out to be a thirty- two of the regular rate, and her pace showed her to be an indifferent sailer. I knew that she m.ust carry twenty-two long twelves on her gundeck with ten to twelve long sixes above, and I also knew that all British ships on the station or in convoy were likely to be full-manned. I had in the Alfred ten long twelves and fourteen nines, and, after manning the prizes, one hundred and fourteen officers and men were left at stations. The wind was north-northwest, with snow squalls now and then, and the sea cross and choppy. There were also signs of a haul of the wind to north-northeast, which in that latitude at the time of year would mean anything from a stiff blow to a living gale by daylight. I felt that it would be wrong in such conditions to ask one hundred and fourteen men in a ship of only twenty- four guns to stand alongside a thirty-two of regular rate and battery with surely over two hundred in her com- plement. I felt that it would be ' ' asking too much of the cards, ' ' as we say in whist when we have a poor hand. So I ran, and I am not ashamed to confess it. But I brought my prizes safe in, and I did not submit the poor old Alfred and her short crew to the chance of being sunk 66 THE PEOVIDENCE AND THE ALPEED and butchered by what I considered a foe so superior that battle with him would be hopeless. When her cargo was " broken out " in Boston, the Mellish was found to contain ten thousand complete uniforms, including cloaks or great-coats, boots, socks, and woollen shirts, for the winter supply of General Howe's army; seven thousand pairs of blankets ; one thousand four hundred tents ; six hundred saddles with complete cavalry equipments ; one million seven hundred thousand rounds of fixed ammunition (musket cartridges); a large quantity of medical stores; forty cases of surgical instru- ments ; all priceless and wholly unattainable by any other means in the then state of our resources. The Mellish also had on board a considerable as- sortment of other stores, and forty-six soldiers who were recruits sent out to join various British regi- ments then serving in the Colonies — or, as this was after the Declaration of Independence, we may as well say, " in the United States." The other large prize, the Bideford, carried one thousand seven hundred fur overcoats for the use of the British force in Canada ; eleven thousand pairs of blankets intended partly for the British troops in Canada, and partly for the Indians then in British pay on our northern frontier; one thousand small- bore guns of the type then known as the "Indian- trade smooth-bore " with hatchets, knives, and boxes of flints in proportion, to arm the Indians ; together with eight light six-pounder field guns and complete harness and other equipage for two four-gun batteries of horse-artillery. The Bideford also had 67 PAUL JONES on board some wines and other table supplies per- sonally consigned to Sir Guy Carleton, and, withal, a case of fine Galway duelling pistols for some British officer then serving in Canada. It is of record that Jones confiscated for his own use and behoof a share of the wines and the case of pistols. On his arrival in Boston Jones promptly reported his cruise and its results to the Marine Committee. In due course of mail he received orders to turn over the command of the Alfred to Captain Elisha Hin- man, and report forthwith to Philadelphia for duty in connection with the Board of Advice to the Com- mittee, which had just been constituted. Pursuant to this order he left Boston the 5th of January, 1777, and reported for duty at Philadelphia on the 14th. The other members of this board were Captains James Nicholson, Nicholas Biddle, John Barry, and Thomas Bead. The board was also ordered to draw up a plan for examination of officers on promotion, and also of applicants for commissions in the lower grades. A resolution was also passed providing that " from and after the date hereof no appointment shall be made from civil life to grade above that of third lieutenant, and promotion from one grade to the next higher shall be by seniority unless the officer next senior shall fail to pass the required examination, when the officer next junior shall be called up for examination, and the first officer, so junior, to pass the required examination shall be promoted to the next higher grade." 68 CHAPTEE IV m COMMAND OP THE RANGER Captain Jones stayed in PhiladelpMa on duty with the Board of Advice from the middle of January till June, 1777. During that period, in the month of April, he went to Virginia and visited his ravaged plantation. He found there nothing but the bare ground and two or three cabins which sheltered a dozen or so of his slaves, who were either too old and infirm or too young and valueless as field hands to be worth Lord Dunmore's trouble of taking away. All else was gone. Nothing remained but charred and blackened ruins of mansion, mill, tobacco- houses, wharf, and store-house — as he has described it — " the completest wreck imaginable of any kind of possessions that were on the land and therefore could not be scuttled and sunk in the sea ! " But he did not repine. He simply turned his back on the scene of desolation, after doing what he could to provide for the remnant of his slaves, and went back to Philadelphia to renew his efforts in the prosecution of the war. " He was more cheerful when he came back than I believed he woidd be," writes Mr. Hewes in his diary. " He had little to say about his losses, but much to say about providing opportunity for him- self to get alongside a ship of the enemy." PAUL JONES His pet project now was a cruise in European waters. He wanted to get on the British coast with a ship, or, better, a squadron, of some force. He argued with his colleagues on the board, with the committee, and with every member of the Congress whom he could reach, that the time had come to show our flag and demonstrate our existence as a naval power in European seas. He said that cruises off our own coast, while they might annoy the enemy and result in capture of his small ships and trans- ports from time to time, would still be unheard of in Europe, and would therefore add nothing to our prestige as a new nation. His arguments, coupled with the successes he had already achieved in independent commands, and, above all, by reason of the vehement earnestness with which he advocated his projects, produced a profound impression upon all who heard him. La- fayette, then recently arrived in this country, took a special fancy to him because he could talk and write French fluently, which was at that time a rare ac- complishment among even the most liberally ed- ucated Americans. It may be remarked that of the twenty -four captains then on the Continental Navy list, only three besides Jones could speak French at all — Manley, Biddle, and Wickes — and Jones was the only one who could both speak and write it fluently or gracefully. Lafayette, with his shipload of supplies — by a roundabout voyage from Passages in Spain, osten- sibly to Porto Eico — ^had arrived at the port of Georgetown, S. C, April 19, 1777. He journeyed thence by land to Philadelphia. It strangely hap- 70 IN COMMAND OF THE EANGEK pened that Lafayette, on his way from South Car- olina to Philadelphia, and Paul Jones, on his re- turn to the same destination also by land from his ruined plantation, reached Alexandria the same day, at noon, and stopped at the same tavern. La- fayette had with him the Baron de Kalb and several other French, German, and Polish officers. Lafay- ette could express himself fairly in English, as could de Kalb ; but the others could not. Their in- terpreter was a very poor one. The meeting took place in consequence of the efforts of Lafayette and de Kalb to straighten out some misunderstanding about the relay of horses. The Marquis himself thus described the incident in a personal reminis- cence during his visit to this country in 1824, as nar- rated by Professor Wentworth in a magazine article published in 1826 : * A slender, blaek-haired, blaek-eyed, swarthy gentleman in a naval uniform and of most martial and distinguished bearing, approached and said in perfect French, "Pardon, Monsieur; ilme semble que, peut-etre, je peux vous aider. Entel cas, commandez, s'il vous plait." Delighted to hear my mother tongue so unexpectedly and so opportunely spoken, I informed the gentleman who we were and asked whom I might have the honor to address, to *Tlie article in which the circnmstances of this meeting a& here narrated were given grew out of the vlBit, a year and a half previonn, of Lafayette to this country, and was found by the author in the Gardner Collection of newspaper cUppings and magazine papers. In the absence, 80 far as we have been able to discover, of any reference to the incident in the literary remains of Lafayette or Jones, the historical accuracy of the anecdote may be open to question ; but it has been thought worth while to retain it on the authority of Professor Wentworth, who claims to have heard the story from Lafayette himself. 71 PAUL JONES ■vsrhioh he replied: "J'ai I'homieur d'frtre capitaine de frggate de la marine des Etats Unis ; et on m'appelle Paul Jones; 4 votre service, Monsieur." Profoundly acknowledging his courtesy, I at once turned over to Captain Paul Jones the task of composing our difficulties and instantly discovered that he was a captain in fact as well as by title. The people there seemed to know him well. He assumed an air of easy, though quite imperious, mastery of the situation, and in a very short time our cavalcade was ready to set out. He had an appointment to dine that evening with friends in Alexan- dria, but upon my invitation to join our party, he hastily sent a messenger to cancel the engagement "by reason of a sudden and unexpected pressure of public duty of grave importance," and journeyed with us thence to Philadel- phia. This was the beginning of a friendship of the closest nature, lasting for life. It was a universal friendship, enduring not only throughout the Ameri- can Revolution but extending to close association in the earlier scenes of the French Eevolution a dozen years later. Lafayette's influence began with the day of his arrival at the seat of government. He did not come as an adventurer seeking employ- ment. He brought with him a shipload of needed supplies, and back of that the financial resources of an estate than which there were few in France richer. And, above all, he came as the personal representative of the fast-growing Liberal party in France, whose influence was soon to cast the sword and the fleets of that great monarchy into our side of the scale of war. Lafayette enthusiastically approved Jones's plan of invading British waters, and was among the first 72 IN COMMAND OF THE BANGEB to suggest fitting out a squadron of French ships in French ports, to sail under the flag and by commis- sion of the United States. By this expedient, Lafayette argued, two vital ends would be attained: First, the ships would be larger, more powerful, and better equipped than any the United States could then provide. Second, and of still greater impor- tance in the long run, such operations would embroil France with Great Britain and force to a speedy determination the question of an open alliance. And he declared everywhere and all the time that Paul Jones was the only captain in the American Navy qualified to undertake the mission ; that by his knowledge of the French language he fulfilled the first and greatest prerequisite ; because, Lafayette said, it would be perfectly idle to send a captain over there who would need an interpreter. "For the rest," he said, " Captain Jones possesses far beyond any other officer in your service that peculiar aplomb, grace of manner, charm of person, and dash of character always required to captivate the French fancy." * Of the thirteen frigates authorized by the Con- gress December 13, 1775, the five first laid down were now nearly ready for service. Among them was the Trumbull, thirty-two. Jones applied for the Trumbull, urging that while Lafayette's view as to the policy of obtaining French ships was sound in the broad sense, it would still be of great value to show in their ports a fine new frigate like the Trumbull, as a sample of what the United States could do in the way of naval construction. * La&yette to WaBhington, June 37, 1777. 73 PAXIL JONES Here again Jones encountered what seemed to be his evil genii, Mr. Adams and Dudley Saltonstall. The latter had now so far emerged from the conse- quences of his first cruise in the Alfred as to aspire to another frigate command, and of course Mr. Adams was at his back. There was a curious story at the time explanatory of Mr. Adams's evident personal ill-vdll toward Paul Jones. Mr. Hewes related it not long before his death, in 1779, as follows : Many people marvelled at the pertinacity of Mr. Adams's dislike for Jones. No matter what the captain might achieve or how his exploits might be appreciated and praised by everybody else, and none was more cordial in this respect than the commander-in-chief, Washington himself — Mr. Adams would see no good in him, but always insisted that he was "a smooth, plausible, and rather capa- ble adventurer, with some smattering of general knowledge and a fair command of French and Spanish, due wholly to his earlier career as an English merchant captain trading to the West India Islands and Spanish main ; in other words, the merest accident, ' ' and so on ad libitum. And above all, Mr. Adams maintained, he was a man of no fam- ily connection whatever. Finally, the explanation came out. When the Congress reconvened in June, 1775, Colonel Carroll, of Maryland, came to Philadelphia with his family, in great state, and leased a fine house on the outskirts of the city, near General Mifflin's at the Falls of Schuylkill. Here the centre of fashion was soon established. Shortly after Paul Jones ar- rived at Philadelphia, in July, 1775, he was a guest at one of Madame Carroll's parties, and Mr. Adams was also there. Mr. Adams was nothing if not pedantic. In the course of the entertainment he essayed to relate an anecdote of Fon- tanelle to a group of young ladies, among whom were Miss 74 IN COMMAND OP THE EANGER Betty Faulkner, of Virginia, and Miss Josepliine Mayrant, of South Carolina. Miss Faulkner had been educated in France and Miss Mayrant belonged to one of the Carolina Huguenot families in which French was retained as the domestic tongue. Mr. Adams related his anecdote of Fon- tanelle in French. When he was gone, Jones, at the request of the young ladies, related the anecdote correctly both as to text and accent. One of the young ladies then asked Jones what he thought of Mr. Adams's French. Jones was always reckless with his wit and more than once in his career sacrificed an interest for the sake of an epigram. On this occasion, not reflecting that such a bon mot would be likely to find repe- tition in such a social circle as that was, he replied with mock gravity : "La cause des droits de I'homme, Mesdemoiselles, est, peut-etre, bien heureuse en ee que les sentiments politiques de Monsieur Adams ne sont pas S I'anglais Sgalement S son frangais ; car, autrement, il serait, facilement, le plus grand Tory du pays! " Of this the following is a free translation : " It is very fortunate, perhaps, ladies, for the cause of human rights, that the political sentiments of Mr. Adams are not as Eng- lish as his French is ; because, if they were, he would be, easily, the greatest Tory in the land." This delicious, but ill-judged, satire was not slow in reach- ing the ears of Mr. Adams, and he ever afterward hated Paul Jones with all the sturdy hate of the Puritan nature when its vanity is wounded. Maybe other men, not Puri- tans, would have hated Jones, too, had they fallen similar victims to his pitiless tongue. Be this as it may, Captain Saltonstall got the Trumbull.* Jones then determined to appeal to * In this connection there is an entertaining morsel of personal history ; When Ezek Hopkins's ill-starred sqnadron " broke np at New- port in the spring of 1776 and resolved itself into a series of courts-mar- 75 PAUL JONES "Washington in person. His own story of the inter- view is doubtless the best that could be written : When I entered the presence of the Commander-in-Chief, I found with him Grenerals Knox, Wayne, and Greene, and the Marquis de Lafayette. I laid my case before him with an earnestness which my recent disappointment about the Trumbull may have made somewhat vehement. Lafayette and Wayne shared my feelings and partook of tial, dismiBsals," etc., Jones, as first lieutenant of the Alfred, prepared and sent to the Marine Committee charges against the captain of that ship, Dudley Saltonstall, accusing him of cruelty to his men, discourtesy and incivility to his officers, incompetency and even irresolution, to use no harsher term, in the action with the Glasgow. These charges were suppressed by the committee, and Captain Salton- stall, though relieved from command for a considerable period under cir- cimietances not wholly devoid of the aspect of want of confidence if not disgrace, escaped the court-martial that wrecked some of his brother- captains. Jones was appointed to the Providence soon after forwarding these charges, and cruised in her and afterward the Alfred nntil the following midwinter. But when he found Saltonstall in his way again in the spring of 1777, he determined to revive his charges and push the case to a con- clusion. Having kept a copy of the charges, he drew them up in due form again with some additions and handed them to Kobert Morris with a request that they be formally laid before the committee. Mr. Morris informed him that the aifair was considered closed and could not be reopened. Jones then rather vigorously informed Mr. Morris that if he could not secure appropriate action in the regular way, he would conceive it his duty to publish the facts over his own name and on his personal respon- sibility ; as he believed the public entitled to know what kind of naval servant they had in Captain SaltonstalL To this Mr. Morris demurred, saying it conld have no result but to bring on a duel between himself and Captain Saltonstall ; that such an affair would be more deplorable than anything else possibly could be, as it must be a sorry spectacle to see the officers of our infant navy kill- ing each other when there were so many enemies of the country to destroy. Jones responded that if Captain Saltonstall conld be induced to take 76 IN COMMAND OF THE RANGER my spirit. But Greneral Washington, calm and impertur- bable, walked up and down, mostly listening, but now and then asking a question or uttering a syllable of assent. He remained in this mood for a little time after I had done. Then approaching me, he took me by the hand and said : " Captain Jones, you have conceived the right project and you are the right man to execute it. I will at once see members of the Marine Committee and insist that you be forthwith provided with the best means at their disposal." that course he, Jones, should by no means consider bis main pnrpose hopelessly defeated ; that he conceived it his duty to rid the navy of Captain Saltonstall, and if he were denied the opportunity of doing it in the regular way, by court-martial, it was quite immaterial to him what other way must be resorted to. Mr. Morris, amazed at this fierce outbreak, inquired if Jones had taken any advice in this most serious affair. Jones answered that he certainly had taken advice. " Of whom, pray ? " asked Mr. Morris. " Of General Oadwalader and Captain Biddle, sir ! '' "Bless me ! " exclaimed Mr. Morris, " the two fieriest and least tract- able men in Peimsylvania. Each the soul of honor and the embodiment of courage, but both wholly lacking in prudence or oahn judgment where any personal issue is concerned. They will always give you advice to fight, which, by the way, you yourself need as little as any man I know. Cadwalader and Nick Biddle advising a man in an affair of this kind, forsooth ! Now, Paul, this affair must end here. I will keep this paper ; and, if you have a copy of it, either send it to me also or give me your word of honor that you will burn it at once and dismiss the whole subject from your mind In Cadwalader and Nick Biddle you have exhausted the wrong kind of advice ; now I give you the benefit of the right kind, and forasmuch as you value my friendship, you must obey me." Jones reluctantly and sullenly obeyed Mr. Morria But he did not forget ! More than two years afterward, while he was in the Texel with his prize the Scrapie, be heard the news that Saltonstall had lost the Warren, a new thirty-two-gun frigate, in Penobscot Bay, under circum- stances which effectually terminated his naval career. Then he wrote bitterly to Mr. Morris : " I have just learned the miserable fate of the Warren. To some extent I reproach myself. If I had obeyed the dictates of my sense of duty in 1777 instead of yielding to the persuasions of the peacemaker, our flag might still be flying on the Warren ! " 77 PAUL JONES Jones says also that General Washington spoke of the Trumbull matter as a thing that could not be helped, because any effort to displace Captain Sal- tonstall would cause friction in higher quarters, which it was policy to avoid, and that it was unfort- unate that there were not enough of the new frig- ates ready to make one available for the sixth captain. " Of course," pursues Jones, " General Washington kept his word. The result was that in a short time the Committee ordered me to Boston to enlist sea- men for a European cruise to the number of one hundred and fifty, and then take them to France in a French merchant-ship called I'Amphitrite, which they chartered for that purpose. But this fell through. The French captain was unwilling to take the risk, because, as he said, ' if the English should get wind of the affair, their cruisers would bring the Amphitrite to, take me and my men out of her, and probably condemn the ship for violation of neutrality ' — ^France then being at peace with Eng- land." However, just at this moment another and better resource presented itself. A new ship -sloop had just been launched at Portsmouth, N. H., called the Eanger. She was designed to carry a battery of twenty long six-pounders, and her model was for those days exceedingly sharp, with unusual dead- rise and lean lines forward and aft. Elijah Hall, who was her second lieutenant in her famous cruise, has left an interesting description of the little ship.* Mr. Hall was a shipwright as well * " The Ranger," says Mr. HaU, " was out of the ordinary run of her claBB. She was planned expressly for speed. Her length was six feet 78 m COMMAND OF THE RANGER as naval officer, alike capable in both professions. He was also an historian of most pleasing- style, and the little book in which he recorded his Eevolution- ary experiences makes the reader sorry it was not larger. On June 14, 1777, Congress passed the following resolution : Resolved, That the Flag of the Thirteen United States of America be Thirteen Stripes, Alternate Red and White ; that THE UNION be Thirteen Stars in a Blue Field : Representing a NEW Constel- lation. Resolved, That CAPTAm JOHN PAUL JONES be Appointed to Command the Ship RANGER. In the perspectiTe of a century and a quarter it seems singular that two acts so widely different more than any twenty-gun ship-sloop of her day, she was flush decked fore and aft except a short, light topgallant forecastle open aft, and a still shorter poop-deck with a long break to shelter the binnacle and housed in only enough to make a captain's cabin and two small state- rooms in the transoms. Her sizes were : Length, extreme 116 feet. Length of keel for tonnage 96 " Breadth, extreme 28 " Depth in the hold 13 " 6 inchea Burthen, British measurement 308 tons. " The timber of her floors and planking to the turn of the bilges was well seasoned, but all the rest, including futtocks, knees, and all fram- ing and plank above the bilges as well as deck-beams was of green tim- ber out as used ; but her decks were of seasoned white pine. Her bot- tom was metaled to the turn of the bilges, thus making the task of careening or heaving her out much less difficult than in un-metaled ships. I believe she was the first American ship to be coppered, and the device was quite new also in the British and French navies. Her spars were a set got out for a 400-ton Indiaman, and of course too long and heavy for a vessel of her class. " When Captain Jones arrived and took the command, I had just 79 PAUL JONES in nature and effect should be joined in one resolu- tion. Probably Congress did it simply for con- venience and without thought of the historical impression the fact might produce in the distant future. But, little as our Congress may have thought about this unusual combination, its signifi- cance was not lost on Paul Jones. He accepted it as a distinction far beyond his wildest dreams. He used to say : " That flag and I are twins ; born the same hour from the same womb of destiny. We cannot be parted in life or in death. So long as we can float, we shall float together. If we must sink, we shall go down as one ! " October 2, 1777, Jones reported to the Marine stepped the lower masts and was so impressed with their disproportion- ate height that I was about to cut them down about four feet in the caps. But Captain Jones said it was a pity to cut off such fine masts, and he directed me to fid them about four feet lower than usual in the hounds, which was done. Still she was considerably over-sparred, and we did shorten all the yards and the bowsprit, jibboom and spanker boom somewhat. In addition to this she had been planned to carry twenty six-pounders ; but Captain Jones put fourteen long nines in her and only four six-pounders, which further raised her centre of weight and increased her top-heaviness. This, with the extra ballast made neces- sary, brought her a foot lower in the water than was intended, when fully provisioned, watered, and stored for a long cruise. " All these things made her uneasy and somewhat crank in windward work, and though she was weatherly enough, it was not quite safe to carry full sail on her when clawing to windward close-hauled in squally weather. But with the wind anywhere abaft the beam or going free, she could run like a hound, and on those points of sailing could show her heels to anything afloat, great or small. Another fact was that all her guns were cast in America, most of our other ships at that time having guns cast in Europe. In outward appearance she was a perfect beauty, her sheer being as delicate as the lines of a pretty woman's arm, and as she was rather low in the water for her length and her masts raked two or three degrees more than any other ship of the day, she was on the whole the sauciest craft afloat." 80 IN COMMAND OP THE HANGER Committee, from Portsmouth, that the Ranger would be ready to sail on the 15th of that month. He re- ported that his crew was already recruited to the full complement, and described it as " the best crew I have ever seen, and, I believe, the best afloat : nearly all native Americans, and the proportion of able seamen to the total is much beyond the aver- age." He also announced that, while waiting for his final orders, he would make one or two short runs off the coast a day or two at a time, to " shake down his crew, set up his rigging, test the set of his sails, and find out the best trim of the ship." In due course — probably eight or ten days — he re- ceived advices that the Congress expected soon to have news of the last importance for transmission to France, and that he should hold himself in readi- ness to get under way at once on receipt of the de- spatches. These orders were accompanied by a pri- vate note from Robert Morris informing him that the news daily expected would come from the upper valley of the Hudson, that the character of the news would undoubtedly be such as to exert the most profound influence upon the result of the pend- ing war, and that it had been decided to hold the Eanger in readiness to carry the news because the committee believed both the ship and commander best adapted of any in the navy to make a quick and safe voyage to France. From this it appears that those at the head of our Revolutionary affairs felt sure of the capture or total defeat of Burgoyne's army at least three weeks be- fore his surrender. The scenes throughout the country during the days immediately following the Vol. I.— 6 81 PAUL JONES 17th of October, 1777, must have been thrilling. Couriers rode at breakneck speed in every direction on all roads and across fields, shouting to every per- son they met and at every doorway as they flew past, " Burgoyne has surrendered ! " There were no de- tails ; the couriers had no time to give them. But the one great fact was enough. The whole patriot country went wild over it. Marvellous stories haVe been told of the rapidity with which this glad news was spread over the country from New Hampshire to Georgia in those days of simple horseflesh and hard riding. From the field of Stillwater to Poi-ts- mouth is one hundred and forty-seven miles as the bird flies, and doubtless was at least one hundred and seventy -five miles by the shortest roads of those days. Tet it is said that the news reached Ports- mouth in about thirty hours and was brought by a single courier, who never stopped except to obtain and shift his saddle to a fresh horse as he wore the others out ; eating his meais in the saddle and never thinking of rest ! Thus Paul Jones must have known by October 19th the nature of the news he was to carry across the ocean. The despatches, under the seal of Con- gress, were placed in his hands about midnight, October 31, and the Banger was under way and clear of the Isles of Shoals before daylight, Novem- ber 1, 1777 ; as her log says in the second entry of that date, " going free, course east by south half east, wind west north-west, blowing fresh, the sea cross and choppy, from the old swell of an easterly gale, the two days before." The last thing Jones did before casting off the 83 IN COMMAND OF THE EANGEE shore-boat's painter was to add a postscript to his acknowledgment of the receipt of the despatches and his order, sajdng : " I will spread this news in France in thirty days." He actually did land at Nantes early in the morning- of December 2, 1777, thirty -two days out from Portsmouth. Jones him- self has left little record of this remarkable run. In his official report he says that he " encountered a good deal of bad weather, and for the first twelve days out, after clearing George's Banks, had a suc- cession of north-easterlies, from a half to a whole gale, with frequent snow-squalls on the edge of the Grand Banks, and as far to the eastward as the forty- fourth meridian. After that it was mostly clear with wind abeam except three days of baffling south- easterlies after passing the longitude of the Azores." But Elijah Hall, second lieutenant of the Ranger, has left a more copious record, which, in view of the importance of the little Ranger's mission, as the se- quel proved, is worth preserving. Lieutenant Hall says: I had sailed with many captains in all kinds of voyages, but I never had seen a ship crowded as Captain Jones drove the Ranger. The wind held northwesterly and fresh till we had cleared Sable Island and began to draw on to the Banks. Then it came ofE to the northeast and east northeast with many snow-squalls, and thick of nights. We might even then have made a long reach to leeward and run as far south as 40°, if not indeed easting on that parallel as far as the Azores. This would have eased everything, but would also have added a week's time to the run. Captain Jones therefore held to his northerly course, and stuck grimly to his great circle, drawn between 83 PAUL JONES 47° and 50° north. As the wind hung all the time between north northeast and east northeast with but few veerings outside those points, it was always forward of the beam on the true course and often near dead ahead. Imagine then, the situation of the Banger's crew, with a top-heavy and crank ship under their feet, and a commander who day and night insisted on every rag she could stagger under without lay. ing clear down ! As it was she came close to beam-ends more than once, and on one occasion righted only by letting-fiy sheets out with hatchets. During all this trying work Captain Jones was his own navigating officer, keeping the deck eighteen or twenty hours out of every twenty-four, often serving extra grog to the men with his own hands, and by his ex- ample silencing all disposition to grumble. In the worst of it the watch and watch was lap-watched so that the men would be eight hours on to four off ; but no one com- plained. It speaks well alike for commander and crew that not a man was punished or even severely reprimanded during this terrific voyage.* * Withal their hard work and trying duty, the crew of the Ranger yet found characteristic diverBion. Among other things they invented a sailor song suited to the occasion, which became popular in the Rev- olutionary Navy and was cherished long afterward in the forecastle repertoire. The verses were written by Midshipman Charley Hill, of Barnstable, and whatever may be their faults of prosody they do not lack vigor. They called it : The Song of the Ranges. Caret the News to London ! The final stanza will give an idea of the character of the song ; ^* So, now we had him hard and fast, Burgoyne laid down his Arms at Last And that is why we Brave the Blast, To carry the News to London ! Heigh-ho ! Car'r'y'y the News ! Go ! Carry the News to London. Tell Old King George he's undone ! Heigh-ho ! Car'r'y'y the News ! " Jones sent a copy of these verses to Joseph Hewes with the quaint comment that, " while the text is rude in some parts and the language in 84 IN COMMAND OF THE EANGEK Captain Jones in his report to the Marine Com- mittee gives two reasons for selecting the northerly course. He says : The great circle course was the shortest by several days' sail, and even at the advanced stage of the season there was a chance of westerly and northerly winds prevail- ing as far as 35° west, and thus we might get a good slant. But the main reason was that the northerly course at that season would free us from interruption by the enemy's cruisers which were known to swarm, on the southerly course. Aware that the first and greatest object of the voyage was to deliver the highly important dis- patches at the earliest moment in France, I wished above all things to avoid being chased out of my course by the enemy's frigates, with the necessary accompanying risk of being captured or destroyed. The purpose was accom- plished. Not a sail was sighted after we passed the sixtieth meridian until we had crossed the twentieth, and the first ship we spoke was a Dutch East Indiaman in the Bay of Biscay, two days' run west of TJshant. I informed the Dutch captain of the surrender of Burgoyne and requested him to repeat the intelligence, with my compli- ments, to any British captain that he might fall in with. I trust your Honorable Committee will approve my con- duet in these respects. I have fully reported my conduct and my reasons for it to our Commissioners, Messrs Franklin and Deane, and am authorized by them to inform you that it meets with their hearty approval. one line not quite polite, yet as a whole the ballad is Bpirlted and reflects credit on its youBg author, Mr. Hill, the youngest of my midshipmen. Mr. Hill, who is not yet twenty years old, is the son of the late Captain Abner Hill, of Barnstable, with whom 1 became acquainted years ago in the West India and coast trade. If Abner Hill had lived I am sure he would now be an ornament to our little navy. His son Charles rep- resents him most creditably, and I commend him to the notice of the Honorable Committee." 85 PAUL JONES My crew are all well, and except a few trifling accidents due to the hard exposure on certain occasions, no one has been on the sick-list. One seaman, Solomon Hutehings, had his leg broken by a spare spar getting adrift, but is doing well. I shall have the honor of calling your atten- tion more particularly to the excellent behavior of all my officers and men in a later report. For the present suffice to say, that, without exception, their conduct left nothing to be desired. During the last day's run I took two prizes bound from Madeira and Malaga respectively, with wines, dried fruits, etc., for London. I sent one of them to Brest and convoyed the other to Nantes. I enclose estimate of their value ; also roster of my crew entitled to share prize-money.* The Eanger anchored in the Loire, below Nantes, about twilight, December 2, 1777, and Captain Jones at once proceeded express t© Paris, placing the despatches in Dr. Franklin's hands early on the 5th, * It is a singulai fact that, identified as the name of the Banger and the performance of her crew are with one of the most momentous crises in all our national history, no complete roll of the humble heroes who manned her has been preserved in our of&cial archives. The nearest approach to it is a list of seventy-eight names on file in the Department of State, Bureau of Bolls and Library ; and these are not in the form of a roU or roster, but are simply signatures to a petition presented by or through one of the private secretaries of Arthur Lee, Hezekiah Ford, of North Carolina, to the American Commissioners in France, from part of the crew whUe the Banger lay in Brest Harbor in the spring of 1778, soon after she had captured the Drake. From the reports and letters of Captain Jones, from the Gardner papers, and from other sources of original and contemporary information, it is, fortunately, possible to place upon the pages of history the names of the other fifty-three men who, with the seventy-eight of record in the Department of ^ State, made up the Banger's crew. The roster, as given in the Appendix, to which the reader is referred, is that of the ofiScers and crew when the ship arrived in the Loire, bringing the news of the surrender of Burgoyne. 86 IN COMMAJSTD OP THE EANGEK travelling two hundred and twenty miles in sixty- hours, after which he returned to his ship about the middle of the month. The despatches contained full accounts of the military operations immediately leading to the surrender of Burgoyne, with a general description of the situation brought about by it, and its effect upon the fortunes of the war so far as the Americans were concerned. The main text of the military part of the despatches was written by Gen- eral Washington himself, while the estimate and deductions as to the political effects of the event were written by Thomas Jefferson. The documents as a whole were therefore couched in the calm, lofty tone characteristic of their authors. There was no tendency to exaggerate, no exhibition of vainglory. There was no attempt at embellishment, and but little comment. Larger forces than the army of Burgoyne had often capitulated in European for- tresses as the result of sieges. But it was instantly recognized that never before had so considerable a force (at least no British force) surrendered in the open field to an army so slightly superior to it in numbers, and as the result of a series of pitched battles. Kemarkable and unprecedented as the event was, the Count de Vergennes said that " the modesty with which General Washington and Mr. Jefferson laid the information of it before the King and his Ministers was, if possible, yet more note- worthy." Paul Jones was not the only messenger who " car- ried the news " of Burgoyne's surrender. He was not even the first to place it in the hands of Dr. Franklin. Jones arrived at Passy — a village near 87 PAUL JONES Paris — where our commissioners had their quarters — the morning of December 5, 1777. He found that he had been preceded by John Loring Austin, of Boston, who had delivered an exact copy of the despatches he brought, about twelve hours ahead of him. Austin got his copy early in the morning of October 30th, and sailed from Boston in a fast French merchantman (expressly chartered for the purpose) within four hours. In connection with the delivery of the despatches announcing Burgoyne's surrender, there is a bit of private history, deeply interesting both as an ex- hibit of the confusion and distrust prevailing in those days, and as a commentary on the character of Paul Jones. To cut a long story short, and to em- body here in a page or two the results of years of research, it may be premised that Dr. Edward Ban- croft was accused by Arthur Lee of making use of these despatches in advance of their publica- tion for stock-jobbing purposes not only in Paris but also in London ; and these accusations went so far as to imply or insinuate the privity, if not the profit, of Dr. Franklin himself in such trans- actions. When these accusations became public, Jones, feeling that his own honor as one of the trusted cus- todians of the news was at stake, set about investi- gating the matter in his own way. Dr. Bancroft and Jones were friends, and their friendship lasted until death. But under such an imputation, with the slightest possibility that it might, if not cleared up at once, be used to impeach his own integrity and fidelity, Jones would not rest a moment. He probed 88 IN COMMAND OP THE RANGER the matter to the bottom and satisfied himself that, so far as Bancroft was concerned, the imputations were groundless. On this point Dr. Francis Whar- ton says, in the first volume of the " Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution : " Jones was the most dangerous enemy Britain had on the high seas. By his stealth, his amazing flghtiag qualities and his coolness he not only inflicted great damage by his prizes but he compelled a large naval force to be retained for home defence and trebled the rates of insurance on Brit- ish merchant ships. . . . Had Jones suspected Ban- croft of perfidy, swift and terrible would have been the vengeance ; for in such cases Paul Jones did not stay his hand. The only mention of the affair the author has been able to find in Jones's correspondence is in a letter to Mr. Livingston, dated Nantes, March 13, 1779 — more than a year afterward — in which he emphati- cally disposes of the story, in favor of Dr. Ban- croft's integrity. Dr. Wharton's remark that " in such cases Paul Jones did not stay his hand," means more to close students of his character and career than superficial readers of history are likely to grasp. It means that, while under ordinary circumstances polite and forbearing, even to long-suffering, Jones had at bottom a most ferocious temper, and that the one thing of all things he would not brook from any- one was personal perfidy. Errors of judgment or mistakes in conduct he was quick to overlook or for- give ; but for deliberate betrayal he knew but one remedy. He was not in any degree a bully; not even prone to quarrel. But his sense of personal 89 PAUL JONES honor was delicately, almost painfully, acute ; and anyone who wanted any kind of a fight could always get it instantly by jarring that high-strung chord in his nature. This sentiment was quite as mandatory to him in dealing with common sailors as with men of his own class. On taking command of the Eanger he found that forty-three men had been enlisted at Ports- mouth on terms stated in public handbills, as to advances and " ship-money," which could not be carried out under the regulations of Congress. The total amount involved was $40 apiece for thirty able seamen and $20 apiece for thirteen landsmen and boys ; aggregating $1,460. Jones at once addressed a letter to these men, through Lieutenant Hall, who had enlisted them. In this letter he pointed out the conflict between the terms of the handbills and the regulations of Congress, and then said : I would not deceive any man who has entered or may en- ter to serve under my command. ... I consider my- self as being Tinder a personal obligation to these brave men who have cheerfully enlisted to serve with me, and I accept their act as proof of their good opinion of me, which I so highly value that I cannot permit it to be dampened in the least degree by misunderstanding or failure to perform engagements. If necessary, or to whatsoever extent it may be necessary, I will personally undertake, after exhaust- ing my proper powers in their behalf under the regulations, to make good at my own risk any remainder. I wish all my men to be happy and contented. The conditions of the handbills will be strictly complied with. According to expense accounts allowed and paid to Jones by Congress in 1782, he expended one 90 IN COMMAND OF THE RANGER hundred and forty-seven guineas out of his own funds in making the terms of the handbills good, that being the difference between the sum prom- ised in the handbills and the advances which the regulations permitted him to make on public ac- count. 91 CHAPTEE V THE FRENCH ALLIANCE The state of European politics at the end of the year 1777 determined the fate of the American struggle for independence. The situation in Amer- ica, as Europe yiewed it, admits of quick summary : Everything south of the latitude of New York City had gone wrong. By the end of the first week in October, the British, already firmly planted in possession of New York City, had defeated Wash- ington at the Brandywine, had occupied Philadel- phia, driving Congress from its capital to seek refuge in the village of York, and had repulsed Washington from Germantown. In the far South little show of resistance remained, except partisan warfare. But north of New York all had been American success. Elaborate as the British plans in that region were, and able as had been the efforts to execute them, all had been British failures. From Bennington to the end, Burgoyne's campaign was a series of British reverses and patriot victories, cul- minating in the surrender. Thus the account stood at the end of 1777, or beginning of 1778, as the statesmen of Continental Europe viewed it. They looked only to general results, and gave but scant survey to details. Defeat at Brandywine, check at Germantown, even the 92 THE FEBNCH AI^LIANCE expulsion of Congress from Philadelphia, could be explained or at least estimated to European tacti- cians, strategists, and statesmen, so long as Wash- ington still had his army in hand and could show a front. But explaining or extenuating the total defeat, surrender, and annihilation of Burgoyne's army was not possible. Thus every success of the British armies on the Delaware and in the South went for nothing in the estimation of Continental Europe when weighed in the scale against the anni- hilation of Burgoyne. The news of this event reached Paris, as has been stated, on the evening of December 4, 1777. Paul Jones arrived the next day, and not only brought duplicates of Mr. Austin's despatches but much ad- ditional information as to military details which he had gleaned during the ten days that elapsed between the arrival of the news at Portsmouth and his sailing date from that port. He had also the vastly important survey of the situation embodied in Eobert Morris's private letter to him which was brought from York along with the official packet ; and the significance of Mr. Morris's survey, as further information for the guidance of the commis- sioners, was second only to that of the despatches themselves. Jones, in his correspondence concerning the affair, gracefully yields priority to Mr. Austin, but he says that "there were some deductions as to both the strategical and the domestic political effects of the surrender which our subsequent conversations proved to be more clearly drawn in my mind than in Mr. Austin's. But this was doubtless due to the differ- PAUL JONES ence in our experience and training. Among other things it was evident that Mr. Austin did not at the moment quite share my views as to the decisive effect the event must have upon the morale of our people themselves, and the far-reaching elation of spirit it must impart to our armed forces by land and sea." At the moment when Mr. Austin, so closely fol- lowed by Jones, laid this news before the eyes of France, the attitude of that country was most im- portant to the cause of American Independence. The good-will of other Continental States might be desirable, but that of France was indispensable. The French nation was at that instant divided into three parties : First, the out-and-out American sympathizers. Second, those who from hereditary enmity to England wished the revolted Colonies well, but hesitated to give open aid and comfort. Third, the Conservative party, which could see no good what- ever in any revolt of a dependency against a mon- archy, and which abhorred the doctrines of republi- canism, no matter where or by whom maintained. The first of these parties embodied what, for brev- ity, may be termed the young France of that time ; the men in whose minds the theories of Eous- seau and the sneers of Voltaire were rapidly crys- tallizing into that fierce republicanism which ten years later compelled the King to convoke the Third Estate, and fifteen years later brought on the Keign of Terror. At the head of this party were Lafayette and the Duke de Chartres ; the first actually fight- ing in America, the latter second in command of the Brest fleet ; the first a scion of one of the oldest noble 94 THE PKENCH ALLIANCE families in France, the latter a scion of French roy- alty itself. The second or semi-neutral party, hating but still fearing England, and ready, though hesitating, to strike, embraced all the young or active and am- bitious officers of the French Army and Navy ; the school of statesmen in whose bosoms rankled the reverses of the last war, the loss of Canada, and the downfall of French aspirations in India ; the younger element of the nobility ; the adventurous throng in the middle class ; and this party had for its leader no less a personage than the King himself, with such statesmen as Vergennes, Vauguyon, Luzerne, Mira- beau, Malesherbes, and a host of others, at his back. The third party embodied the older nobility, the courtiers almost without exception, the clergy to a man, and all the parasites of court and palace of every grade and degree. This party had for its leader the Queen ; and she was supported by such social, political, and religious influences as the de- scription of her following must naturally suggest. But poor Marie Antoinette does not need the charity that her subsequent misfortunes must compel to extenuate her attitude toward our infant republic in its days of peril. She could not help holding such an attitude. She was heart and soul a Haps- burg, and the transplanting of her to France had not in the least abated the rigorous traditions of that haughty house of despotism, already hoary with the sins of centuries. In the tyranny of the French Bourbons there was always a dash of levity, a flavor now and then of good cheer ; in short, the French Bourbons were full of human nature, and 95 PAUL JONES even their depravities were not wholly without charm. But the house of Hapsburg- in every page of its history up to that time was gloomy, and in every line of its annals austere. It was the embod- iment, the incarnation, of all that can be repulsive in tyranny and forbidding in despotism ; " the one great power in Europe" — as Napoleon not long afterward said — " that never won a campaign or lost a province." The Hapsburg Emperor was a mediaeval monk among kings ; a modern Saturn among statesmen. Manifestly, then, no struggling republic could reasonably expect countenance, much less aid and comfort, from either man or woman of such antecedents and such breeding. Under these conditions, and clear up to the mo- ment when the news of Burgoyne's surrender ar- rived, the attitude of the three French parties had been : The first or Progressist party, active, noisy, but powerless. The second or Opportunist party, hesitating, indecisive, but anxious for a pretext. The third, the Queen's party, cynical, chilling, and sinister, but yet holding the situation. The great news from Saratoga let loose the deluge. The Progressists could no longer be restrained. The Opportunists threw off all disguise, cast away all cau- tion, and vied with the others in demanding an Amer- ican alliance. And they carried the King along with their flood. The Queen and her party sank in the tu- mult of exultation and vanished from the public view. Events now thronged one on top of another. The despatches were received on December 4th and 5th. The information in them was formally communicated to the French Court December 8th. King Louis XVI. 96 THE FRENCH ALLIANCE directed his Cabinet to " consider favorably the overtures of the Commissioners on behalf of the United States," December 11th. On January 8, 1778, the King wrote his remarkable letter to Charles ni., King of Spain. The preliminary articles of treaty were signed January 17, 1778. On January 24th the form of the Treaty of Alliance was approved by the King, except the clause stipulating that France should not undertake the reconquest of Canada. February 1, Louis XVI. yielded as to this clause, and five days later, February 6, 1778, the Treaty of Alliance that assured American Independence was signed and sealed at Versailles — ^just two months after the arrival of the news. This marvellous succession of events was the se- quel of two years of almost abject begging on the part of our commissioners, to no purpose. It is perhaps proper to say that, while there were three commissioners in name, there was but one in fact. That one was Dr. Franklin. Silas Deane has passed into history as a man who meant well, but was un- equal to his task. Whatever came within the range of his capacities he did faithfully. His opinion of himself, as is commonly the fate of his type of man, was not shared by his contemporaries. As for Dr. Franklin's other colleague, Arthur Lee, it is doubtless best to let the " Diplomatic Correspond- ence of the American Eevolution " tell his story. No critic could add a single line to the terrible and eternal indictment of those cold, pitiless official pages. Unfortunately, it is forever beyond the power of the most gifted eulogist to take one syl- lable of it away. Vol. I.— 7 97 PAUL JONES When Jones left the United States in the Ranger, it was vinderstood, and in fact ordered, by the Marine Committee that he should, on arriving in France, take command of the new ship building at Amster- dam, for which Silas Deane had contracted in 1776. The commissioners — at least Deane and Franklin — had made every effort to keep the actual character of this ship a secret from the British Government. The contract for her construction had been signed on behalf of the United States by a Captain Gillon, in the service of the Dutch East India Company, who was employed by the commissioners to super- vise her construction. Gillon, however, was himself " supervised " by Charles Frederick Dumas, secret agent of the Colonies in Holland, and the bills were paid through Dumas's banker. This ship, then known as the Indien, was of peculiar construction, and her general plans were those furnished to the Marine Committee by Jones in the fall of 1775 in connection with the new frigates then authorized. Her princi- pal dimensions and armament were as follows : Length on the giin-deek 154 feet Length of keel for tonntige 131 " Extreme breadth 40 " Depth of hold 17 " Burthen, Dutch measurement 1, 186 tons Gun-deck battery in broadside 38 long IBs * Guu-deck battery in bridle ports 2 " " Quarter-deck battery 8 " 9s Forecastle battery 8 " " Complement, ofBcers and men 400 *In the actual aimament of the ship an eqnal immberof short or "Swedish " thirty-six-ponnders were substituted for the long eighteens. 98 THE PEENCH ALLIANCE She was frigate-built, but from forty to fifty per cent, more powerful than any regular frigate then afloat ; the equal in fact of any forty-four-gun ship on two decks in that period, and not much iaferior to most ships of fifty guns. She had been on the stocks since December, 1776, and when Jones arrived in France the December fol- lowing, the Indian was nearly ready to launch. How- ever, her guns and ammunition were to be placed on board at I'Orient as soon as she could be brought round there from Amsterdam. But shortly after she was launched the British Minister to the Netherlands denounced her to the States-General as an American ship-of-war in disguise, and demanded that she be detained in Dutch waters for "meditated breach of neutrality." The commissioners were dumb- founded at this exposure of their plans, but could do nothing, as the States-General was then under British infiuence, and after fruitless efforts to get possession of the ship, they sold her to the King of Prance for a price nearly sufficient to reimburse them for the outlay already made under the con- tract. This sale was concluded only ten or twelve days before Jones arrived in France with the Ranger. In the course of his investigation, be- fore referred to, Jones ascertained beyond ques- tion that the secrets of the commissioners in regard to the Indien had been betrayed to the Brit- ish Government by Arthur Lee's private secretary, Thornton ; also that he had actually furnished the British Foreign Office with documents from the secret files of the commissioners, unquestionably proving the real character of the ship; documents 99 PAUL JONES which the British Minister had laid before the States-General. After the King had bought the Indian, the situa- tion was no better than before, because it only transferred the question of neutrality from Holland to France. Jones told Dr. Franklin that so long as peace continued between England and France, it would be idle to hope for possession of the Indien, or to obtain any other regular ship-of-war from France; and in view of this fact there was nothing left for him to do but make a cruise on the Ranger as soon as the ship could be fitted out, and the spring opened. Jones also reminded Dr. Franklin that by virtue of the original understanding when he assumed command of the Ranger, he was only to hold that command until he could get a larger ship, and that his first lieutenant, Simpson, considered himself now fully entitled to command the Ranger. Dr. Franklin settled, or tried to settle, this question by giving Jones written instructions under date of January 16, 1778, to hold command of the Ranger till further orders, and to fit her at once for a cruise in the early spring. Simpson acquiesced in this order, but not cheerfully or with good grace, as the sequel proved. Jones now took the Ranger from Nantes to rOrient, thoroughly overhauled and refitted her, and on the 13th of February arrived in Brest Roads in the presence of the Grand French Fleet, com- manded by the Count d'Orvilliers. The division of the fleet which Jones first spoke was commanded by Rear-Admiral La Motte Piquet, and, wishing to be sure of his ground, Jones sent a boat to that officer with a polite note informing him that the Ranger flew 100 THE FRENCH ALLIANCE the new American flag, which had never yet been saluted by the guns of any foreign naval power, and asking whether a salute, if ofiered, would be re- turned. In response he was informed that the salute due to the senior officer of a republican naval force on the station would be given him ; that is, four guns less than for the representative of a royal navy ; the basis being that established for the then Eepublic of the Netherlands. The next day the Ranger sailed through the French fleet, receiving from it the first national salute to the Stars and Stripes by the guns of a foreign fleet. Most of the numerous writers who have from time to time during the nineteenth century given to the public " lives " or " biographies " of Paul Jones, have led their readers to believe that he was not only identified by name with the origin of the na- tional emblem by virtue of the curious text of the resolution of Congress, June 14, 1777, already re- ferred to, but also that he was the first to hoist it on an American man-of-war ; the first to show it upon the ocean ; the first to receive and acknowledge a salute to it from a foreign naval power ; the first to fight a naval battle under it, and the first to deco- rate with it a man-of-war of the enemy taken prize in action. Some of these assertions or intimations are true ; others are fanciful. Whatever his numerous biog- raphers may have claimed for him in respect to personal identification with our existing national emblem, Jones himself always considered the bare truth quite enough glory. The truth was, as we have seen, that the American flag, as we know it, 101 PAXIL JONES and the appointment of Paul Jones to command tlie Eanger, were embraced in the same resolution of Congress ; and that his ship was the first to receive a foreign naval salute to it. It was decreed the 14th of June, 1777. Jones displayed it on the Eanger the 4th of July following, the first anni- versary of the Declaration of Independence — mak- ing a trip from Boston to Portsmouth for that especial purpose. But the Eanger was only re- cently launched at that time, and, though by that act he placed her nominally in commission, she was not ready for sea until early the next October. Dur- ing that interval other American ships of-war had gone to sea from various ports, with the new ensign flying. The first battle Jones fought under the Stars and Stripes was in the Eanger, when she con- quered the Drake, off Carrickfergus, Ireland, April 23, 1778. But on the 7th of March previous, poor Nick Biddle had gone down — or up — or both — when the Eandolph, thirty -two, was destroyed by explo- sion of her magazine in action with the Yarmouth, sixty-four ; and the Stars and Stripes went down — or up — with Nick Biddle. However, Jones was the first to compel a regular British man-of-war to strike the Cross of St. George and St. Andrew to the new flag, which occurred when the Drake struck to the Eanger. We have seen that the French fleet saluted the American flag on the little Eanger, February 13, 1778, in the outer road of Brest. The next day she ran up and anchored in the inner harbor off the mole of the Dockyard. The Eanger did not leave that anchorage until April 9th, when she dropped down 103 THE FEENCH AXLIANCE into the outer road to sail on her cruise the next day. There were reasons for this delay. One was that the winter of 1777-78 — and particularly the time from February to April, 1778 — was extraordi- narily severe and tempestuous. Another was that our commissioners at Paris were divided in their councils. Franklin wanted to keep Jones in Euro- pean waters. Arthur Lee was bent on sending him back to the United States. Silas Deane, though still nominally a member of the commission, was not at this time even consulted by either of his col- leagues, and cut no figure in this affair. Fortunately, Franklin prevailed. However sin- ister may have been the designs of Arthur Lee — or, rather, of the British spies and informers whose designs Lee never seemed able to detect — ^the clear foresight, the lofty integrity, and the unbending resolution of Benjamin Franklin easily overwhelmed all, and saved for its true destiny the genius of Paul Jones. The Ranger had lain at Brest Dockyard nearly two months. Of that time about one month was consumed by Jones in a trip to Amsterdam to in- spect the Indien. This was done at the instance of Franklin, who had never been able to obtain satis- factory information about her. Jones went to Am- sterdam in the assumed character of a Spanish officer desirous of inspecting the ship with a view to purchasing her for the King of Spain. His jet- black hair and eyes, his swarthy complexion, and his Iberian cast of features, together with his command of the Spanish language, made this guise easy for him to sustain. No one in Amsterdam, except 103 PAUL JONES Charles Frederick Dumas, our secret agent, knew who he really was. His disguise and the secrecy of his movements were so perfect that for once the vigilance of the British spies, whom Arthur Lee had for " private secretaries," was baffled and outwitted. The result of this mission was absolute assurance by Jones to Dr. Franklin that it would be prepos- terous for the commissioners to hope for posses- sion of the Indien then, or anywhere near that time ; that all hope of getting control of her so long as England, France, and Holland remained at peace, must be abandoned. Franklin then reluctantly gave up hope, verbally ordered Jones to return to the Ranger, and, as soon as the weather would permit, proceed with her, under his instructions of January 16th previous, to cruise on the British coasts. Pursuant to these orders, Jones returned to Brest about the middle of March, 1778. He found that during his absence his first lieutenant, Simpson, had stirred up much dissatisfaction among the Rang- er's crew ; telling them among other things that Jones had been permanently detached from the ship and that he (Simpson) daily expected orders to sail for home. When Jones found this out he called Simpson into his cabin and said to him that he had, apparently, raised an issue which, under the pecul- iar circumstances, could not be settled in any other way than personally. "I command this ship, Mr. Simpson," he said, ", by virtue of my senior rank, by virtue of the reso- lution of Congress dated June 14th last, and by virtue of the order of the Commissioners dated January 16th last. But I will urge none of these 104 THE FRENCH ALLIANCE considerations upon you in your present attitude. So far as you are concerned, I will say only that I command this ship by virtue of the fact that I am personally the best man aboard — a fact which I shall cheerfully demonstrate to you at your pleas- ure ! And I wish you to signify your pleasure to me here and now ! " It is doubtless fortunate that Lieutenant Simpson chose not to defy fate beyond that point. He as- sured Jones that his attitude had been misunder- stood, and declared that he would serve loyally under his command as heretofore. It is a curious illustration of the character of Jones that as soon as Simpson had yielded in this manner he informed him that he (Jones) was invited to dine ashore that evening with the Commandant of the Brest Dock- yard, and directed him (Simpson) to get ready and go ashore with him, assuring him that the French officer would, in the fulness of his hospitality, be glad to receive an additional guest. This brought about at least a truce between Jones and Simpson that lasted throughout the Ranger's forthcoming cruise. Simpson was a brave man and, for his calibre, a good officer. He was a thorough- bred Yankee sailor but a man of less brain than am- bition, and hence easily led astray — as the sequel soon proved — by the sinister counsels of Arthur Lee's " private secretaries," Thornton, and Hezekiah Ford. During such part of the Eanger's stay in Brest Harbor as was not taken up by his trip to Holland, Jones assiduously devoted his time to cultivating an alliance that had an important effect upon his des- 105 PAUL JONES tiny. It has been observed early in these pages that in May, 1775, he, by chance, made the acquaintance of the young Duke de Chartres, while that Prince was in Hampton Eoads on a practice cruise in the French frigate La Terpsichore. This acquaint- ance Jones promptly renewed and industriously cultivated while the Eanger lay in Brest Harbor in the spring of 1778. The " Sailor Prince " had not forgotten him. On the contrary, the young Duke in 1778 received with open arms his chance acquaint- ance of 1775. He did not receive him merely as a naval officer paying a call of ceremony aboard his flag-ship, but he took him ashore and presented him to his Duchess, Mary Adelaide of Bourbon-Penthie- vre, the best, purest, bravest, and most liberal woman of her time in France— and the richest as well. The Duchess de Chartres instantly took a fancy to the dark, slender, distingue " Chevalier, sans titre, de la mer " — " the untitled knight of the sea," as she used to call him ; and Paul Jones at once became a welcome visitor at her cottage-palace at Brest. The afternoon before the Eanger sailed, the Duch- ess de Chartres gave a luncheon to Captain Jones at which the Count d'Orvilliers was present. The Duchess was granddaughter of the Count de Tou- louse, son of Louis XIV. by Madame de Montes- pan ; and her grandfather had commanded the French fleet in the great battle with the allied English and Dutch fleets off Malaga, August 24 and 25, 1704. That battle was, up to that time, the most credit- able — or, perhaps, least discreditable — to the French Navy, of all its encounters with the fleets of Eng- 106 THE PEENCH ALLIANCE land; and the Duchess took infinite pride in the exploit of her ancestor. In some way the subject of the battle off Malaga was brought up at this luncheon. Jones, whose studies of naval history fully equipped him for the discussion, made bold to tra- verse a criticism offered by d'Orvilliers on the fail- ure of de Toulouse to follow the Anglo-Dutch fleets under Sir George Eooke when they retreated toward Gibraltar after two days' fighting. In this debate, Jones, who took the side of de Toulouse, displayed knowledge of the strategy and tactics of that great combat which challenged the admiration of d'Orvill- iers himself, as well as that of all the other French officers present. In the course of his review of the event he showed that he knew to a ship, to a gun and almost to a man, the strength of the respective fleets. He also exhibited comprehensive knowledge of the grand strategy of the campaign as a whole, and an accurate understanding of the political bearing of the operations upon the dynastic questions in- volved in the war of the Spanish succession. This amazed d'Orvilliers, who had previously regarded him with a sort of patronizing interest as a Yankee skipper of something more than usual dash and cleverness. But if it amazed d'Orvilliers it delighted the Duchess de Chartres beyond expression, because she cherished above all things the memory of her grandfather's career in the French Navy. Before the dinner was over, she sent an attendant to bring from her jewel-case a Louis Quinze watch of rare design and great value, which her grandfather had worn, and she presented it to Captain Jones in token of 107 PAUL JONES his appreciation of her grandfather's character and career. Jones, though in his turn amazed, was too thor- ough a sailor to be " taken aback." He accepted the priceless gift as gracefully as it had been of- fered to him, and said to the Duchess, with his thanks : " May it please your Eoyal Highness, if fortune should favor me at sea, I will some day lay an English frigate at your feet ! " CHAPTEE VI THE CAPTURE OF THE DRAKE Sailing from Brest April lOth, the Eanger at first shaped her course for the west coast of Ireland, but the second day out a westerly gale impelled Captain Jones to alter his cruising plan to the extent of run- ning up through St. George's Channel into the Irish Sea. On this course he cruised to the northward until he reached the Irish Channel. His original intention had been to make the complete circuit of the British Isles, going up the west coast, thence north- about and down the east coast, and through the Chan- nel back to Brest. This, as he said in his journal of 1782, was " a provisional plan, subject of course to change or modification according to circumstances and events." Arriving on the Cumberland coast and learning from fishermen decoyed on board that there was a large amount of shipping in the harbor of White- haven, with no warship of superior force in the neighborhood to protect it, and wishing also to take advantage of his intimate personal knowledge of that harbor and its approaches, he resolved to make a descent with a view of destroying the ships in port there. Up to that time the British authorities had no suspicion of his presence in the Irish Sea. It was 109 PAUL JONES fortunate that head-winds on the 11th and 12th of April deterred him from his projected course up the west coast of Ireland, because Arthur Lee's private secretary, Thornton, had advised the British Ad- miralty as to the plan of the cruise, and that infor- mation was actually in London a day or two before Jones sailed from Brest. Promptly acting upon Thornton's advices, the Admiralty had ordered a thirty-two-gun frigate and two heavy sloops-of-war to the west coast of Lreland. These vessels sailed from Plymouth the day after Jones left Brest, but were compelled to put into Falmouth by the same westerly gale that caused the Ranger to sheer ofif into the Irish Sea. As soon as the gale abated, the frigate and the two sloops proceeded to their station, where, of course, they could not find Jones. As the Ranger approached Whitehaven the wind still held to the westward, making her destination a lee-shore, and it was necessary to stand o£f and on for two or three days. Finally the wind hauled to the eastward, and the Ranger at once beat up toward the town. The wind died out about midnight of April 22d, before the ship had got as near the port as Jonet desired, but, having no time to lose, he decided to make the attempt, anyhow. He took command of the expedition in person. It consisted, besides him- self, of Third Lieutenant Wallingford, Midshipmen Arthur Green and Charles Hill, and twenty-nine seamen, in two boats. The surprise was complete. The two small forts at the month of the harbor were precipitately aban- doned by their garrison of " coast-guards," one be- 110 THE CAPTUKE OF THE DRAKE ing taken by Captain Jones, Midshipman Green, and six men ; the other by Midshipman Hill and ten men, while Lieutenant WaUingford with eight men landed above the point, leaving only four men as boat-guard. The long pull from the ship had con- sumed some time, so that when the three parties reached the tidal basin in which the shipping lay, it was nearly daylight. There had been no real resist- ance, but a few musket and pistol shots had been fired, and the town, or at least that part of it nearest the harbor, was thoroughly aroused. Besides, it was now full daylight, and the insignificance of Jones's force became evident to the townspeople, who were rallying from all directions. Fires had been kindled aboard several ships in the basin, but they had all gone out or been extinguished except one. The necessity for immediate retreat to the ship was clear to all, and there was no time to lose. The land- ing-party, small as it was, had become separated into two groups, one commanded by Jones, the other by WaUingford. Jones, thinking that Wallingford's party was more seriously menaced for the moment than his own, attacked and dispersed with his dozen men a force of about one hundred of the local militia who were endeavoring to retake the lower fort or battery, whose gims he had already spiked. Mean- time WaUingford and his party had reached their boat, though not without a lively but not fatal skir- mish between Midshipman Hill, in command of five or six men who formed the rear-guard of that party, and a considerable number of the townspeople and coast-guards who tried to intercept them. With these unimportant exceptions the whole landing- Ill PAUL JONES force except one man * got safely into the boats and were on board the Hanger again before the sun was an hour high. Jones says of this enterprise : Its actual results were of little moment, for the intended destruction of shipping was limited to one vessel. But the moral effect of it was very great, as it taught the English that the fancied security of their coasts was a myth, and thereby compelled their Government to take expensive measures for the defence of numerous ports hitherto relying for protection wholly on the vigilance and supposed om- nipotence of their navy. It also doubled or more the rates of insurance, which in the long run proved the most griev- ous damage of all. The foregoing is an extract from a report in which he requests that special reward be given to the men who formed the landing-party. As soon as all were safely aboard the Banger, Jones bore up for the north shore of Solway Firth, which was not more than three hours' sail, and made * This man was Jonathan Wells, able seaman, hailing from Ports- mouth. He remained too long in a ship that had been set on fixe, trying to find a fcar-barrel to feed the fiames, and was thereby cut off from the rest of the party. However, he was cunning enough to make the English believe that he had deserted, and not long afterward suc- ceeded in shipping on board a British transport bound to America. Soon after arriving in New York he deserted from the British, went to New- port, and after some adventures in privateers, shipped in the Alliance when she went to France, carrying Lafayette, early in 1779. On arriv- ing at rOrient and finding that Jones was fitting out the Bon Homme Richard, Wells made himself known to the Commodore, who promptly had him transferred to the Richard. Wells gave his name as *' David Freeman " in this affair, and the local paper — the Cumberland Packet — of that date published a long article derived from the " information " he gave. 113 THE CAPTUKE OF THE DRAKE another descent on St. Mary's Isle, the castle of the Earl of Selkirk. The object of this foray has been variously conjectured. Jones himself stated frankly in a letter to Lady Selkirk, written soon afterward, which has been widely published, that his purpose was to carry off the Earl, with a view of holding him as hostage for the better treatment of Amer- ican prisoners then in England. In a letter to Mr. Hewes he gives that reason and states also that he wished to produce the impression that more than one American ship was on the coast, and believed that two descents in one day at points thirty or forty miles apart would have that effect. However, the Earl happened to be away from home, and the only result of the foray was the ap- propriation of several pieces of silver-ware from the castle by some of the landing-party. A vast quantity of ink has been spilled over this transac- tion. It may have been justifiable as an extreme measure on the part of a weak power to alarm and worry a strong power. But we think the general verdict is that a project to seize the person of a non- combatant nobleman with a view of holding him as a hostage or of coercing him to use his influence with his government for the better treatment of pris- oners of war, fairly captured, can hardly be brought within the most liberal definition of civilized war- fare. The fact that it had many examples in the conduct of British landing-parties on our own coast is no justification. Two wrongs do not make one right. It is doubtless fortunate for the fame of Paul Jones that he did not find the Earl of Selkirk at home ; because, had Jones captured him and Vol. I.— 8 113 PAUL JONES taken him to France, the act could not have failed to produce unpleasant complications, and it must certainly have injured Jones's reputation in the higher circles of France at a time when the good opinion of that class of people in that country was indispensable to his future success. As for the few pieces of plate that were taken, Jones purchased them from the captors at his own expense, and, after considerable trouble and delay, succeeded in restoring them to the Earl, who ac- knowledged the restitution in a letter from which the following is an extract : Notwithstanding all the precautions you took for the easy and uninterrupted conveyance of the plate, yet it met with considerable delays ; first at Calais, then at Dover, then at London ; however, it at last arrived at Dumfries. . . . I have mentioned it to many people of fashion ; and on all occasions, sir, both now and formerly, I have done you the justice to tell that you made an ofler of returning the plate very soon after your return to Brest. The cost to Jones of buying the plate from the captors and shipping it from Brest to Dumfries was about £140— say $700. During the night of April 23d the Ranger stood across the Irish Channel, and the next day Jones learned from some fishermen whose boats he picked up that the Drake, twenty -gun sloop-of-war, guard- ship at Oarrickfergus, was coming out in search of him. He had already looked into Oarrickfergus on the 21st, and would have attacked the Drake, then at anchor in the roadstead, but for the contrary wind. Now, as he describes it, "to save trouble, I ran 114 THE CAPTURE OF THE DRAKE down again, hove to off the mouth of Belfast Lough, and waited for the Drake to work out, which saved me the pains of going in after her." As he hove to, the Drake sent one of her boats out to reconnoitre, and Jones succeeded in decoying the boat aboard the Kanger, making prisoners of the midshipman and five men in her. The Drake had wind and tide both against her, and worked out so slowly that it lacked only an hour of sundown when she got with- in hail. Jones's official report of the action that followed is included in his general account of the cruise to the commissioners, dated Brest, May 27, 1778. It is terse and formal, occupying only a sin- gle paragraph in the general report, and has been doubtless more widely and more often printed than any other report of an action between ships of such comparative unimportance. But, small as the ships were, this action involved the turning of a new page in naval history, and to that fact alone it owes its celebrity. It was the first instance, in modem naval warfare, of the capture of a regular British man-of-war by a ship of inferior force. In that re- spect it " broke a record " that had been inviolate since the beginning of regular navies, and it an- nounced to mankind the advent of a new sea-power. From that point of view the size and rate of the ships were immaterial. Jones's official report, re- ferred to, is not particularly interesting, and, as most well-read school-boys have it by heart, it is hardly worth while to reproduce its text here. The real, vivid, masterly description — ^the best extant — is found in a personal letter written by Captain Jones to Joseph Hewes, May 22, 1778, about 115 PAUL JONES two weeks after his return to Brest. Mr. Hewes was not at that time a member of the Continental Congress, having been compelled by ill-health to retire from public life ; to which Jones at the out- set of his letter refers with characteristic feeling. He says : . . . The public misfortune of your retirement from the Committee and from Congress in consequence of failing health, and the resulting fact that you, perhaps, do not now enjoy the readiness of access to official sources of in- formation you formerly did, and the great individual obli- gation I owe you, make it more than ever my duty to keep you personally advised of my movements. I need not assure you that this is a welcome duty, much as I deplore the cause of it, for the reason that I know there is no person living to whom news of my success can bring more satisfaction than to yourself. And you are surely entitled to such satisfaction, because you, more than any other person, have labored to place the instruments of success in my hands. I assume you will have seen, before this can reach you, that on the late afternoon of April 34th past the Ranger, under my command, off Carrickfergus, took H. B . M. sloop- of-war the Drake, twenty guns, one hundred and fifty- seven officers and men, after a hard-fought battle of one hour, four minutes, pure and simple broadsiding at close range. In this connection I may say that at the time of going into action I had one hundred and twenty-six, all hands, at quarters, and eighteen guns. The Drake's bat- tery is sixteen nine-pounders and four four-pounders ; the Ranger's fourteen nine-pounders and four sixes. The result of the action was due entirely to the superior gunnery of my crew. There was no maneuvring worth mention. As soon as the two ships got clear of the land, the Drake being astern and within hail, both standing to 116 THE CAPTUEE OP THE DRAKE the eastward, the wind southerly and light, sea fairly smooth, they hailed us : "What ship is that?" to which we replied : "The American Continental ship Ranger; come on; we are waiting for you." Both ships then wore almost together, laying their heads to the north, and going off nearly before the wind, which was no more than enough to make good steering way. Our broadside was just an instant the first. The enemy's fire was spirited, but, for a King's ship, very ineflective. This I can attribute only to the distress and confusion caused on board of her by the remarkable effect of our fire. The range was close, hardly more than musket shot at any time. Her crew, as I can judge from the prisoners taken, was fully up to the British man-of-war standard. Yet in the hour of cannonading our loss was only two killed and six wounded — one mortally. The Ranger did not suffer in hull or spars or rigging enough to have prevented her from fighting again the next morning if necessary. But the Drake was almost wrecked, and she lost nineteen killed or died of wounds, including her captain and first lieutenant, and twenty-eight officers and men severely wounded, the only sea ofQcer remaining to strike her flag being her second lieutenant. The behavior of my men in this engagement more than justifies the representations I have so often made to you of what American sailors would do if given a chance at the enemy in his own waters. We have seen that they fight with courage on our own coast. But no one has ever seen them fight on our coast as they fought here, almost in hail of the enemy's shore. Every shot told, and they gave the Drake three broadsides for two right along, at that.* * Captain Mahan (" John Paul Jones in the Bevolution ; " Scribner's Magazine, July, 1898) intimates that there was a mutiny in the Kang- er, fomented by her first lieutenant, Simpson, just before engaging the Drake. Other accounts to that effect have been printed, and Captain Mahan doubtless accepted them. Simpson had been more or less insub- ordinate ever since the arrival of the Banger in France. His manceu- 117 PAUL JONES Of course I had lost no opportunity of training them La great-gun exercise, both at sea and in port. But my supply of ammunition would never admit of actual target practice, so the precision of their fire was simply natural aptitude. I have never before seen men handle guns as they han- dled the Ranger's nine-pounders. . . . As the two ships were going off the wind, which was light, they both rolled considerably and together ; that is, when the Ranger went down to port the Drake came up to starboard. Quite early in the action I noticed that my quarter gunners had caught the Drake's period of roll and were timing to fire as their muzzles went down and the en- emy's side came up. By this practice they were hulling the Drake prodigiously below the water line, and everywhere below the plank-sheer, though damaging her but little aloft. Being near Quarter-Guimer Owen Starbuck, of Nantucket, at the moment, I asked him why they flred that way, and he replied : " To sink the English- b s, sir ! " I then told Starbuck and the others that it was not my policy to sink the Drake, but that I wished to take her alive instead of destroying her ; explaining that it would be much more to our advantage to carry her as a visible prize into a French port. The alert fellows instantly took this hint and began firing as their muzzles rose, by which practice they soon crippled the Drake's spars and rigging, and made her an unmanageable log on the water. I am persuaded vring of the Drake as prize master during the return voyage to Brest in- dicated an intention to part company with the Banger if he could. And he was rankly insubordinate after they reached Brest. But in the ac- tion itself he seems to have done his duty like a man. Jones makes no mention of mutiny off Carriokfergus ; either in his official report to the American Commissioners, dated Brest, May 27, 1778, or in his private letters to Joseph Hewes, Robert Morris, and Franklin. On the contrary, in a severe letter to Simpson himself, which will be found on a subse- quent page, he expressly commends that ofl&cer's conduct in the action — and he does it by way of emphasizing criticism on his misconduct else- where. In all his papers Jones speaks of the conduct of his crew in the highest terras. 118 THE CAPTUEE OP THE DRAKE] that if I had not advised them to this eflfeet, my gnimers would have sunk the Drake in an hour ! As it was, we had to put spare sails over the side after she struck, to keep her afloat, and careen her as much as we could the next day to plug the holes they had already made between wind and water. While I am telling you about the behavior of my men, I miust not forget to mention that at the moment when the Drake's fore and main topsail yards came down on the caps, and she fell off, giving us the chance to luff under her stem and rake her, I was in the forward division, in consequence of Lieutenant Wallingford being killed, and at once started to run aft to the wheel to order the helm down for the mancBuvre. But before I got to the mainmast the fore and main topsails were already shivering, because Chief Quartermaster Nathan Sargent, of Portsmouth, N. H. , who had the wheel, had already seen our chance and had taken upon himself the important responsibility of luflttng ship without orders ; thus anticipating my intention, and leaving me nothing to do but order the starboard tacks on board to keep her full and shift the broadside for raking, when, luckily, the enemy, realizing his helpless situation, called for quarter and spared further bloodshed. The un- fortunate loss of Lieutenant Wallingford in the action en- abled me to advance Mr. Sargent to the post of Acting Master. But I regret to say that since our return here he has found it to his advantage to leave me, being offered command of a large French privateer of twenty-six guns belonging to Monsieur de Chaumont and Monsieur Mar- cereau, now fitting out at St. Malo. As Mr. Sargent is master of the French language, this command will enable him to better his fortunes, and in view of the sorry hopes of recompense in the Continental service I could not with- hold my consent to his going, or to liis taking with him eight others of my New Hampshire men, whom he will make officers in his new ship, the Marseille. Our seamen who can speak French are in great request here for officers Ln privateers. 119 PAUL JONES Doubtless the best idea I can give you of the gunnery of my men will be found in the report and estimate of my most efilcient carpenter, Mr. William Hichburn, of Salem, a shipwright of much experience. I enclose with this a copy of that report * as handed by me to the Superintendent of the Dockyard here (Brest) when permission was got to repair the Drake here at the expense of the French. I also send a track chart of the cruise. Continuing to Mr. Hewes, Jones says : My loss, though small in number, was severe in quality. My third lieutenant, Mr. R. Wallingford, known to you personally, was killed. By his death the service has lost * " Report and Estimate : Respectpullt Sobmitted. Having fully examined the hull, spars, and rigging of H. B. M.'s late ship the Drake, I estimate that the repairs necessary in order to refit the ves- sel for commission and sea service will coat about three thousand louis d'ors, French money, or say 3,700 guineas, English. " She has in her hull below the plank sheer one hundred and seven shot holes, of which thirty-six are at or below the water line. Her upper works, boats, spare spars, and deck fittings generally are completely wrecked, wheel shot away, capstan split and jammed, and spanker boom nearly cut in two. Several butts in her counter and in the bends for- ward have been started by shot. Five of her nine gun carriages in broad- side have been wrecked and the guns dismounted. The after breeching bolts in the starboard bridle port have been carried away, the same shot disabling also her port bow chaser. She has three bad wounds in her foremast, weakening it so much that she has not been able to carry a whole f oretopsail since the action ; notwithstanding that we fished it as well as we could at sea the day after. Her standing and running rigging is much damaged. She needs new slings, braces, stays, and hal- liards on the fore and main, a new capstan, a new spanker boom, a new wheel, and very considerable new wood work in cabin and quarters to replace that stove by shot. I estimate that she was struck in hull, spars, and rigging by nearly one hundred and eighty round shots besides many grapesbot. The close range at which the action was fought made these hits very destructive, many of the shot going through and through. The Drake is a new ship, less than three years ofFthe stocks, and is well worth the extensive repairs made necessary by the mauling she got from ova ship. W. HiCHBUKN, Carpenter." 130 THE CAPTURE OF THE DEAEE one of its most promising young ofiEleers. I held great expec- tations of Mr. Wallingf ord. Midshipman Powers and Gun- ner Falls, both most excellent oflBcers, are severely wounded, Mr. Powers losing his left arm. Of the enlisted men. Quar- termaster John Dougall and Nathaniel Wills are dead, and able seamen Mark Staples, David Sargent, and Matthew Starbuok are wounded severely, but now doing well. After the action I returned round the west coast of Ireland in good time, with no noteworthy incident except taking a prize off Malin Head, Ireland. She was bound from the Baltic, northabout, with naval stores, and is a valuable prize. On the whole I was out of port twenty-eight days, took six merchant prizes, of which I destroyed three and the other three are safe in French ports ; besides taking and bringing in a regular man-of-war of the enemy, slightly superior in force to my ship. Trusting that this may find you improved in health and able to resume your important labor for our common cause, I am, etc.* During the niglit and next day after this battle the sea remained smooth, with light airs from the * The English papers made every effort to mjniimze the significance of this victory. The captain — Burden — of the Drake and the first lieuten- ant were killed. The next in rank, who surrendered the ship, was wounded and held prisoner more than a year, and he did not undergo the usual court-martial until nearly eighteen months afterward. His testi- mony was that the Drake's twenty guns were only four-pounders. If that was true, someone must have mounted a new battery on her before she was sold as a prize at Brest ; because the voucher for her in the archives of the French Admiralty describes her battery as sixteen nine- pounders and four four-pounders. ("Seize pieces de neuf livrea de balle et quatre pieces de quatre.") Professor Laughton, a distinguished and usually reliable English authority on such subjects, accepts the state- ment of the officer who was court-martialed and argues from it that the Drake was really outclassed by the Eanger in weight of metal. With this summary of the evidence we leave the issue between Professor Laughton and the archives of the French Admiralty. 121 PAUL JONES southward, which made it possible to effect tempo- rary repairs to the Drake sufficient to get her under way again. Jones now reluctantly gave up his pro- jected cruise around Scotland and down the east coast. Of his original complement of one hundred and thirty-nine, all told, two officers and ten men had been put in prizes taken in St. George's Chan- nel. One man had been left behind in the descent on Whitehaven. Bight had been killed or wounded in the action with the Drake. It had been necessary to put thirty-two officers^and men on that prize partly in consequence of her crippled condition and partly to guard the large part of her crew left as prisoners on board of her. This left the Eanger with only eighty-six, all hands ; and Jones, of course, saw that the cruise was ended. He therefore, as the twenty- four hours of drifting northwestward had carried the ships clear of the north coast of Ireland, shaped his course to the westward and southward until well clear of the mouth of the English Channel, and then bore up for Brest, where he anchored after dark in the outer roadstead, the 8th of May, with the Drake and the merchant prize taken after the battle. Jones knew that by this time France and England must be at least on the eve of war, if not actually at it. He knew that the Treaty of Alliance between France and the United States, the moment it should be officially promulgated, would save the trouble of a declaration of war ; because England, under the haughty and arrogant policy of Lord North, must take the alliance itself as the index of a state of war, without formal declaration. And he had reason to 122 THE CAPTUEE OE THE DRAKE believe that such official knowledge might, likely, have transpired during his cruise. Just before Jones sailed from Brest, April 10th, the Count d'Orvilliers, evidently anticipating the outbreak of active hostilities between France and England before his return, had intrusted to him the private signal-book of the French Navy ; and, not only that, but also the special codes of night signals to pass the forts and batteries of Brest, I'Orient, Erochef ort, and la Eochelle — a confidence, by the way, never before reposed by a French conunander-in- chief in the senior officer of any foreign naval power. It happened that Jones, with his prizes, approached the outer road of Brest some time after dark. May 8th. He at once saw by the moving lights of the guard-frigates standing off and on below Point St- Mathieu that the grand fleet was anchored in the roadstead ready for war, because the four frig- ates on guard were all under way patrolling the cul de sac between Ushant and the mainland, and as he came down inside of Ushant and brought Point St. Mathieu on his port bow, the frigate La Belle Poule showed her number and private night signal about gunshot off on his starboard bow. Jones answered with the private night signal of a French cruiser making port, gave the special private number that d'Orvilliers had fixed for the Kanger, and then, when these signals had been properly answered, informed the Belle Poule by the ordinary code that he had under his lee two prizes, one of which was lately an enemy's ship-of- war of superior force. The Belle Poule repeated these signals to the Licome, the guard-frigate next 123 PAUL JONES astern of her, and then the two French frigates together bore down within hail. To the formal night hail, " Who are you and what is your prize ? " Jones answered over the Ranger's taffrail : " The American Continental ship Eanger, of eighteen guns. Captain Paul Jones, and the man- of-war prize is His Britannic Majesty's late ship the Drake, of twenty guns. The other prize a-lee is a merchant ship, not armed ! " The Belle Poule then escorted the Ranger and her prizes inside of Point St. Mathieu and ordered them to anchor under the lee of Eoscanuel Point. Jones was delighted with the cautious formality of this re- ception, because he knew it meant a state of war be- tween France and England, and also that it meant the preparedness of the French fleet for action, which had not been the case when he sailed a month before. When the Belle Poule had escorted Jones and his prizes to their anchorage under Eoscanuel, she re- sumed her station outside. It was now near mid- night, and of course there was no further demonstra- tion. But early in the morning Jones put off in his boat and boarded the Saint Esprit, flag-ship of the van division of the fleet, and asked permission to pass into the inner harbor. By that time the vicinity of the Eanger and her prizes was thronged with boats from all the French ships in sight. The French officers satisfied themselves by personal inspection from their boats that an American ship had actually taken and brought into port an English ship of su- perior force. The ships were small. But there they were, anchored close alongside ; the conquering 124 THE CAPTURE OF THE DRAKE American and the conquered Englishman ; and the Englishman was the more powerful of the two. Such an exhibit may have been the picture in Jones's brain when, in the heat of the battle, he told Owen Starbuck that it was not his policy to sink the Drake ; that it would be much more to their ad- vantage to take her alive and bring her as a visible prize into a French port. If so he had realized his mind-picture. He had shown to the French and to all the rest of the world that an English ship could be compelled to surrender to a ship of equal, or even inferior, force. No one else had ever demonstrated that. No one would have believed it without seeing it in real flesh and blood, or in real wood and iron. That was what made Paul Jones immortal. The little ships were lost sight of in the colossal fact that England and Englishmen could be conquered on the sea ; a new fact, before unknown. The next day, as soon as the necessary formalities had been exchanged and free communication estab- lished, the decks of the Ranger and her prize, the Drake, were thronged with visiting French officers. Count d'Orvilliers sent his compliments and con- gratulations. The Duke de Chartres came on board in person and invited Jones to dine with him aboard his flag-ship, the Saint Esprit. After lying two days at this anchorage, constantly receiving such attentions, the Eanger and her prizes got under way and tided up to the Dockyard Harbor of Brest. Here Jones's troubles began again. His triumph had lasted about forty-eight hours. His trials and his miseries were to last as many weeks. 125 PAUL JONES As soon as he arrived at the inner harbor and moored his ship and prizes, several problems of quite a practical and wholly unsentimental nature confronted him. He had to cast about him for the wherewithal to clothe and feed his crew of over a hundred men, his prisoners, numbering nearly two hundred, and, besides all that, he had to pay his crew. Naturally, it would be supposed, the representatives of our Government then in France hastened to help him in such an emergency. He held a letter of credit from Congress authorizing him to draw on the commissioners for funds to meet the necessary expenses of his ship, which, of course, included the cost incident to the proper maintenance of any prisoners or prizes he might take. Being wholly out of supplies of every kind, he at once negotiated with a merchant at Brest, named BersoUe, to supply his crew and prisoners with food and such other indispensable things as they might need for the time being. He also tried to provide for repairs to the Eanger and for the overhaul and refit of his battered and almost dismantled prize, the Drake. To cover these expenses he drew on the com- missioners, by virtue of his letter of credit from Congress, for 24,000 livres, in favor of M. Bersolle, under date of May 16, 1778. On the 25th of May the commissioners wrote him a letter in which, after congratulating him on his victory, they informed him that they had no authority to honor his draft and returned it to M. Bersolle, protested. This letter was signed by Dr. Franklin, John Adams, and Arthur Lee. It is easy to imagine the willingness 126 THE CAPTURE OE THE DRAKE of the two extremes of Massachusetts Puritan and Yirginia Cavalier to sign such a letter as that ; but the signature of Benjamin Franklin is not so easily understood. However, it was there. The incident, whatever its effect on other men might have been, only put Paul Jones on his mettle. Instantly, on receipt of the letter of the commis- sioners, he replied under date of May 27, 1788, as follows : . . . I conceive that this might have been prevented. To make me completely wretched M. Bersolle (who was supplying my ship and prizes on credit) now stops his hand, not only of the necessary articles to reflt the ships, but also of the daily provisions for my crew and prisoners. I know not where or how to provide food for to-morrow's dinner to feed the great number of mouths that depend on me for food (one hundred and eighteen of my own people, and one hundred and twenty-one prisoners of the Drake, be- sides nearly forty taken in merchant prizes). Are then the Continental ships of war to depend on sale of their prizes for the daily dinner of their men ? Has it come to this, that I and my truly poor, brave men must not only fight without pay, but also compel our enemy to feed us ? Is, then, our cause become so mendicant that men who so victoriously defend it must take not only the chances of death in battle, but also face the fate of beggary and even starvation after they have conquered ? Jones never did things by halves. He not only sent to the commissioners the English text of this fierce eloquence, but he also carefully translated it into French and gave the French version of it to the Duke de Chartres, who at once sent it to Maurepas, 127 PAUL JONES Vergennes, and Calonne. Jones wajited to print it then and there in the Journal de la Marine, a weekly paper published at Brest ; but the Duke and the Count d'Orvilliers dissuaded him from this purpose. At that time our infant Government had at Brest what was termed a "fiscal agent." His name was Schweighauser. In their letter of May 25th, before referred to, the commissioners had said : " Your ap- plication should have been made to M. Schweig- hauser, who is the person regularly authorized to act as Continental Agent at Brest," etc. In his reply Jones did not even mention their ref- erence to Schweighauser or acknowledge the exist- ence of any "fiscal agent." His draft having been protested by men sitting in safety at Passy, while he and his crew were fighting battles and taking prizes, he took affairs into his own hands. He at once called upon M. BersoUe and offered to arrange for the hypothecation of his Baltic prize and cargo for the supplies his crew and prisoners needed. BersoUe, who understood maritime law and admi- ralty jurisprudence, reminded Jones that he could not make a good title to the ship and cargo without the approval of the American Commissioners. To this Jones replied : In strict point of the law of nations, you must consider me not in any way a servant of any master but Congress itself, so far as this purpose is concerned. You, as a sub- ject of the King of France, have no legal knowledge that I am responsible to the Commissioners, because you can have no legal knowledge of any power on the part of the Com- missioners in the international sense ; as no edict recog- nizing their diplomatic authority has been promulgated. 128 THE CAPTURE OF THE DRAKE You know them only as certain American persons residing in a quasi official capacity near the Court of Versailles. You have no warrant to know them in any capacity that can supersede me here, because I now show you my origi- nal commission from the Congress, and my orders to com- mand the Ranger, all on the first parchment, with no reference whatever to Commissioners, fiscal agents, or any- one else. You may therefore, for present purposes, look upon me as the direct naval representative of Congress here. If you doubt my point of law, consult the chancel- lor of His Most Gracious Majesty's Dockyard here. If you find that my legal theory is right, then libel my merchant- prize at once by the usual process of your local marine court, irrespective of any other consideration than the debt due, and let me know when the process is to be served on board. I will then arrange in advance to have my prize- crew abandon the libelled ship, leaviag her In possession of the bailiffs in admiralty. Then she can be adjudicated, condemned for violation of the port laws and sold, like any other merchant-ship, in default, in a foreign port. BersoUe, after consulting the chancellor of the dockyard, libelled the prize and she was sold. Most of the cargo of naval stores was bid in by the gen- era] storekeeper of the dockyard, by order of Count d'Orvilliers. The ship herself was struck off to a French ship-broker who, as was afterward ascer- tained, represented Schweighauser ; the latter stand- ing in such personal fear of Jones that he did not dare to appear in the transaction. The sale of the prize and cargo realized much more than was neces- sary to satisfy the libellant, BersoUe. The remain- der was held by the court subject to the order of the banker who, at the instance of d'Orvilliers, had financed the transaction, and was subsequently ap- VoL. I.— 9 129 PAUL JONES plied to the payment of Jones's drafts on account of subsistence and pay of his crew and the cost of repair and refit of the Ranger and the Drake. Schweig- hauser was not recognized as " American agent " or anything else at any stage of the transaction ; neither was the authority of the commissioners in- voked nor their advice asked. In describing the affair Jones curtly says : " I could not waste time discussing questions of authority when my crew and prisoners were starving." Viewed in the light of our own time, this was a high-handed proceeding. But the exigency seems to have justified it. The commissioners certainly submitted to it, because neither they then, nor our Government ever afterward, made the slightest at- tempt to question, much less to subvert, Jones's action. In a letter to Arthur Lee dated November 1, 1778, Jones says : " ... I shall only add that the dishonor of my bill of exchange . . . occasioned the infamous necessity for attachment of the Bang- er's prize for provisions and other supplies already furnished by M. BersoUe." In October, 1778, Jones addressed a memorial to King Louis XVI. in the form of a summary of his operations up to that time. In this paper he refers to this affair as follows, after describing it and its causes : Your Majesty will perceive that this transaction was ir- regular, at least evasive of the strict letter of law and of my instructions. But your Majesty's perfect knowledge of affairs will enable you also to perceive that I was at that moment under the duress of conditions tantamount to dis- 130 THE CAPTURE OP THE DRAKE tress at sea ; conditions which as all the authorities on maritime jurisprudence and admiralty law agree, may, in the discretion of a commander, be held to annul instruc- tions and supersede regulations. I would also beg your Most Christian Majesty to deign to note the fact that the American Commissioners made no subsequent effort to subvert my arrangements, which was acquiescence amount- ing to tacit approval. Having by this rather summary expedient pro- vided for the subsistence and part pay of his crew and the refit of his ships, Jones next had to deal with his insubordinate first lieutenant, Simpson. In his dealings with this officer, Jones, for the first, last, and only time in his fierce career, exhibited vacillation or, at least, incertitude. The scope of this work does not admit of reproducing in full the text of the corre- spondence concerning the affair. In summary, let it suffice to say that soon after the Eanger returned to Brest, Jones put Simpson in close arrest. A short time afterward he released him on parole. Soon after that he wrote a letter to the commission- ers in which he said (June 16, 1778) : . . . I am now willing to release Lieutenant Simpson from his parole, which will entitle him to the command of the Ranger. I bear no malice ; and if I have done him injury, this will be making all the satisfaction at present in my power. If, on the contrary, he has injured me, I will trust to him for an acknowledgment. Then, as the French Minister of Marine had prom- ised to give him the Indien or an equivalent ship, Jones turned the command of the Hanger over to .Simpson. Very soon after this reports reached 131 PATJL JONES Jones that Simpson liad said Jones was removed from command of the Banger in disgrace, etc- Thereupon Jones revoked his prior action and re- newed his demand for a court-martial of Simpson, which was ordered by the commissioners tmder date of August 22, 1778. In connection with this action he wrote a letter to Simpson in which, after stating what he had done and his reasons for it, he said : I have never regretted anything more than this necessity. I well know that you have been misled, and that you are really the victim of Arthur Lee's harpies, rather than my enemy by your own volition. Had I believed your conduct to be inspired by malice of your own, I would not trouble myself with pen and ink concerning you. Even now, though my charges against you have been entertained and court-martial ordered, I do not hesitate to tell you that my main object is to compel the bringing out of facts in the trial that could be brought out in no other way ; namely, the facts of your association with Thornton and Ford,* and their snakish influence over you ; and also * Among the facts Jones ascertained when investigating the chaiges against Dr. Bancroft was that the men appointed as "American agents " at the French fitting-out ports were all creatures of Arthur Lee, xmder the influence of the British spies whom Lee had for "private secre- taries ; " and not only treacherous, but dishonest as well ; because they invariably conspired with French ship-brokers to bid in prizes far below their real value. Jones, in his review of the subject, says : "They made snap sales and then divided with the ship-brokers the margin between the price paid for the prizes and their real value! Arthur Lee's signature to this letter (of May 35) was natural, because he or his creatures had instigated the dishonoring of my draft. John Adams's signature could be explained by his very recent arrival in France and his consequent lack of information as to the kind of people to be dealt with. But Dr. Franklin's signature to it I never could account for unless because his own honesty was so simple and pure that he could not comprehend or even imagine the existence of such villainy 132 THE CAPTURE O^ THE DRAKE the efforts that Arthur Lee's pet Jew at Brest [meaning Schweighauser] made to use you in underhand ways to cir- as that of Lee's spies and bandits in guise of private secretaries and sea- port agents. I confess that toward the last of my inquiry, when the evidence at my hand left no room, for doubt of their guilt, and when also I had to admit the want of means to punish them legally, I could never see one of them without feeling the impulse of homicide come over me. Fortunately, I held my hand. But to this day I cannot understand, even if I can excuse myself for it, why I spared the reptile life of Heze- kiah Ford in the courtyard of the post-inn at Brest, when he was at my mercy and I had eveiy justification to loll him." (Jones's journal of 1782.) This affair grew out of the attempt of Ford to incite mutiny among the Ranger's crew in 1778, after she returned to Brest. Ford first worked on the feeble mind of Lieutenant Simpson, until the latter ventured upon insubordination that caused Jones to place Tiim under arrest in close con- finement and to demand that he be court-martialed. Ford then drew up a petition to the commissioners, favoring Simpson and condemning Jones; and, by persuading the crew that it was the only means by which they could get their pay and return to America, he induced seventy-eight of them to sign it — among the signers, by their X-marks, being Jones's own former slave-boys, Cato and Scipio. It happened that Jones learned of the existence of this document just as Ford was about to set out for Paris. He went at once to the post-ion, where he found Ford in the courtyard, ready to step into the diligence. Jones in this rencontre knocked Ford down and then, seizing the post- driver's whip, gave the wretch a savage horse-whipping. There is no doubt that Jones set out with the purpose of killing Ford ; because he had three pistols in his belt at the time, though not wearing his sword. Be this as it may, the affair was hushed up. Ford seems to have offered no resistance. He was a man nearly sis feet tall and weighed nearly two hundred pounds. Jones was five feet seven, and never weighed over one hundred and forty-five pounds. About six months after this affair Ford was denounced as a spy and a traitor by resolution of the Legislature of Virginia (January 6, 1779), the resolution was certified by the Gov- ernor of Virginia to Congress, and Congress by resolution ordered the dismissal of Ford from the service of the commissioners. But in spite or in contempt of even such proceedings, Arthur Lee still clxmg to Ford until the latter himself settled the affair shortly afterward by deserting to the British and going to London loaded with secret papers and private information concerning the diplomatio and financial operations of our comnaissioners. 133 PAUL JONES cumvent me in transactions in which the Jew himself was too careful of his precious pelt to venture showing his own hand. As I said in my letter of June 16, last, to Dr. Franklin, I bear you no malice. I could not bear malice toward a man who, under my own eye, has exhibited the splendid courage that you have shown in moments that try to the last test the stuff men are made of. So I say, and when you come to stand your trial, you may use this letter as you please ; I am not seeking to punish or disgrace you, but I am making use of your offending to reach others far above you, whom I could get my hands on in no other way. This may seem to you excessive candor, coming from your accuser in a court-martial ; and so it is. But I am thus candid with you because, before any evidence is taken, I wish you to know that I know the whole ease in advance. The trouble with you, Mr. Simpson, is that you have the heart of a lion and the head of a sheep. In battle, there is none braver than you ; ashore, in the hands of land-sharks, you are the easiest of victims. I shall not injure you in the coming prosecution. But I intend to hurt those whom you have foolishly believed to be your better friends than I am. To ttis unique letter Simpson promptly replied at some length. He admitted, in the main, the truth of Jones's view as to the causes of their previous mis- understanding ; he confessed that he had been de- ceived by Ford and Thornton ; he thanked Jones for the cordial recognition of his (Simpson's) be- havior in action ; he reminded Jones of the orig- inal understanding when they sailed from Ports- mouth, November 1, 1777, that the Eanger should be turned over to his (Simpson's) command on 134 THE CAPTUEJE OF THE DRAKE arrival in France ; and he concluded his letter as follows : Now, sir, I will say that I do not pretend to be capable of expressing my thoughts as you can express yours. I con- fess once for all that I am not your equal in any kind of argument. But I trust you will always think of me as an honest man. If I have been misguided to your detriment, I hope you will attribute it to lack of being able to see through the designs of others and not to studied bad in- tention of my own. With these admissions and agree- ments I shall now, sir, request you to do two things for me. First, that you shall withdraw the charges you have lodged against me and ask them [evidently meaning the commissioners] to revoke the order for my court-martial; and, second, that you shall use your power and Influence with Dr. Franklin to have the Ranger ordered to America under my command as soon as possible. My reason for asking this is that, as is well known, you do not yourself purpose to return in the Ranger to America, having larger prospects of your own on this side of the water. Also, as you know, the crew of the Ranger was shipped only for one year to date from October 1, 1777, when they were mustered on deck, and that year is nearly up. While many of them are gone off in French privateers by your permission, there is yet about sixty of the originals on board, and they all want to go home by the end of their term, which is their right, and it would not be right to try to hold them longer. In a letter to Joseph Hewes, dated the day be- fore the Ranger sailed for home, and transmitted by the hands of Simpson, Jones says : . . . Twenty-seven of the Ranger's old crew, thinking as I do that I will soon get another and more important command, have volunteered to stay with me ; re-engag- 135 PAUIi JONES ing for another year. . . . Among those so volunteer- ing is my little Narragansett Indian, Antony Jeremiah. 1 have seldom seen a person in whom I take such keen in- terest as in this boy. From our general idea of the nature of his race it seems strange that he should, so gladly as he does, take up with the restraints of man-of-war discipline. But he does, and, though not more than twenty-one or twenty-two years old, I haven't a better seaman. He is small in stature, but active and strong, and in the three cruises he has made with me — Providence, Alfred, and Ranger — his name has yet to appear on the sick-list. Now, in distinction to this, my two negro boys, Cato and Scipio, have chosen to go back home in the Ranger. I made no attempt to persuade them. But the difference between the choice of my two black boys and of my one little red boy most forcibly impresses me with the difference there is in heart and stamina between the red American and the black African. Cato and Scipio are prime seamen and, in the battle with the Drake, they behaved as well as white men could. But they are evidently satisfied with that ; and they are also homesick. Not so with my little red Indian. He is not homesick. Maybe he has no home to yearn after. But I prefer to ex- plain his choice to stay with me on other grounds. Our battle with the Drake gave him a taste of victory, and he wants more of it. He tells me that "he likes to see the big gun shoot ; " that " he likes to hear the big noise of much battle ; " " and that " it delights him to walk on the deck of the enemy's big boat when we have taken it." And he tells me also that "he thinks, bimeby, we will take a much bigger boat than the Drake and kill heap more enemy " than we have done. There is surely a vast difference between the red man and the black man where fighting is concerned. In response to Simpson's appeal, Jones, under date of September 6, 1778, formally withdrew the charges, 136 THE CAPTURE OE THE DRAKE requested the order for court-martial to be revoked, and recommended that the Eanger be ordered home under command of Lieutenant Simpson as soon as possible. This was done. The subsequent career of Lieutenant — afterward Captain — Simpson in com- mand of the Eanger was highly creditable. But the Eanger happened to be in Charleston Harbor when Sir Henry Clinton captured that place early in 1780 ; and in that unfortunate manner the gallant little •ship and her brave commander fell into the hands of the British without the least chance of escape or defence. Though Jones and Simpson had settled their dif- ferences as brave men always adjust such affairs when left to their own devices of candor and honesty, and though Simpson had gone to America rejoicing in the command to which he had so long and so ardently aspired, the British spies who formed the entourage of Arthur Lee diligently kept alive the report that Jones had been removed from the Eanger and could not obtain another command. These stories reached Jones from time to time, and, with his characteristic tendency to fight his way through everything, he set about tracing them to their source. This investigation led him, while at Nantes, in November, 1778, into collision with Stephen Sayre, one of Lee's numerous " secretaries." Sayre was an Englishman, and had been a deputy-sheriff in England under the patronage of John Wilkes before he entered the " official family " of Arthur Lee. Jones traced these stories, or some of them, to Sayre, and at once called him to personal account. 137 PAUL JONES Sayre had hitherto posed as a fighting man, and was even considered somewhat rash in personal affairs. Meeting Sayre in. a public coffee-house in Nantes, Jones denotmced him as a liar and a spy, and slapped his face. Sayre, who was a much larger and more powerful man than Jones, attempted to grapple with him, but Jones, who, fortunately, was wholly without weapons, wrested a heavy cane from the hands of a bystander, and fiercely at- tacked Sayre with it, when there was energetic in- terference by a squad of police.* Jones yielded to the authority of these, but was not placed under arrest, being simply required to give his parole to refrain from further violence. This leniency was doubtless due to the fact that he wore the uniform of his rank, and the civil police of France in those days never attempted to arrest, bodily, military or naval officers in uniform. * Jones, though a small man — five feet seven inches in stature and from one hundred and forty to one hundred and forty-five pounds in weight — possessed extraordinary physical strength, and with it agility or rapid- ity of movement the like of which has seldom heen seen. Nathaniel Pan- ning, in a personal description of him, says : " Though of low stature and slender build, the Commodore's neck, arms, and shoulders were those of a heavy-set man. His neck was out of proportion to the rest of him. The strength of his arms and shoulders could hardly be believed ; and he had equal use of both hands, even to writing vrith the left as well as with the right hand. He was past master of the art of boxing, and though there were many hard nuts to crack in the various crews he commanded, no one ever doubted that the Commodore was the best man aboard. To all this he added a quickness of motion that cannot be described except by saying that he was quicker than chain-lightning. When roused he would strike more blows and do more damage in a second than any other man I ever saw could do in a minute. Even when calm and unrufHed, his gait and all his bodily motions were exactly like those of the panther — noiseless, sleek, and the perfection of grace, yet always giving one the idea that it would be well to keep out of reach of his paws and teeth. " 138 THE CAPTURE OF THE DRAKE Sayre quickly recovered, and, as soon as he was able to travel, left Nantes for Paris, going thence to Amsterdam, and thence to Copenhagen, where he remained untU Jones left Paris the following spring to take command of the Bon Homme Richard. It is worth remarking that, during his period of refuge in Copenhagen, Sayre was still employed by Lee in the ostensible service of trying to fit out privateers to sail from that port xmder American letters-of-marque, and he continued in this quasi employment until Lee himself repudiated him in the spring of 1779 — some time about the end of March or early in April. However, as these stories interfered with Jones's efforts to obtain ships, he determined that they must be officially set at rest, and, in response to his request for such official notice, the following letter was written to him, with authority to exhibit it to anyone whom it might concern : Passt, February 10, 1779. Sir : As your separation from the Ranger and the ap- pointment of Lieutenant Simpson to the command of her will be liable to niisinterpretations and m^isrepresentations by persons who are unacquainted with the real cause of those facts, we hereby certify that your leaving the Ranger was by our consent, at the express request of his Excel- lency, Monsieur de Sartine (the Minister of Marine), who informed us that he had occasion to employ you in some public service ; that Lieutenant Simpson was appointed to command the Ranger with your consent, after having con- sented to release him from an arrest under which you had put him. That your leaving the Ranger ought not and cannot be any injury to your rank and character in tha 139 PAUL JONES service of the United States ; and that your commission in their Navy continues in full force. We have the honor to be, etc. , B. FBANKIim, John Adams. It will be noted that Arthur Lee, who was still one of the commissioners, did not sign the forego- ing letter. Jones, in his journal of 1782, states that "Lee was willing to sign it, but I did not wish him to, for reasons which I explained to Dr. Franklin, and which the Doctor communicated to Mr. Adams ; the said reasons being obviously quite satisfactory to both those most eminent gentlemen." 140 CHAPTEE Vn AN APPEAL TO KING LOUIS The foregoing chapters cover the first three years of Paul Jones's service as an officer in the Continen- tal Navy. The story they embody might be consid- ered, as it stands, an enviable record for the aver- age, or more than the average, naval commander. But brilliant as are many of the achievements re- corded in the preceding chapters, they, after all, serve but little purpose beyond that of a some- what elaborate introduction to the history of Paul Jones. They form little more than the chronolog- ical annals of his career up to the end of his third year of service, with no attempt at embellishment, and with only here and there an historical foot-note calculated to shed some side-light upon his won- derful personality. It is, we believe, customary in dealing with the history of an individual to pause at some point for the purpose of analyzing his character and deploy- ing in the abstract his traits. This usual and often pleasant ceremony will be omitted here, because no analysis, howsoever profound, and no survey, howso- ever searching or subtle, could lend, in the way of portrayal of personality or picture of character, one syllable of fame to the simplest recital of the deeds 141 PAUL JONES and the most faithful copy of the words of Paul Jones himself. It may, however, be appropriate to offer one gen- eral observation : Jones was a student, a linguist, and an all-round man of affairs in statecraft and dip- lomacy, as well as master in his own profession. So- cially, he was among the most debonnaire of gallants and the most resistless of courtiers. He never failed to win the esteem, the confidence, or the affection of the fair sex at will. Even so perfectly balanced and so unemotional a man as Dr. Franklin himself once said of him in a letter of introduction to an eminent woman : " No matter what the faults of Commo- dore Jones may be, ... I must confess to your ladyship that when face to face with him neither man nor, so far as I can learn, woman can for a mo- ment resist the strange magnetism of his presence, the indescribable charm of his manner ; a commin- gling of the most compliant deference with the most perfect self-esteem that I have ever seen in a man ; and, above all, the sweetness of his voice and the purity of his language. I offer these thoughts to the gracious consideration of your ladyship, no less as a warning than as a favorable introduc- tion." * Notwithstanding these traits, and despite the re- markable degree of their development in him, Paul Jones has passed into history almost solely in the character of a desperate and even phenomenal fighter ; and it is too late now to attempt to modify or soften that impression. It is with regard to this » Franklin's letter introducing Jones to the Countess d'Houdetot, June, 1780. 142 AN APPEAL TO KENG LOUIS trait that we propose to offer our general observa- tion. Most men approach or engage in combat with more or less evidence of feeling ; more or less sign of excitement or enthusiasm. But it has been placed on record by four men, all of whom fought under his command — Eichard Dale, Elijah Hall, Henry Gardner, and Nathaniel Fanning — that at no time was the manner of Paul Jones so easy, his bearing so genial, and his temper so placid, as in the most des- perate moments of his bloodiest battles. And this trait was equally exhibited in his personal rencon- tres. " He always fought," says Fanning, " as if that was what he was made for, and it was only when most perfectly at peace that he seemed ill at ease, or, at least, restless. "He was never petulant toward those subordinate to him. Even in cases of failure to carry out his orders or meet his expectations, he would be lenient, patient, and forbearing so long as he did not detect or think he detected wilfulness or malice. But if he obtained such an impression, there could be no peace with him. He was not a quarrelsome man, in the sense of proneness to pick quarrels ; but he was the easiest person I have ever seen for any fighting man to pick a quarrel with. " In ordinary intercourse, either official or personal, it was a constant delight to be with him, at least for those who by their conduct had gained his es- teem ; and in his air and manner toward such there was a charm the like of which I have never seen or heard of in any other man." Of this " personal magnetism " so quaintly de- 143 PAUL JONES scribed by Fanning, an event chronologically be- longing to the period now under consideration may betaken as the most remarkable evidence. Refer- ence has previously been made to the existence of bad feeling between John Adams and Paul Jones during the earlier years of the Eevolution. The first cause of it, as has been related, was the merest trifle, and it was Jones's fault, too ; because he had no right to ridicule, as he did in 1775, so great a man and so pure a patriot as John Adams was. The fact that he and Jones came very near representing the two extremes of human nature in tastes and tempera- ment gave Jones no license to crack jokes at his ex- pense for the amusement of girls with giddy brains and busy tongues, like Betty Faulkner and Joseph- ine Mayrant. Jones should have borne in mind that Mr. Adams was much his senior in years, vastly his superior in official position, and, without doubt, of infinitely greater importance then, if not after- ward, to the cause of American Independence than he. However, in 1778 Mr. Adams came to France, as American Commissioner, in place of Silas Deane. Dr. Franklin, who knew all about the feeling that had hitherto prevailed between Mr. Adams and Jones, enjoined upon the latter that he must take the first opportunity to conciliate Mr. Adams and that he must not hesitate at any reasonable self- abnegation necessary to accomplish it. Jones, with all his ferocity, used to obey Dr. Franklin in all things, small as well as great ; much as a trained tiger obeys his keeper, and this incident was no exception. Mr. Adams had not met Jones 144 AN APPEAX TO KING LOUIS socially since the summer of 1775, and then only in the most casual way. Some time after Jones re- turned to Brest from the cruise in which he took the Drake, Dr. Franklin ordered him to come to Passy for consultation. It was on this occasion that the Doctor commanded Jones to make his peace with Mr. Adams. Dr. Franklin gave one of his frugal dinners, at which, besides Mr. Adams and Paul Jones, several notable Frenchmen were present. It is of record that Jones kept this dinner-party up till near daylight the next morning with an apparently ex- haustless fund of experience, observation, wit, and humor, and that Mr. Adams was perfectly charmed with him. In fact, Mr. Adams soon after facetiously cautioned Dr. Franklin to avoid subjecting him often to the loss of his night's rest, that seemed in- separable from a dinner with Paul Jones at table. However, from that time on the official relations be- tween Mr. Adams and Jones were always marked by the utmost cordiality and confidence, and their per- sonal friendship was as genial as any friendship with John Adams could be. Mr. Adams deprecated — as did Dr. Franklin, too, for that matter — Jones's tendency to physical vio- lence in dealing with his personal enemies ; and they also reprehended his frequent e£forts to provoke duels as the readiest means of settling not only per- sonal but also official controversies. However, they both realized that they had in Jones the kind of a sea-fighter they needed, and they were not unchari- table with his tendency to be other kinds of a fighter which, though less desirable to the public service, perhaps, was inseparable from the general character Vol. I.— 10 145 PAUL JONES that made him so useful to the cause of the strag- gling Colonies. Dr. Franklin used to lecture him on this subject, both orally and by letter, and Jones, while he took a rather sardonic view of the Doctor's theories that a man should always draw a wide distinction between the enemies of his country and his own personal ad- versaries, was more than once compelled by the Doctor's arguments to admit that appeal to physical violence in settlement of individual quarrels was quite as likely to result disadvantageously to the victor as to the vanquished. The situation of Paul Jones in France after the Hanger had sailed, leaving him without a command and wholly dependent on the grace of the King for further opportunity, is graphically described in a letter to Joseph Hewes, October 1, 1778. He says : Though my efforts to obtain a small squadron have not met with the success I had hoped for, I still hope and will, as always, persevere. Many obstacles beset me. The Com- missioners have no resources. The war between France and England now being in full flame, all the resources of the French Ministry of Marine seem absorbed in fitting out commands for their own regular oflQcers. The Duke and Duchess de Chartres were sure I was to have two fnigates lately ready for sea at Brest, one of thirty-six guns to be my own command, and the other to be commanded by a French officer. Captain de Eoberdeau, selected by the Duke, I to be the senior officer. To these frigates were to be added two sloops of twenty guns. But at the last moment the two frigates were needed to join the grand fleet of the Count d'Estaing, and their commands were given to regu- lar French officers. The fact is the French have little conception of expedi- 146 AN APPEAL TO KING LOUIS tions such as I propose ; projects to harry the coasts and destroy the commerce of the enemy. Their idea is to leave all that to privateers, of which I have already been offered a dozen commands. Some of the ships they fit out as pri- vateers are really respectable frigates in size, and I have seen one, called the Monsieur, that mounts thirty-eight or forty guns. But I do not wish to engage in privateering. My object is not that of private gain, but to serve the pub- lic in a way that may reflect credit on our infant navy and give prestige to our country on the sea. This cannot be done by privateers ; neither can much that is of moment be accomplished with small ships like the Ranger. The taking of the Drake was universally re- garded here as an unequalled exploit and it opened the eyes of the French to a fact they had considered out of the question, namely, that an English man-of-war could be forced to strike to a ship of inferior force. But, after all, its effects were not lasting, because the force of the ships was so small that their battle could not be very impressive no matter how bravely fought or how well won. Such a battle as would make a lasting impression cannot be fought with a ship of less than frigate rate. Another obstacle I meet every day is the jealousy of the French officers. By this I mean not the higher ranks, as d'Orvilliers and d'Estaing and de Grrasse, whose fortunes are already made, but the younger officers in my own grade. You must know that the French Navy is not merely aristocratic like the English, but it is wholly a navy of the noblesse. Tou may think it incredible, but it is a fact that a Eoyal ordinance is in force, not long ago promulgated, requiring that candidates for promotion from lieutenant to captain must first of all produce proof of noble lineage for at least four generations back of their own, or must be members by heritage, of the Order of the Chevaliers of St. Louis ! This, as you must see, puts an end to the possibility of a future Jean Bart. ... In fact it must, so long as it 147 PAUL JONES stands, shut out talent and merit from all command rank in the French Navy, and, in the main, leave open the door of preferment to those only who can boast the favor of titled courtiers, or who, in default of aptitude for the naval service can offer nothing but pedigrees that in most cases argue decay rather than improvement of blood by age of family. Prom these facts you maybe able to gather some idea of the hindrances that beset me. Now, when to all this you add dissensions among our own Commissioners, the noted presence of EngUsh spies and emissaries in pay of Lord North, holding positions under the Commissioners — or one of them — ^where they have full knowledge of the most con- fidential proceedings, and free access to the most secret papers ; and you must see that the path of anyone striving to honestly serve our cause here is thick with thorns. Tet with all these sinister facts to contend with, do not for a moment imagine that I despair. I am sure I wUl succeed in the end, though not quite as quickly as I would like, or, perhaps, not on such a large scale. But I will succeed. It does not seem practicable, even with all the re- sources of intervening history at command, to add anything to the foregoing review of the situation as Paul Jones saw and felt it at the time and on the spot. About the only comment that suggests itself is that if anything is more clearly exhibited in Jones's review than his own marvellous perception, it is his grim resolution to persevere in spite of all. He had relinquished command of the Ranger July 16th. For two months before that — in fact ever since the return of the Ranger to Brest in May — he had made every possible effort to obtain a larger ship. His correspondence with the French Minis- 148 AN APPEAL TO KING LOUIS ter of Marine, -with the Duke de Chartres, with Dr. Franklin, and with soveral French capitalists who made yarious propositions to fit him out for priva- teering expeditions, would fill a small volume. By the middle of October he came to the conclusion that he could expect nothing but promises from de Sartine, the Minister of Marine, who, as Jones said in a letter to Robert Morris, dated November 13, 1778, "cannot and dare not do what I think he really wishes, because of the high and dangerous cabals of the French officers, who urge that the rules of the service will not admit of giving me command of ships detached from the Royal Marine," etc. He saw that Dr. Franklin had exhausted all his power in vain, and was disheartened. Of the other commissioners, Mr. Adams thus far took little or no interest in the matter, while Arthur Lee was openly hostile to any project Jones might attempt, and exerted all his influence to thwart him. Dr. Franklin's discouragement had become so acute that he privately suggested to Jones the idea of giving up the hope of a new command in France and of returning to the United States to see what Congress could do for him. Then, as a last resort, Jones determined to appeal to the King in person. At this stage of his career it is, we think, fair to consider Jones as standing alone in France, so far as American help or the possibility of it was concerned. He was, as has been said, without a command. His enemies had industriously circulated reports that this condition was his own fault. He had, in- deed, availed himself of every opportunity to deny 149 PAUL JONES such reports by the ultima ratio regum ; that is to say, by physical violence, summarily visited upon the authors of such reports wherever he could find them. Whatever others may have done or may have tried to do for him, Paul Jones unquestionably owed the opportTinity of his crowning success, and of ihe victory that made his name immortal, to the gentle and beautiful woman whom history knows as the wife of Philippe Egalite and the mother of Louis Philippe. But before describing her help to him in his supreme emergency it is interesting to note the estimate he himself made of his own situation in a letter to Kobert Morris, from which a brief quotation, referring to the jealousy of the younger French officers, has been given on a previous page. In that letter he says, speaking of de Sartine, Minister of Marine : " He has, however, authorized M. Le Eay de Chaumont to purchase a ship to my liking, if to be found in any private dock or yard in France." The date of the foregoing was " Brest, November 13, 1778." But six days earlier, November 7th, he had written to Mr. Hewes, from Nantes, whither he had gone to survey a ship, as follows : . . . It is now clear to me that they do not intend to give me a regular command. The Minister (de Sartine) shuffles all the time with one excuse or another. This makes me believe that it is the fixed intention of the cabal behind the Minister to force me into privateering. There is a strong moneyed and political association, well backed at court and including, I believe, not a few courtiers, anx- ious to fit me out with a squadron of privateers or letters- 150 AN APPEAL TO KING LOUIS of-marque. M. de Chaumont is at the head of this associ- ation. They will give me at least two ships of forty guns each and two or three more vessels of from eighteen to twenty-four guns, with French crews, besides such Ameri- cans as I can muster in Brest, Nantes, I'Orient, and Dun- kirk, and with such a force I am to put to sea in quest of plunder and to enrich a few French bankers and merchants. You need not be told, Mr. Hewes, that this prospect does not suit me. I am not in pursuit of private gain for myself or for others. I hold commission as captain in the regu- lar navy of the United States, which, in my estimation, is not to be outranked by the same grade of commission of even date in any other navy in the world. My sole ambi- tion is to have opportunity of fighting a battle in virtue of that commission and under our own new flag among nations, which that commission entitles me to fly ; to fight under such auspices a battle that will teach to the world, and particularly to Englishmen and Frenchmen, that the American flag means something afloat and must be re- spected at sea. To a man of your own perfect perceptions and your own infallible sense of what is proper, Mr. Hewes, it is not need- ful to say that no such thing as I have expressed can possi- bly be done in a private anned Aip or under a letter-of- marque, flying no matter what flag. To have any effect in the way of prestige to our infant nation, such a battle must be fought under the commission that I have been honored with by the Congress and under the flag of our own country. However, it wastes time, paper, and ink to argue this with you and, also, as the last reports I have from you in- dicate that you are yet in feeble health and out of public life, I shrink from the thought of tiring you either with the length of my letter or the troubles of my situation. . . . Of one thing, in spite of all, you may definitely assure yourself, and that is, I will not accept any command or enter upon any arrangement that can in the least bring 151 PAUL JONES in question or put out of sight the regular rank I hold in the United States Navy ; for which I now, as always, ac- knowledge my debt to you more than to any other person. Nearly three weeks before the date of the fore- going letter, and before leaving Brest for Nantes, Jones had written three letters, all dated October 19, 1778. One of them was addressed to the King of France, one to the Duchess de Chartres, and one to Dr. Franklin. This was the outcome of a letter to the Duke de Chartres dated September 21, 1778, and the Duke's reply, dated September 29th. This correspondence as a whole marks the turn- ing point of Jones's career in France, and it also ex- hibits, by its own text, more forcibly than any de- scription in the third person possibly could, his wonderful versatility and his astonishing capacity to take care of himself when tired of waiting upon the futile efforts of others. For that reason the text of the letters under consideration is reproduced here in full. His letter to the Duke de Chartres dated Sep- tember 21, 1778, was a clear and comprehensive re- view of the prospects that had been held out to him by the Minister of Marine since his return to Brest from the cruise in the Ranger, and of the repeated disappointments to which he had been subjected by the Minister's failures to make good his promises. He assured the Duke that, though disappointed, he was by no means disheartened ; but, being now at the end of all ordinary or usual expedients, he asked the Duke's frank and candid advice as to whether, in his judgment, he (Jones) had better persevere in 152 AN APPEAL TO KING LOUIS France or make the best of his way back to the United States and take there any command Congress could give him. He intimated that he was in a mood to rest the decision on the Duke's advice, and concluded with ardent expressions of gratitude for the kindness he had already experienced at the hands of His Royal Highness. To this the Duke replied, under date of September 29th, as follows : . . . It seems to me that nothing is left for you to do but appeal to the King in person. This will of course be auusual and contrary to strict etiquette of court. But His Majesty is a man of generous sentiments, and I am per- suaded that if the real facts of your situation could be laid before him, he would act in your favor. My advice, there- fore, is that you write to him frankly, in your own fashion. My good consort, the Duchess, will undertake to hand your letter to His Majesty. Her Royal Highness will also interest her sister-in-law, the Princess Lamballe, in the affair, and by that means you may even have the acquies- cence, if not the support, of Her Majesty the Queen. Pursuant to this advice Jones wrote directly to the King. We give his letter in full and in its original French text, with his own English translation of it. There was no real necessity of writing it in the French language, because Louis XVI. understood English perfectly. But Jones knew that if the King should give him command of a squadron to be fitted out in France, he would have to enlist a good many French sailors in addition to such Americans as he could pick up in French ports, and he therefore con- sidered it advisable to give His Majesty an object- lesson of the fact that he would be able to command 153 PAUL JONES Frenchmen in their own tongue. It may not have been such a letter as a Frenchman or any other man bred to Court etiquette or traditions would address to a monarch. Fortunately, Louis XVI. was not like other kings, and, therefore, the simple, honest style of Paul Jones, instead of offending him or ruffling his royal dignity, pleased, interested, and, as the sequel proved, captivated the good King, and, in the end, made the fortune of the bold, blunt sailor for all time. This unique letter was as follows : * Brest, le 19 Octobre, 1778. Sa MajesU Tres Chretienne, Louis Roi de Prance et Navarre. Sire : Aprls mon retour fi Brest, de la Mer d'Irlande, dans le vaisseau de guerre amfericain, le Ranger, Son Excel- lence, le Dr. Franklin, m'a informfi par lettre, datfe du premier Juia, que M. de Sartine, ayant bonne opinion de ma eonduite et bravoure, avait d€cid§, avee le consente- ment et 1' approbation de Votre Majesty, de me donner le comm^andement du vaisseau de guerre, I'lndien, lequel fut construit 3 Amsterdam pour I'AmSrique, mais aprls, pour des raisons de politique, devint la propri6t6 de la France. Je devais agir avec ordres illimit6s sous le brevet et dra- peau amfericain. Et le Priace de Nassau proposait m'ac- compagner sur I'Ocfian. * The BngHah text of Jones's remarkable letter to the King, as he for- warded it to Dr. Franklin, was as follows : Bkest, October 19, 1778. Bis Most Christian Majesty, Louis, King of Prance and Navarre. SiBB : After my return to Brest in the American ship-of-war the Ranger, from the Irish Channel, His Excellency Dr. Franklin in- formed me by letter dated June 1, that M. de Sartine, having a good opinion of my conduct and bravery, had determined with Your Majesty's consent and approbation to give me the command of the ship-of-war the 154 AN APPEA.L TO KING LOUIS J'dtais profondement p€iiStr6 par un sentiment de I'hon- neur qui m'6tait fait par oette proposition, aussi bien que de la faveur que Votre Majestfi avait I'intention ainsi d'ae- corder 5, 1'Am^rique, et j'aeceptai I'offre avec plus de plaisir parceque le Congr^s m' avait envoyS en Europe dans le 'Ranger' dans le but de prendre oommandement de I'ln- dien, avant que ce vaisseau eflt change de mains. Le ministre ddsira me voir S Versailles afln de determiner les plans d 'operation pour le futur, et je le visitai dans ce but. On me dit que I'lndien gtait au Texel, eomplfetement arm6 et pr@t k faire voile ; mais le Prince de Nassau fut en- voy6 fi grande vitesse en Hollande, et retouma avec un rapport bien different — le vaisseau Stait si Amsterdam, et ne pouvait pas gtre mis §. flot ou arm6 avant I'equinoxe du mois de Septembre. Les envois amerieains proposaient mon retour en Am6rique ; et ayant 6te 3 plusieurs reprises nomme au commandement-en-ehef d'une esoadre am6ri- caine pour aceomplir des projets secrets, sans doute le Con- grfes m'aurait montrg une nouvelle preference. Mais M. de Sartine jugea fi propos d'empScher mon d6part, en 6orivajit aux envois (sans que je le savais), demandant qu'il me fut Indien, which was built at Amsterdam for America, but afterward, for political reasons, made the property of France. I was to act with un- limited orders under the commission and flag of America. And the Prince de Nassau proposed to accompany me on the ocean. I was deeply penetrated with a, sense of the honor done me by this proposition, as well as of the favor which Your Majesty intended thereby to confer upon America, and I accepted the offer with the greater pleas- ure as the Congress had sent me to Europe in the Banger to command the Indien before the ownership of that vessel was changed. The Minister desired to see me at Versailles, to settle future plans of operations and I attended him for that purpose. I was told that the Indien was at the Texel completely armed and fitted for sea ; but the Prince de Nassau was sent express to Holland and returned with a very different account — the ship was at Amsterdam and could not be got afloat or armed before the September equinox. The American plenipotentiaries proposed that I should return to America, and as I had been appointed repeatedly to the chief command of an American squadron to execute secret enterprises, it was not doubted 155 PAUL JONES permis de rester en Europe, et que le Ranger soit renvoy6 en Amdrique sous un autre commandeur, lui ayant des ser- vices speciaux qu'il d6sirait que j'accomplisse. Cette priBre ils aecorderent volontiers, et j'fitais flatt6 par I'espoir que je serais mis en position de tfimoigner par mes services de ma reconnaissance envers votre Majesty, le premier prince qui ait si g6n6reusement reconnu notre indfipen- dance. II se passa un intervalle de plus de trois mois, avant que rindien pouvait Stre mis S, fiot. Afin d'employer ce temps utilement, quand il fut command^ a la flotte de Votre Majesty de faire voile de Brest, je proposal au minis- tre de m'embarquer en qualite de volontaire a la recherche de science maritime. II s'opposa k ceci, mais en m§me temps approuva une quantit6 d'avis d'entreprises partic- uli^res, que j'avais r^dig^s pour sa eonsid&ation. Deux Messieurs furent nommfes pour determiner avec moi les plans qui devaient gtre adopt€s lesquels m'assur^- rent que trois des meilleures fregates en Prance avee deux transports, et une quantity de bateaux, seraient imm6diate- ment mises sous mes ordres, pour poursuivre tels de mes but that Congress would again show me a preference. M. de Saitine, however, thought proper to prevent my departure by writing to the plen- ipotentiaries (without my knowledge) requesting that I might be per- mitted to remain in Europe and that the Banger be sent back to America under another commander, he having special services which he wished me to execute. This request they readily granted, and 1 was flattered by the prospect of being enabled to testify by my services my gratitude to your Majesty as the first prince who has so generously acknowledged our independence. There was an interval of more than three months before the Indien could be got afloat. To employ that period usefully, when your Majesty's Fleet was ordered to sail from Brest, I proposed to the Minister to em- bark in it as a volunteer in pursuit of marine knowledge. He objected to this, but at the same time approved a variety of suggestions for pri- vate enterprises which I had drawn up for his consideration. Two gentlemen were appointed to settle with me the plans that were to be adopted — who gave me assurance that three of the best frigates in France, with two tenders and a number of boats, should be immediately 156 AN APPEAL TO KING LOmS projets que je jugerais £t propos, inais tout ceci n'arriva S rien, quand je oroyais qu'il n'y manquait que la signature de Votre Majeste. On se proposait de mettre sous mes ordres un autre ar- mament, compose de canots et de petits vaisseauxS L' Ori- ent, pour Affrayer les cotfis de I'Angleterre, et contenir les corsaires de Jersey, mais heureusement pour moi, ceci aussi s'6eroula, et je fus sauv6 de la mine et du dfishonneur ; car comme je trouve maintenant, tous les vaisseaux vo- guaient lentement, et leur force reunie ^tait trSs insignifiante. Le ministre alora trouva propre que je retoumasse S Brest pour prendre commandement du Lively, et me joindre & quelques fr%ates pour une expedition de St. Malo S la mer du Nord. Je retoumai en Mte pour le faire, et trouva que le Lively avait gt6 donnG a; Brest, avant que le ministre m'en fait mention de ce vaisseau a Versailles. C'6tait ■Dependant un autre disappointment pas malheureux, car le Lively se montre comme voilier et en equipement, bien inf^rieur au Ranger, mais plus particuliSrement si c'est vrai, conmie je I'ai appris depuis, que le ministre avait I'intention de donner le commandement-en-ehef de I'expS- put under my command, and that I ahonld pursue such of my own proj- ects as I thought proper ; but this fell to nothing when I believed that your Majesty's signature only was wanting. Another armament, composed of cutters and small vessels at VOrlent, was proposed to be put under my command to alarm the coasts of Eng- land and check the Jersey privateers; but happily for me this also failed and I was saved from ruin and dishonor ; for, as I now find, all the vessels sailed slow and their united force was very insignificant. The Minister then thought fit that I should re bum to Brest to com- mand the Lively and join some frigates in an expedition from St. Malo to the North Sea. I returned in haste for that purpose and found that the command of the Lively had been bestowed at Brest before the Minister had mentioned that ship to me at Versailles. This was, however, an- other fortunate disappointment, as the Lively proves both in sailing and equipment much inferior to the Kanger ; but more especially, if it be true as 1 have since understood, that the Minister intended to give the chief command to a lieutenant, which would have occasioned a disagree- 157 PAUL JONES dition £1 un lieutenant, ce qui aurait oocasionn^ un malen- tendu bien d&agr6able ; car, 6tant offlcier de premier rang dans la marine am6ricaine, qui a toujours 6t6 honor€ de la faveur at de I'amitife du Congres je ne peux recevoir les ordres de n'importe quel ofllcier inf&ieur. Mon dessein 6tait la destruction de la fiotte anglaise de la Baltique, de grande Importance pour la marine de I'ennemi at prot6g6e par une saule frigate ! Je me serais tenu rasponsable pour sa r6ussite, si j'avais command^ I'eip^dition. M. de Sartine plus tard ordonna au eomte d'Orvilliers de ma recevoir S. bord de la flotta, conlormement & ma pro- position d'auparavant, mais I'ordre n'arriva qu'aprls la depart de la fiotte de Brest pour la demiere fois, ni m'avar- tit-on de la oireonstance avant que la flotte eflt retoum6 ici. De cetta mani&re ai-j'6t§ enchain^ dans une inactivit6 honteusa pendant prasque cinq mois. J'ai perdu la meilleura saison de I'annfe et tallas opportunit€s de servir ma patrie et'acqu&ir da I'honnaur, qua ja ne puis asperer de nouveau pendant cette guerre, et, 4 mon chagrin complet, n'ayant pas da commandement, ja suis partout ragard6 comme un ofB^ciar rejetS, et en disgrace pour des raisons secretes. able situation ; for as an officer of the first rank in the American marine, who has ever been honored with the favor and friendship of Congress, I could receive orders from no inferior officer whatever. My plan was to destroy the English Baltic fleet, of great consequence to the enemy's marine and then protected by only a single frigate. I would have held myself responsible for its success had I commanded the expedi- tion. M. de Sartine afterward sent orders to the Count d'Orvilliers to re- ceive me on board the fleet agreeably to my former proposal, but the order did not arrive until after the departure of the fleet the last time from Brest, nor was I made acquainted with the circumstance until the fleet returned here. Thus, Sire, have I been chained down to shameful inactivity for nearly five months. I have lost the best season of the year and such opportuni- ties of serving my country and acquiring honor as I can hardly expect again in this war ; and to my infinite mortification, having no command, 1S8 AN APPEAL TO KING LOUIS J'ai 6crit des lettres respectueuses au ministre, et il n'a pas daign6 rfipondre a une seule. J'ai 6crit au Prince de Nassau avec aussi peu d'effet, et je n'apprends pas qu'au- oune excuse a 6t6 faite au grand et v6n6rable Dr. Franklia, dont le ministre s'est servi comme instrument pour me trainer dans des ennuis si peu meritSs. Ayant 6orit au Congres de ne me r6server aucune eom- mandement en AmSrique ma sensibility est d'autant plus afiect6e par cette situation indigne devant la flotte de Votre Majest6. N6anmoins je ne fais aucune observation sur le traitement que j'ai repu. Quoique je ne d&ire pas devenir mon propre panSgyriste, je dois prier S Votre Majestfi la permission d'observer que je ne suis pas un aventurier si la recherche des richesses, dont, grace a Dieu, j'en ai sufflsamment. Quand les drapeaux amfericains furent d5ploy6s pour la premifere fois, je tirai mon 6p6e 5. I'appui de la dignity viol6e et des droits de la nature humaine ; et I'honneur ainsi que le devoir me poussent avec Constance S. continuer cette carriere et d'y sacrifler non seulement mes jouissances personelles, mais m^me la vie, s'il le faut. I am considered everywhere an officer cast off and in disgrace for secret reasonB. I have written respectful letters to the Minister, none of which has he condescended to answer. I have written to the Prince of Nassau with as little effect and I do not learn that any apology has been made to the great and venerable Dr. Franklin, whom the Minister has made the in- strument of bringing me into such unmerited trouble. Having written to Congress to reserve no command for me in Amer- ica, my sensibilities are the more affected by this unworthy situation in sight of your Majesty's fleet. I, however, make no comment on the treat- ment I have experienced. Although I do not wish to be my own eulogist, I must beg your Maj- esty's permission to observe that I am not an adventurer in search of fortune, of which, thank God, X have suf&cient for my needs. When the American flag was first displayed I drew my sword in sup- port of the violated dignity and rights of human nature ; and both honor and duty prompt me to steadfastly continue the righteous pursuit and to 159 PAUL JONES II me faut avouer que les g6n6reuses louanges que j'al refues du Congr^s et des autres surpassent les m&ites de mes services pass6es — done, je d6sire le plus axdemment des opportunit6s futures de tSmoigner ma reconnaissance par mon activity. Comme Votre Majest6, en embrassant la cause de I'Am^ri- que, est devenue "le protecteur des droits de la nature humaine " je suis perguad6 qu'elle ne regardera pas avee indifi6rence ma position et ne souffrira pas que je reste plus longtemps dans cette disgrace insupportable. Je si»s, avee reconnaissance complete et profond respect. Sire, Le plus obligS, le plus ob6issant et le plus humble de» serviteurs de Votre Majesty. Paul Jonbs. Jones then enclosed the foregoing letter in one of the same date to the Duchess de Chartres, which we also give in the original text.* sacrifice to it not only my private enjoymenta but even Ufe, if necessafy. I must acknowledge that the generous praise I have received from Con- gress and others exceeds the merits of my past services, and therefore I the more ardently wish for future opportunity of testifying my gratitude by my activity. As your Majesty, by espousing the cause of America, has become the "Protector of the Rights of Man," I am persuaded that you will not disregard my situation nor Bufior me to longer writhe in this nnsupport- able disgrace ! (Signed etc.), Paul JONDS. * With the English text of hia letter to the King, Jones forwarded also to Dr. Franklin a translation of the letter he wrote to the Ducheu de Chartres. This was as follows : Brest, October 19, 1778. To Her Royal Sighness, The Duchesse de Chartres. Madame : The affairs which brought me from Brest to Paris last summer, when I had the honor of ofiering my homage to Your Boyal AN APPEAL TO KING LOUIS Bbest, le 19 Octobre, 1778. A Madame la Ihichesse de Chartres. Madame : Les afifaires qui m'ont fait venir de Brest S, Paris r6t^ passS, quand j'ai eu leplaisir d'offrir mes hommages a Votre Altesse Royale, me f oumirent un espoir bien raisonna- ble de pouvoir immgdiatement faire au littoral de I'ennemi unevieite beaucoup plus heureuse que celle dont j'Stais S ee moment retournd Je me suis presents a Versailles sur le desire special de M. de Sartine, lequel, en consequence de Topinion 61ev6, qu'il se disait avoir, de ma conduite et bravoure, proposa volontairement (avec le consentement et I'approbation de Sa Majesty, comme je le comprenais) de m'aceorder un commandement bien honorable ; ayant lui- m6me 6crit une lettre £t leurs Excellences, les Envois Am6ri- cains demandant comme une grande faveur qu'il me serait permis de rester en Europe. Pourtant le Ministre n'a fait aucune excuse pour tout ceci ni a moi (qui ne cherchais pas le brevet) ni S son Excellence, le Dr. Franklin, par qui il fut accepts. J'eus I'honneur de foumir le Ministre avec une quantity de plans pour des expeditions secretes, qu'il approuva, mais les di£f6rents armements qu'on a propose de mettre EighneBB, affoided me a very fair prospect of being at once enabled to pay a much more successful visit to the enemy's coast than that from which 1 was then just returned. I appeared at Versailles by the partic- ular desire of M. de Sartine, who, in consequence of the high opinion he professed to hold of my conduct and courage, voluntarily proposed (as I understood with the consent and approbation of His Majesty) to bestow on me a very honorable command, he (the Minister) having written a letter to their excellencies the American plenipotentiaries requesting as a favor that I might be permitted to remain in Europe. Yet the Minister has not made any explanation of all this, either to me (who did not BoUcit the commission) or to his Excellency Dr. Franklin, through whom it was accepted. I had the honor to offer the Minister a number of plans, which he ap- proved, for secret expeditions, but the various armaments which have been proposed to place under my command to pursue my projects have every one fallen to naught ; some of them at the moment when I was led Vol. L— 11 161 PAUIi JONES sous mes ordres pour poursulvre mes propres desseins, tous ne sont arrives i rien ; quelques uns mgme au moment oil 1 ' on me menait S. croire qu'il n'y manquait que la signature du roi. Ainsi on s'est ainus6 avee moi pendant presque cinq mois, la meilleure saison de I'annSe, et telles opportunit6s de servir ma patrie et aequ&ir des honneurs, que je n'attends plus durant la guerre, sont perdues. J'ai ^crit au Congres de ne me r6server aucun eom- mandem.ent en Am^rique, et S. mon chagrin inexprimable, n'ayant pas de eommandement ici, je suis partout regard6 conmie un offlcier en disgrace. Je ne suis pas un aven- turier S, la poursuite de la fortune ; au contralre j'ai mis de c6t6 mes jouissances de la vie priv^e, et j'ai tir6 m.on Spie au commencement de cette guerre qu'S I'appui de la dig- nit6 et des droits violes de la nature humaine ; et 6tant honor^ comme je le suis, de la faveur et de I'amitiS du Congres, et I'honneur et le devoir me poussent avec con- stance k pers§v&er, jusqu'S ce que ces droits soient 6tablis, ou perdre ma vie dans cette juste carrifere. Mais d'autant que je vols nul espoir d'etre bient6t d6- livr6 de cette situation indigne, j'ai ecrit la lettre ci-incluse to believe that the King's signature alone was wanting. Thus I have been trifled with for nearly five months, the best season of the year, and such opportunities of serving my country and acquiring honor as I cannot again expect in the course of this war have been lost. I had written to Congress to reserve no command for me in American waters, and, to my inexpressible mortification, having no command here, I am looked upon everywhere as an officer in disgrace. 1 am not, as your Royal Highness graciously knows, an adventurer in search of fortune. On the contrary, I laid aside my enjoyments of private life at the com- mencement of this war and drew my sword m defence of the dignity and the violated rights of man. Honored as I have been and am with the favor and confidence of Congress, both ambition and sense of duty prompt me to steadfastly persevere until those rights are established or my own life yielded up in that righteous endeavor. But, seeing no prospect of early relief from this galling situation, I have written the enclosed letter to Hia Majesty, which I must beseech your Royal Highness to present to him ; whereby you may add a sin- 163 AN APPEAL TO KING LOUIS £b Sa Majesty ; et il me faut prier Votre Altesse Royale de la presenter. Elle ajoutera ainsi une obligation singu- liere S ce que je dois dija S vos attentions condescendantes d'auparavant. Je serais extremement heureus de rSussir par I'influenoe d'une princesse si bien aim6e et d'une protectrice si puis- sante, que j'estime et respecte parfaitement, 6tant vrai- ment et toujours dans la sincerity najive de men coeur, Madame, Le tr^s obfeissant et trfes humble serviteur de Votre Al- tesse Royale, Paul Jones. Then, still under date of October 19tli, Jones wrote to Dr. Franklin, enclosing copies of his letters to the King and the Duchess de Chartres, and asking the Doctor's approTal of his action. The material part of the letter he wrote to the Doctor was as follows : I hope you will find the within letter to the King entirely free from asperity or ill-nature. ... It cannot, I think, do harm, and unless you disapprove it, I beg that it may have its course. The Duchess de Chartres will, I am per- suaded, deliver it into the King's hands. . . With the veneration and afiection of a son who ardently wishes to render himself worthy your regard, I am, etc., Paul Jonbs. No papers are extant, within our research, to show that Dr. Franklin directly either approved or dis- gulax, a unique obligation to what I already owe to your former gra- cious kindness and condescending patronage. I should be most happy to succeed through the influence of a princess so well-beloved, who is so potent an advocate, whom I so perfectly esteem and so devoutly respect, being ever and faithfully in the artless sincerity of my heart, Tour Humblest Servitor, Paxji, Jones. 163 PAUL JONES approved Jones's project of appealing to the King. Jones says nothing on that subject in any of his letters or journals, except in a letter to the King long afterward, in which, after acknowledging the honor of knighthood conferred upon him, he speaks of the latter event as "a most touching sequel to the singular condescension of your Most Gracious Majesty on a previous occasion, which had the result of enabling me to perform the services your Majesty has now deigned to approve by so eminent a mark of your royal pleasure." The only other contemporaneous documentary reference to the affair that we have been able to find is a postscript to a letter written October 22, 1778, by William Franklin to Captain Jones. It is printed on page 142 of a book published in 1830, at New York, entitled "Life and Correspondence of Paul Jones ; from Original Letters and Manuscripts in Possession of Miss Janette Taylor;" which was mainly a reprint of a book published in Scotland in 1826. Miss Taylor was Captain Jones's niece, daughter of his sister Janette. A considerable part of the Jones papers fell into her hands, and they were edited, Avith some incapacity, by Dr. Eobert Sands. It is, nevertheless, the most valuable of all the col- lections of Jones's papers in English, and the book is, we believe, now quite rare. The quotation from young Franklin's letter (he was Dr. Franklin's grandson and private secretary) is as follows : " . . . It is my grandfather's opin- ion that there will be no occasion to send those let- ters ; and I imagine they were written before you 164 AN APPEAL TO KING LOUIS heard of the Minister's final determination. If, how- ever, you still think they ought to be sent, you have only to order it." Dr. Franklin does not mention the affair except in an unofficial letter to Hartley soon afterward, when he says, as part of the gossip of the day : " Jones wrote a letter to the King, on which he asked my opinion, which I did not give, beyond, perhaps, sug- gesting that it was a mosb unusual proceeding. He has, I believe, since obtained audience." The inference is that Dr. Franklin, though, of course, regarding Jones's action as contrary to es- tablished etiquette, did not choose to take the re- sponsibility of controlling him one way or the other in this proceeding. He knew that Jones would obey him if he should disapprove the act. But he doubt- less thought that no harm could come of it, even if it failed, while there was a chance that the eminent women who had interested themselves in his fort- unes might succeed where statesmen and diploma- tists had failed. The Duchess de Chartres received the letters in due time, but it was the 3d of December before she found what she considered a suitable opportunity to hand Jones's letter or petition to the King. The immediate result was a summons of Jones to audi- ence with the King, December 17, 1778. This au- dience, Jones says in his journal of 1782, " was of nearly an hour's duration," but he makes no attempt to state what was said, for the quite sufficient reason that royal audiences were always, by the most in- flexible rules of Court etiquette, confidential. That Jones impressed the King favorably is, how- 165 PAUL JONES ever, amply proved by the fact that on the 8th of January, 1779, the King directed his Minister of Marine, de Sartine, to place at the disposal of Cap- tain Jones a ship equal — or as nearly so as practi- cable — to the Indien, and to afford him such aid from the resources of the French dockyards as he might need ; also to authorize him to recruit French volunteers to whatever extent might be necessary to fill up his crew. Pursuant to this order, M. de Sar- tine, under date of " Versailles, February 4, 1779," wrote to Jones as follows : Sib : I announce to you that in consequence of the expo- sition which I have laid before the Bang of the distinguished manner in which you have served the United States, and of the entire confidence which your conduct has merited on the part of Congress, His Majesty has thought proper to place under your command the ship le Duras, of forty guns, now at r Orient. I am about, in consequence, to issue the necessary orders for the complete armament of the said ship. . . . As you may find too much difficulty in enlisting a sufficient number of Americans, the King permits you to levy volunteers (French) until you obtain a sufficient num- ber. . . . When Jones received this letter he was the guest of Dr. Franklin at Passy, and at once responded in suitable terms, expressing his profound gratitude, and concluding as follows : Your having permitted me to alter the name of the ship from ' ' le Duras " to " le Bon Homme Richard ' ' [Dr. Frank- Un's nom de plume] has given me a pleasing opportunity of paying a well-merited compliment to a great and good man, to whom I am under obligations and who honors me with his friendship. 166 AN APPEAL TO KING LOUIS In his jotimal of 1787 Jones thus describes what followed : Armed at last with such authority, and with rays of hope once more lighting up the prospect, my first devoir was at the Palais Royal to thank the more than royal — the Divine — woman to whose grace I felt I owed all. She received me with her customary calmness. To my, perhaps, impassioned sentiments of gratitude she responded, with serene com- posure, that if she had been instrumental in bringing the aflfair to successful issue it was no m.ore than her duty to a man who, as she believed, sought only opportunity to serve the common cause ; now equally as deaj to France as to America, and that she was sure I would make the best of the opportunity that had been brought about. At the last she said there was a more serious concern that had to come to her knowledge ; that she knew I was not at the moment suitably provided with private resources, and that in consequence she had directed her banker to place to my credit at the house of his correspondent in 1' Orient, M. Gourlade, a certain sum, the notice of which I would find awaiting me on my arrival there ; and she enjoined upon me to offer neither thanks nor protestations to her on account of it. I tried to inform her that some provision had, I under- stood, been made by M. de Chaumont for my expenses ; but she quite impatiently retorted that M. de Chaumont 's arrangements were not her affair, and commanded me to be silent on the subject. Then she dismissed me with "bon voyage ; ne m'oubliez pas, " and a pleasant reminder that I had long ago promised, if fortune should smile upon me, to "lay an English frigate at her feet ! " Whereupon I took my leave and at once set out for I'Orient.* * Jones nowhere states or even intimates the amount of this benefice. But Louis Philippe long afterward told Gonvemeur Morris that it was 10,000 louis (about $47,500 ; calculating the louis d'or at nineteen shillings, sterling), the purchasing power of which then was easily greater than that 167 PAUL JONES Arrmng at I'Orient, Jones found le Duras to be an old East Indiaman, recently purchased by the King from the French East India Company with the intention of using her as an armed transport to con- vey reinforcements to the garrisons of the Isles of France and of Bourbon, and to Pondicherry. She had been built at Nantes, or on the Loire, in 1766, during the general peace that followed the Old French War, for the commercial service of the East India Company of France. She was a large ship. Like all Bast Indiamen of her day, she was part merchantman, part passenger-ship, and part man-of- war. She had a roomy hold for cargo, large accom- modations for passengers, and mounted a respectable battery. Her principal dimensions were as follows : Length on the main deck 153 feet Length of keel for tonnage 128 " Extreme breadth 40 " Depth of hold 19 " Burthen (French measurement) 998 tons. Her armament, as Jones found her, was fourteen long twelve-pounders, fourteen long nines, and twelve six-pounders. She had been originally very well built, but the numerous round voyages she had made to the East of a hundred thousand dollars now ; perhaps equal to that of $125,000. In 1786, Jones, having plenty of money at his command, asked the Duke — then Duke of Orleans — if it would be proper for him to offer payment of the sum which Mary Adelaide of Orleans had placed to his credit in 1779. "Not unless you wish her to dismiss you from her esteem and banish you from her salon ! " replied the Duke, tersely. " She did not lend it to you ; she gave it to the cause. " 168 AN APPEAL TO KING LOmS Indies in twelve years had pretty much worn her out, and the refit she had received for service as an armed transport was by no means sufficient to convert her into a regular man-of-war. The only intelligible description of the Duras — or the Bon Homme Richard — extant is that of Jones himself, and he also preserved among his papers a very creditable " outboard profile " of her, a repro- duction of which is printed opposite the following page, showing her hull and the arrangement of her battery after his alterations. He says : . . . She was higher out of water at the plank-sheer than usual with vessels of her length. Her mala or gun- deck was roomy and of good height under beams. She had a long top-gallant forecastle breaking aft nearly half way from the fore to the main mast ; a long quarter-deck breaking forward of the mizzen-mast about two-thirds the way to the main mast ; and still above this a high, short poop-deck, terminating forward in a round-house, through which the mizzen-mast was stepped. Below the main deck, aft, was a large steerage, or, as it would be called in a man- of-war, a " gun-room," extending some distance forward of the step of the mizzen-mast. This deck had been used for passengers when the ship was an Indiaman ; but as the port sills of it were a good four feet above water when the ship was at her deep trim, I determined to make a partial lower gun-deck of it, by cutting six ports on a side and mounting in them twelve eighteen-pounders. But, being able to obtain only eight eighteens, I cut only four ports on a side, and in fact put to sea with only six eighteen-pound- ers, two of the eight being unfit for service when turned over to me. I then mounted twenty-eight long twelve-pounders on the gun-deck, put eight of the long nines on the quarter- 169 PAUIi JONES deck, and discarded the six-pounders of her old battery. This gave her a battery of forty-two guns, throwing two hundred and flf ty-eight pounds of metal in single broadside, counting the eighteen-pounders, or two hundred and four pounds without them. This made her with the eighteen- pounders a fair equivalent of a thirty-six-gun frigate ; or without them, the equal of a thirty-two as usually rated in the regular rate-lists of the English and French navies. Her spar and sail plan was well adapted to the steady long-reaching of East India voyages in trade winds and for ease in lying-to in contrary weather ; but not meant for smartness of handling or quickness of manoeuvre in action. She sailed well going free or with the wind abaft the beam. But she became dull and slow the closer she was hauled, and, when close hauled, she pointed up badly, steered hard and unsteady, and made much lee- way. She would not hold her luff five minutes with the weather-leech shivering in the foretopsail, and had to be either eased off or broached to quickly or she would fall off aback, if not closely conned. I mention this because the ability of a ship to hold her luff, if necessary, right up into the teeth of the wind and even after that to hold steering- way enough to wear or tack, as occasion may require, is frequently of supreme impor- tance in battle and, all other things being equal, has decided the fate of many ship-to-ship combats at sea. As, for ex- ample, a ship that can hold lufE better than her adversary will often, when fighting on a wind, get a chance to luif athwart hawse of the enemy and rake him or lay him on board or even tack clear round his bows and gain the weather-gage of him on the other tack, raking him a-bow as he comes about. The general condition of the ship when I took command may be known by the fact that the time from the end of February to the first of June was consumed in necessary re- fit and alterations, though I exhausted every endeavor to hurry them, and was fairly treated by the French dockyard authorities. 170 Q < o - X. "5 ^. CQ UJ ti 3: H ^■1 O i: cu cT _1 u- - o t: Oi t; u- -u. a _ K < ( ) CQ o AN APPEAL TO KING LOUIS By June 1 she was in as good condition as a ship of her age ajid extremely hard service could be put in, as to hull and fittings, while I had, to a large extent, newly sparred her and rove new rigging and newly-bent the more important sails. Buring this time, under many difficulties, a crew of three hundred ajad seventy-five all told, had been enlisted. Not more than flity, including officers, were Americans. A hundred and ninety-odd were aliens ; partly recruited from British prisoners of war, partly Portuguese, and a few French sailors or fishermen. In addition to these two hun- dred and forty seajnen, I shipped one hundred and twenty- two French soldiers who were allowed to voltinteer from the garrison, few or none of whom had before served aboard ship, and the commandant of the dockyard loaned me twelve regular marines, whom I made non-commis- sioned officers. The regular majine guard for a ship of the Richard' s size or rate would be about fifty to sixty of all ranks. My reason for shipping such a large number was that I meditated descents on the enemy's coasts, and also that I wished to be sure of force enough to keep my mixed and motley crew of seamen in order. The other ships of the squadron were the Alliance, Pallas, and Vengeance, with a coast-guard cutter called the Cerf. The Alliance was a new frigate, built in Salisbury, Mass., and had just come to France with Lafayette on board. She would rate as a large thirty-two or medium thirty-six-gun frigate, carrying a gun-deck battery of twenty-six long twelve - pounders and ten long nines above. She was sixty or seventy men short of her regular complement. The Pallas had been built as a twenty-eight-gun frigate about 1758, and on the peace of 1763 had been sold out of the navy to the (French) East India Company, who had used her to cruise in the Eastern seas in search of pirates. But now she had been bought back into the King's service, refitted quite thoroughly and carried a battery of twenty- 171 PAUL JONES two long nine-pounders and ten long sixes, with, a comple- ment of about two hundred officers and men. The Vengeance was a little twelve-gun brig, carrying six- pounders, and had formerly been used as dockyard tender. The Cerf, cutter, need not be described, as she did not make the cruise. With STicli a squadron Jones sailed from I'Orient June 19, 1779, but tlie second day out the Alliance fouled the Eichard, causing so much damage to both that the squadron was compelled to return to port for repairs, which, with other transactions, con- sumed six weeks. But, as the sequel proved, the accident was lucky and the delay it caused was, perhaps, providential. 173 CHAPTEE Vin ON THE BON HOMME RICHARD The refit of the damaged sMps lost valuable time, but it also was the means of gaining an inyaluable reinforcement. The haughty refusal of Lord North's Ministry to an exchange of prisoners of war caused the crew of the Drake and other British seamen taken by Jones in the Eanger in April and May, 1778, to be confined on board a hulk called, appropriately, the Patience, in Brest Harbor, until early in June, 1779. At last a cartel was arranged. The British prisoners were sent to Plymouth, one hundred and nineteen in number, during the month of June, and in July an equal number of American prisoners were sent from English hulks and jails to Nantes. Jones at once went to Nantes — about a day and a half's journey from I'Orient by the conveyances of those days — and enlisted one hundred and fourteen of the one hundred and nineteen exchanged Ameri- can sailors for his squadron. The only reason why he did not enlist the other five was because their sufferings in English prisons had crippled them beyond the possibility of further active service ; and of the one hundred and fourteen whom he did enroll, many were barely able to travel. Having no public means at his disposal, Jones paid for the transportation of these sailors from Nantes 173 PAUL JONES to rOrient out of his own pocket ; and, by the way, with some of the funds given to him by the Duchess de Chartres, because, at that time, he had no other personal resources. About half of these men were the remnant of the crew of the Lexington, captured more than a year before. The rest were men taken in privateers, including the American part of Cap- tain Oonyngham's crew, or in recaptured prizes. Besides these, Jones found about twenty other American sailors adrift at Nantes, and they all joined him, so that the whole force he took with him back to I'Orient was one hundred and thirty- four or one hundred and thirty-five, all Americans. This reinforcement, important as it was in num- ber, was yet more desirable in quality. It included Eichard Dale, John Louis White, Samuel Stacey, John Mayrant, Nathaniel Fanning, Henry Lunt, John Calvin Robinson, Henry Gardner, Thomas Potter, John West Linthwaite, Jonas Caswell, Eobert Coram, William Clarke, Thomas Knight, and sev- eral others, all rated as commissioned, warrant, or chief petty officers upon the reorganization of the Richard's crew as soon as they arrived at I'Orient. Li effecting this reorganization Jones discharged quite a number of the aliens in his original crew and trans- ferred others of them to the Alliance, to which ship he also assigned thirty or thirty-five of the American sailors brought from Nantes. This reinforced the Alliance to the extent of about seventy-five men and brought her complement quite up to its proper strength. He retained one hundred of the Ameri- can recruits in the Richard, and these, with the Americans in his original crew of June, before sail- 174 ON THE BON HOMME EICHAKD ing the first time, brought the genuine American strength of the flag-ship up to one hundred and forty-nine or one hundred and fifty officers and men. This force formed the fighting backbone of the Bichard's final crew. What she did with them aboard is the plainest kind of history. What she might have done, or have failed to do, without them, it is neither useful nor pleasant to conjecture. Finally, with refitted ships and reorganized crews, Paul Jones was ready to sail from the roadstead of Isle de Groaix in the early part of August, 1779, bound on a cruise around the British Islands. But even at this stage of his fortunes, when, after many months of effort and many moments that to any other man would have been moments of despair, he found himself in command of a fairly respectable squadron, he was by no means free of obstacles or released from difficulties. At the last moment before sailing, when there was no time for argument and no chance for protest, he, together with all the captains imder his command, was practically compelled to sign a singular document called a " Concordat." The effect of this document was to destroy nearly, if not wholly, the disciplinary value of his nominal seniority ; be- cause it made him nothing more than the first signer of an agreement binding all alike and making " col- leagues " of those who should have been his subor- dinates. The fact that success was achieved in spite of this unique and wholly unmilitary document can- not obscure the other fact that all the irregularities, delays, partial failures, and constant insubordination that marked the cruise may be attributed to its effect upon the minds of the junior captains, and particu- 175 PAUL JONES larly upon the already half-crazed brain of Pierre Landais, captain of the Alliance. No record can be found in the archives of either France or the United States to explain the reason why this " Concordat " should have been imposed upon Jones by Le Kay de Chaumont, or why Dr. Franklin required Jones to sign it, as he did, against his will. The text of this document need not be reproduced here. Suffice it to say that it has been printed elsewhere many times, and that its effect was, as the sequel proved, to deprive Jones of the real or substantial power that should always inure to the commander of a naval expedition, and to reduce him to the status of a mere chief adviser to his other captains ; a status that must inevitably have wrecked the fortunes of any other commander except him ; and it must be said that by no means the least merit of the unexampled and immortal success he achieved in spite of it, lies in the fact that his genius, sorely tried as it had been by other obstacles, finally rose superior to even Le Bay de Chaumont's " Concordat." It is safe to say that nothing remotely approxi- mating this document has ever before or since been known or heard of in the annals of naval war- fare. No description of it could possibly compare, either in simple truth or in savage satire, with that of Jones himself in a letter to Joseph Hewes dated the day after he signed it. In that letter, which enclosed a copy of the " Concordat," Jones says : . . . I am sure you will agree with me that the en- closed "Concordat" is the most amazing document that the putative commander of a naval force in time of war waa ever forced to sign on the eve of weighing anchor. 176 ON THE BON HOMME EICHAED I am tolerably familiar with the history of naval opera- tions from the remotest time of classical antiquity to the present day ; but I have not heajd or read of anything like this. I am sure that, when Themistoeles took command of the Grecian fleet, he was not compelled to sign such a ' ' concordat ; " nor can I find anything to exhibit that Lord Hawke in the French war or any English or French flag officer in this war has been subjected to such involuntary renouncement of his proper authority. These being the two extremes of ancient and of modem naval history without a precedent, I think I am entitled to consider myself the subject of a complete innovation ; or, in other words, the victim of an entirely novel plan of naval regulation. As you are well aware, it is my custom to live up to the terms of papers that I sign. I am, at this writing, unable to see that, by signing this paper, I have done less than surrender all military right of seniority, or that I have any real right to consider my flagship anything more than a convenient rendezvous where the captains of the other ships may assemble whenever it pleases them to do so, for the purpose of talking things over and agreeing — if they can agree — upon a course of sailing or a plan of operations from, time to time. Yet, strange and even absurd as all this may appear, I was constrained to sign this infernal paper by word from Dr. Franklin, which though veiled under the guise of " ad- vice, " came to me with all the force of an order. You know that not only is the word of Dr. Franklin law to me, but also his expression or even intimation of a wish is received by me as a command to be obeyed instantly and without inquiry or debate. I am sure the Doctor himself knows this. Therefore, he could not have advised me as he has done to sign this paper unless he had reason to con- sider it indispensable that I should do so. The fact that he has omitted to acquaint me with his reasons for so thinking by no means alters my consideration for his mo- VOL. I.— 13 177 PAUL JONES tives, and certainly cannot affect my obedience to his commands. I am so sure that the Doctor always does the best he can, that I never annoy >iim with inquiries. In this case as in all others, I have yielded without question. But I feel it is due to myself that some record of protest on my part should be made, and, not wishing to annoy Dr. Franklin with it, I hereby file my protest lq this manner with you, and enclose a true copy which I request you to hand to Mr. Morris ; and also, if I may so venture, I request you to lay this letter and the enclosed copy of the "Concordat" be- fore General Washington ; but, of course, not in the least sense ofBeially. Now, my friend, having worried you enough with my despairs, I will try to cheer you a little with my hopes. In spite of these drawbacks and difficulties I can at last see my way clear to some kind of a cruise. I hope to realize in it some of my ambitions toward promoting the reputa- tion of the United States on the sea. The taking of the Drake, small as the ships were, and unimportant as the result was to the general operations of the war, still produced a profound moral effect on the Con- tinent of Europe and alarmed the English more than they have been alarmed in many years, if ever. It at least taught the English and proved to the rest of the world that a regular British man-of-war, fully manned, well handled and ably commanded, could be reduced in one hour, by a slightly inferior ship, to total wreck and helplessness and forced to surrender in order to save the lives of the remnant of her crew, in sight of their own coast ; and all this, not by desperate boarding or by accident, but by simple, straightaway broadsiding at close range, the whole battle being fought on one tack and without mancBuvre. This was not only a new experience for the English, but it was also a new lesson for the French and other nations of the European Continent. Yet it was only a little flght between small ships and, like contests of feather-weights 178 ON THE BON HOMME EICHAED in the prize-ring, settled no question of championBhip at large. But now, with the force I have, ill-assorted as it is and hampered as it may be by the untoward conditions I have already confided to you, I can, if fortune favors me, fight a much more impressive battle. With this in view, I should not deem it a misfortune if I fell in with a ship of the enemy superior enough in force to make the taking of her an event of more than ordinary note. Mindful of all I have said and written to you about the great moral benefit which would accrue to our cause from a striking or, maybe, startling naval success, demonstrating our ability to cope with the Eng- lish on the element they have so long and so arrogantly ruled, I shall welcome the approach of such a ship. By all this you will understand me to mean that I shall not only not shrink from engaging a superior ship of the enemy, in this cruise, but that I shall also not consider the getting alongside of such a ship otherwise than fortunate. Tou know me too well to need assurance that this is sincere ; that it is not vainglory or boasting in advance. All I hope for is the chance ; and if such oppor- tunity shall come to me, rest assured that I will improve it in a manner not soon to be forgotten by the world and that neither our country nor the enemy can ever forget 1 I might have a better ship, and my crew would be better if they were all Am.ericans. But I am truly grateful for ship and crew as they are ; and, if I should fail and fall I wish this writing to witness that I take all blame upon myself. This letter was the last that Mr. Hewes ever re- ceived from Paul Jones. The Commodore wrote to him one more letter after this one, dated " The Texel, October 10, 1779," giving an account of the cruise ; but it did not reach its destination until several days 179 PAUL JONES after the death of Mr. Hewes, which occurred No- vember 10, 1779. Nearly all of Jones's letters in the Hewes Collection are annotated by their recipi- ent, either on the back of the sheets or by means of slips affixed to them. The comment of Mr. Hewes upon the foregoing letter was as follows : It is to be seen that he [Captain Jones] considers himself now at the end of resource, and that he must do or die with the weapons in his hands. I hope only that life may be spared me long enough to know the ending. I am sure from what he says at the end of his letter that he will either gain a memorable success or, if overmatched, go down with his flag flying and his guns firing. To me, who know him better than any one else does, his words "if I should fail and fall ' ' mean that he intends both shall be if one is ; that, if he must fail he is resolved to fall ; that he will not survive defeat. Knowing him as I do, the desperate reso- lution foreshadowed in. his words fills me in my present weak state with the gloomiest feelings. " At daybreak on the 14th of August," says Jones in his official report to Dr. Franklin, "the little squadron under my orders sailed from the Eoad of Groaix." This was the beginning of a cruise of only four ships, one of forty guns, one of thirty-six, one of twenty-eight, and one of twelve, that lasted only fifty days, and in length of voyage embraced only the circuit of the British Islands from west to east, north-about, and ending by anchorage in the Texel, October 3, 1779. In the history of naval warfare thousands of squadron cruises of equal or greater magnitude in the elements of force, length of time, and distance have been made. But no cruise 180 ON THE BON HOMME EICHAED of any squadron in any period has impressed the pag-es of naval history with anything- re- motely approaching the romantic glory of this one. Other cruises have been marked at least by discipline, subordination, and zeal of commanders for the common cause. This one, from beginning to end, was distracted by insubordination that in any regular navy would have been condemned as mutiny and punished by shooting on deck or hanging at the yard-arm. Next to the flag-ship, the most important ship of the squadron was the Alliance, and she was also the best and most effective frigate of her class in her day. She was but little inferior to the Bon Homme Kichard in weight of battery or in complement of men ; and this slight difference was, or in the hands of a loyal and skilful captain would have been, more than made up by her vastly superior sailing quali- ties and facility of handling. But, as misfortune would have it, the Alliance was commanded by Pierre Landais, whose conduct from first to last made him and his ship a burden instead of a help to the squadron. No page in the naval annals of the United States is so painful to write or so dis- tressing to read as the one on which the truth must be told about Pierre Landais. And yet we are forced to the reflection that the fault was not wholly his. It must be shared by the short-sighted, inconsiderate men then in control of our naval ad- ministration, who, in a fit of mawkish sentimen- tality, gave to Landais an honorable commission and a most important command in our infant navy, apparently without the slightest survey of his 181 PAUL JONES character or the least inquiry as to his antece- dents. He happened to come to the United States early in 1778 in command of one of Beaumarchais's ships laden with supplies for the Continental Army. It was at the time when the new alliance with France formed the ruling sensation. A new frigate, the best ever built in this country up to that time, had just been completed, and, though the original intention had been to name her the Independence, she was named the Alliance, in honor of the coalition. Landais, like most depraved and dishonest men, was cunning. He seized the opportunity to foist himself upon the Marine Committee as an officer of the French Navy, on leave for the express purpose of commanding the vessel that had brought the sup- plies. He was taken at his word, commissioned as captain in the Contuiental Navy, and assigned to command the Alliance. Had even pretence of in- quiry been made, it would have developed the fact — known only when too late — that he was really an ex-lieutenant of the French Navy, cashiered several years before for insubordination and refusal or fail- ure to pay debts of honor. He had long been under complete social and professional ban in France, not- withstanding his connection with a noble family. He had been cut off and repudiated by his own rela- tives, and the reason why he came to America in command of a merchant ship was that he had no other means of livelihood. All these facts came out later ; but not until after he had exhausted his power for mischief and had reflected upon our flag all the discredit he possibly could reflect upon it. 183 ON THE BON HOMME EICHakD An English naval historian, -writing long after- ward with all the facts before him and with more than the average candor of English writers, says : Paul Jones, with all his drawbacks and difficulties, suc- ceeded in alarming and insulting our coasts with a con- temptible little squadron, more than the whole navy of France had been able to do. He did this in spite of the treachery of his second in command, Landais. As it was, he did enough. What he might have done had the Alliance been in the hands of such a second in command to Paul Jones as Collingwood or Troubridge would have been to Nelson under like circumstances, it is quite unpleasant to imagine. K«negade though he was, it is yet a satisfaction to reflect that none but a British-bom seaman could have done what he did ; and it is also gratifying to reflect that his hands were partly tied and his energies half crippled by the incapacity or treachery or cowardice — or all three to- gether — of an already disgraced Frenchman. Jones, him- self, if he viewed the situation from the natural standpoint of a British-bom seaman, must often have thought what many a loyal Briton has thought before and since, that Frenchmen are more desirable as enemies than as allies at sea ! The first forty days of the fifty-day cruise that began from Isle Groaix at daybreak, the 14th of August, 1779, were marked by but few events worth description in detail. The squadron shaped its course from Isle de Groaix west northwest to clear the French coast, and then northwest to cross the mouth of the English Channel, or a course to weather Cape Clear, Ireland, and fetch the west Irish coast close aboard. The prevailing winds were light and baffling, so that the squadron was nine days out before sighting Cape Clear. 183 PAUL JONES In the meantime the Richard and a Frencli priva- teer in company recaptured a large ship belonging to Holland, but bound from Barcelona to Dunkirk, France, which had been taken some days before by an English privateer off Cape Ortegal and ordered into Falmouth. England and Holland were still at peace at that time, but the English claimed the right to intercept and send into their own ports for exam- ination all neutral vessels bound to French ports, as England and France were then at war. Commodore Jones took the English prize-crew out of the Dutch ship as prisoners of war and then ordered the ship into r Orient in charge of her own crew, but placed one of his midshipmen on board with six men to represent possession until she could come under the protection of a French port. During the afternoon of August 21st the Pallas brought to and captured the Mayflower, brigantine, bound from Limerick to London, laden with dairy products and salt meat and fish. This vessel, being British, was sent into I'Orient as an ordinary prize, with a prize-crew of two warrant officers and seven men. Li the forenoon of August 23d, Cape Clear bearing east northeast by east, in sight from the masthead and the weather dead calm, the Richard sent three boats and afterward a fourth to take a brig that was also becalmed in the northwest quarter out of gun- shot. This brig proved to be the Fortune, of Bris- tol, bound from Newfoundland for her home-port with whale-oil, salt fish, and barrel-staves. She was manned by a prize-crew of two warrant officers and six men, and sent into Nantes. 184 ON THE BON HOMME RICHAKD The same day, while the boats above mentioned were absent from the Richard, Commodore Jones found it necessary to tow the head of the ship a quarter round to get her head to the tide, and as no wind sprung up, the tow had to be kept to prevent her from drifting on the Skallocks reef. The boat sent ahead to tow was the Commodore's barge, and it was manned principally by English sailors, the only Americans in her being Midshipman Watt, and one quartermaster as coxswain. About sundown the English crew overpowered the two Americans, cut the tow-line and pulled for the shore. As soon as their intention was discovered several nine-pound shots were fired at them from the quarter-deck guns, and Mr. Cutting Lunt, second lieutenant or master (navigating officer), lowered away one of the two remaining boats of the Richard, with six seamen and four marines, and gave chase. The deserters, however, escaped with the barge and got ashore, and Mr. Limt, with his boat, pursued them so close in that he, too, was captured with his ten men.* * Paul Jonea was aa original in his ideas of shipboard discipline as in his modes of fighting. In both alike he was, in his own conception, the '* Prophet, Priest, and King." He had no fixed rules, either of dis- cipline or of battle. He simply accepted every situation as it struck him, and depended on himself every time for the outcome. On this point Heniy Gardner says : " I sailed, in my time, with many captains ; but with only one Paul Jones. He was the captain of captains. Any other commander I sailed with had some kind of method or fixed rule which he exerted towards all those under him alike. It suited some and others not ; but it was the same rule all the time and to everybody. Not so Paul Jones. He always knew every officer or man in his crew as one friend knows another. Those big black eyes of his would look right through a new man at first sight and, maybe, see something behind him ! At any rate, he knew every man and always dealt with each according to his notion. I have 185 PAUL JONES This was a loss of two boats and twenty-three officers and men — twelve in the barge and eleven in Mr. Lunt's boat — and there was no better officer in the ship than Mr. Lunt. Jones, in his report of the cruise to Dr. Franklin, says that Mr. Lunt acted without orders, though he commends his zeal. Thus, during the first ten days of the cruise the complement of the Richard had been reduced by thirty-nine, of whom one was the third officer ia the ship, whose loss could not easily be made good. The calm continued until sundown of the 24th, when Commodore Jones, believing that it would thicken up and blow hard before morning, and therefore desiring to work farther off the coast, haided to the northwest and stood out to sea. The seen him one hour teaching the Fiench language to his midBhipmen and the next hour showing an apprentice how to knot a ' Turk's-head ' or make a neat coil-down of a painter. He was in everybody's watch and everybody's mess all the time. In fact, I may say that any ship Paul Jones commanded was full of him, himself, all the time. The men used to get crazy about him when he was with them and talking to them. It was only when his back was turned that anyone could wean them away from him. If you heard peals of laughter from the forecastle, it was likely that he was there spinning funny yams for Jack off watch. If you heard a roar of merriment at the cabin-table, it was likely that his never-failing wit had overwhelmed the officers' mess. *' He was very strict. I have seen him sternly reprove a young sailor, who approached him, for what he called ' a lubber's walk ; ' say to him, ' See here, this is the way to walk.' And then, after putting the nov- ice through his paces two or three times, he would say to him : ' Ah, that's better! You'll be a blue-water sailor before you know it, my boy ! ' And then he wonld give the shipmate a guinea out of his own pocket. " Above all things he hated the cat-o'-nine-tails. In two of his ships— the Providence and the Banger — ^he threw it overboard the first day out. There was one in the Alfred that he never allowed to be used, and two in the Richard that were never used but twice. He consented to flog the lookout forward when the Richard fouled the Alliance the second 186 ON THE BON HOMME KICHAED ■wind continued to freshen until the afternoon of August 26th, when it blew a gale from the southwest, and the squadron ran to the northeast by north under stormsails. In the morning of August 31st the west coast of the Hebrides was brought abeam. The gale then began to abate and the wind hauled to the west- northwest, and on September 1st, about 10 A.M., Cape Wrath, the northwest promontory of Scotland, was sighted. At the same time two large ships hove in sight in the northwest quarter, and another large ship appeared to windward, evidently beating on a westerly course. Jones then bore up until he made out the first two ships to be the Alli- ance and a prize she had taken about daylight, a vessel bound for Jamaica from London, north-about. day out from I'Orient ; and also he allowed old Jack Robinson to per- suade hiTn that two foretop-men ought to be whipped for laying from aloft without orders when the squall struck us in the Richard off Leith. But when he consented to this he strictly enjoined upon old Jack that the men must be flogged with their shirts on, which, of course, made a farce of the whole proceeding. He said at this time : ' I have no use for the cat. Whenever a sailor of mine gets vicious beyond my persuasion or control the cheapest thing in the long run is to Mil him right away. If you do that the others will understand it. But if you trice him up and flog him, all the other bad fellows in the ship will sympathize with him and hate you.' ** All the men under his command soon learned this trait in his char- acter. One Sunday when we were off the west coast of Ireland, just after we had lost the barge and Mr. Lunt, he addressed the crew on the subject of discipline. He told them that, many years before, when he was a boy in the merchant-service, he had seen a man ' flogged round the fleet ' at Port Royal, Jamaica. He said the man died under the lash ; and he then made up his mind that Paul Jones and the cat-o'-nine-tails would part company. ' I tell you, my men,' he said, ' once for all, that when I become convinced that a sailor of mine must be tilled, I will not leave it to be done by boatswain's mates under slow torture of the lash ! But I will do it myself — and so G d quick that it vrill make your head£ Bwim ! ' " 187 PAUL JONES Having ascertained this, he hauled up with the Richard in chase of the ship beating to westward, and overhauled her about noon. She was armed and did not surrender until after exchange of several shots, when the Eichard had weathered her suf- ficiently to show her a broadside, which occurred about noon, September 1st. When hove-to and taken possession of, this prize proved to be the British letter-of-marque Union, mounting twenty-two six-pounders, bound north- about from London for Quebec, and laden with a cargo of naval and military stores for the British forces in Canada and their flotillas on the Lakes. The Union carried a valuable mail, including de- spatches from the British Government for Sir Guy Carleton in Canada, and also duplicate despatches for Sir William Howe at New York. " These public dispatches," says Jones in his report to Dr. Frank- lin, " were lost, as the Alliance imprudently showed American colors, though English colors were still flying on the Bon Homme Bichard ; the enemy thereby being induced to throw his papers of im- portance overboard before we could take possession of him." These two prizes were manned from the Alliance and the prisoners taken in them were put aboard the Richard. Jones adopted this course for three rea- sons : first, because he wished to keep control of all prisoners taken ; second, because his own crew had already been depleted to the extent of thirty-nine, and, third, because at that time and under those cir- cumstances he was willing— or at least constrained himself — to yield almost anything to the pretensions 188 ON THE BON HOMME RICHAED of Landais rather than precipitate an issue with him at sea in the middle of a cruise. He therefore allowed Landais to man the two prizes, directed him to keep them under his lee until after dark, and then ordered that they make the best of their way to rOrient or Brest. As soon as night came on, how- ever, Landais ordered the two prizes to run through Pentland Channel eastward and put into Bergen, in Norway, which they did.* * Under ordinary circumstances Bergen would have been the beat port to which to consign these prizes, because it was the most accessible and nearest neutral port, and the route to it was least liable to the risk of recapture. Jones would himself have ordered them there but for the fact, which he knew, whether Landais did or not, that they would be restored to the British as soon as they arrived there. Norway was then part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and the Danish King was wholly under the influence of England. The moment they arrived at Bergen the British consul there demanded that they be given up to him. The United States had no representative at Bergen ; but the French consul there, M. Duchezaulx, attempted to protect our interests and entered a protest against the surrender of the prizes. The question was then referred to the King of Denmark, who decided that they mast be restored to Great Britain " because they had not been captured by the forces of a power recognized by Denmark as sovereign.'* Tiiis decision reached Bergen on the 12th of October, and the two prizes, together with a third that had arrived two weeks later, were turned over to the British consuL M. Duchezaulx, in his official report of the a&ir, described the ships and their cargoes, and valued the three at £50,000. Excepting the MeUish, taken by Jones in the Alfred, the Union was the most valuable prize captured by our navy during the RevolutioiL She was a new ship, and Jones's intention was, if she could reach a French port, to convert her into a sloop-of-war, for which she was well adapted. She had on board a crew of sixty-ei^ht officers and men, among whom were four American sailors who had been released from prison in England on condition of shipping in this vesseL These were enrolled for service in the Richard. The other vessel was also a letter-of -marque, the Betsey, of London, vrith a cargo of flour, salt beef, and pork, and other provisions for the supply of the British Army in New York, and a 189 PAUL JONES From the 3d to the 16th of September the squad- ron worked slowly down the east coast of Scotland, with no incident of note beyond the capture of five or six small prizes. On the morning of the 16th the squadron was off the Firth of Forth, and Jones deter- mined to attack the port of Leith, which he had as- certained was defended only by a small guardship of twenty-two guns and an old fortification (old Leith Fort) garrisoned by a detachment of militia. In this enterprise he was seconded only by Captains Cottiaeau and Ricot, in the Pallas and Vengeance, Landais, with his usual contemptuous insubordina- tion, having disregarded the signals of the flag-ship and stood out to sea. The wind during the 16th and 17th of September was adverse, blowing off shore, with frequent heavy squalls, but about noon on the 17th the Bichard and Pallas had beat up within gunshot of Leith Fort and were lowering away their boats to land when a heavy northwest gale sprung up, compelling them to hoist in their boats, and ultimately driving them out to sea during the afternoon. The gale lasted about twenty-four hours, but on the morning of the 19th the wind took a favorable turn, and Commodore considerable quantity of merchandise consigned to Jamaica. She had on hoard a crew of forty-six all told, so that, with those taken in previous prizes, the Richard now had on board about one hundred and forty Eng- lish prisoners of war. Although the despatches the Union carried had been thrown overboard, Jones learned from the gossip of the prisoners that the seven gun-boats building at Quebec, for which the Union was taking out equipment supplies, were intended for use on Lake Cham- plain in an expedition that Sir Guy Carleton had planned for the spring of 1780, on much the same lines as Burgoyne's invasion of 1777. It is probable that the delay in receiving these stores resulting from the capture had much to do with the abandonment of that expedition. 190 ON THE BON HOMME EICHAUD Jones proposed to renew the attack on Leith. The Alliance being still absent, he called Captain Oot- tineau, of the Pallas, on board the flag-ship to com- municate the plan to him in person. Cottineau, while assuring the Commodore that he would support him, argued that the real opportunity was now lost ; that the alarm had been given by the attempt of the 17th, and therefore they could not hope to find Leith unprepared after two days in which to get ready. Besides, they must assume that the news of their presence on the coast would have been transmitted by semaphore (the telegraph of those days) to Lon- don, and they might, therefore, expect the imme- diate despatch of a strong naval force from the Downs or from Yarmouth up the coast in search of them. " Having already assured you that I will stand by you in any event, Commodore," said the gallant, though prudent, Cottineau, " I now feel at liberty to offer for your consideration my judgment that if we persist in this attempt and stay on this station three days longer, we shall have a squadron of heavy frig- ates, if not a ship or two of the line, to deal with. Convinced to this effect, I offer it as my judgment that we had better work along the coast to-day and to-morrow as far south as Spurn Head, and then, if we do not fall in with the Baltic merchant fleet, stand off the coast and make the best of our way to Dunkirk." Commodore Jones had a warm personal regard for Captain Cottineau, and also a high opinion of his professional skill and judgment. Aiter a few minutes' reflection he said : " You are probably 191 PAUL JONES right, Cottineau, in your estimate of the situation, I only wish that another man like you were in com- mand of the Alliance. However, we cannot help what is and must make the best of it. Go aboard your ship and make sail to the south southeast. Speak the Vengeance as you run down, and tell Eicot to rendezvous off Spurn Head. I will bring up the rear with this ship. We may fall in with the Baltic fleet between here and Scarboro', which is usually their first English port of destination at this time of year. Should you happen to sight the Alliance, inform Captain Landais of our destination, but do not communicate it to him as an order, be- cause that would be likely to expose you only to insult." The next three days were without event of note. On the 21st of September the Richard and the Pallas rendezvoused off Spurn Head, just in sight of land, and Captain Cottineau reported to the Commodore that he had exchanged signals with the Alliance the previous evening off the mouth of the Tyne, but that Landais had given him no intimation of what he in- tended to do, simply exchanging numbers and then standing out to sea. On the 22d, Jones, who was closer inshore than the Pallas, informed Cottineau that there was a considerable fleet of merchant ves- sels in convoy of a frigate anchored under the lee of Spurn Head, in the mouth of the Humber, and he believed they were colliers bound for London from Newcastle, and waiting for a shift of the wind which was then southerly and easterly, or dead ahead for the course they were bound upon. During that day, and before he could communicate with Cotti- 193 O^ THE BON HOMME EICHAKD neau, Jones had taken and sunk one collier and chased another ashore. Jones was meditating an attack at daylight the next morning on the coal fleet in the mouth of the Humber, when, just before dark on the 22d, the little Vengeance ran under his lee and informed him that the Baltic fleet had reached the English coast that forenoon, from the Oattegat, under convoy, and had put into Bridlington Bay to await a shift of the southerly wind, then prevailing, to the westward or northward to give them a fair slant for the Downs. When Jones received this information he was directly off Spurn Head to the eastward about hull down from the land, the Pallas close aboard, the Alliance hull down to the southward and eastward. Perceiving instantly that the opportunity of his lifetime was now before him, he ordered Captain Eicot in the little Vengeance to stand out to sea and inform Landais in the Alliance that the next rendez- vous of the squadron wotdd be Flamboro' Head, and then laid the Eichard's head north-northeast, sig- nalling Cottineau in the Pallas to follow him on his starboard quarter, not getting out of sight from the main-top. The distance from Spurn Head to Flamboro' is about forty miles as the bird flies ; but Jones did not wish to run straight up the coast, for fear of being discovered, and as the wind still held southerly he and the Pallas ran off before it northeast, away from the land, and out of sight of it, until the log showed that they had fairly northed the promontory of Flamboro'. They then hove-to before daylight and awaited developments. Vol,. I.— 13 193 PAUL JONES It appears that Jones and Cottineau nortlied Flamboro' more than they intended during the night, because, when the fog scaled up about simrise on the 23d of September, neither the land nor the Ven- geance nor the Alliance was in sight. Meantime the wind, which was very light, had hauled to the south- west, which made it a dead beat for them to get in with the land again. They consumed the better part of the forenoon of the 23d beating up for Bridling- ton Bay, and in doing so they both made such lee- way that they brought Flamboro' on the port beam with their last tack inshore, instead of on the star- board beam as they had intended. To correct this and get to windward of Flamboro' they wore o& shore again about one o'clock in the afternoon. They had hardly got sea-room enough to haul up for the land on the starboard tack, when the whole Baltic fleet appeared running out of Bridlington Bay, steering north-northeast, before the wind, be- tween them and the coast, and evidently making for Scarboro' or Tyne mouth for shelter and defence. At this time the Eichard and the Pallas were about ten or twelve miles off the land, the wind southwest and very light, hardly more than enough to make steering-way. The Baltic ships, however, had the strength of the land breeze and ran off free with it, making for Scarboro'. Their convoy brought up the rear, standing bold out to sea toward the Eichard and the Pallas, with the evident intention of getting and keeping between the merchant ships and the strangers. Jones now saw that unless the wind changed and got fresher he would have no chance whatever at the 194 ON THE BON HOMME KICHAKD merchant ships, which were sure to get shelter in Scarboro' or farther north before he could reach them. At the same time he saw that the conToy was a heavy ship-of-war, either a fifty-gun ship or a forty-four, with a large sloop-of-war in company. He also saw that the captain of the larger ship in convoy had cleverly manoeuvred to protect his mer- chant ships, leaving him nothing to do but sheer off or fight. Just before hauling in for the land Jones had de- coyed a pilot-boat alongside and had taken posses- sion of her, placing Lieutenant Henry Lunt with fourteen sailors and marines in charge of her, and had ordered them to bring to a collier in the south- east quarter. But as soon as he made out the force of the enemy he signalled Lunt to abandon the pilot- boat and return aboard the Bichard. The wind was so light that Lunt could not at once comply with this order, being to leeward, and, as the wind was off the land, it became lighter with distance.* Commodore * Captain Mahan, in his " John Paul Jones in the Revolution " (