PAUL JONES. PAUL JONES, the popular naval hero of the Revolution, the son of John Paul, a gardener in Scotland, was born July 6, 1747, at a cottage on the estate of his father's employer, Mr. Craik, at Arbigland, in the parish of Kirkbean. His parents belonged to a respectable class of the population of the country. The boy, as is wont with Scottish boys, however humble, received the elements of education, but could not have advanced very far with his books, since we find him at the age of twelve apprenticed to the sea. The situation of Kirkbean, on the shore of the Solway, naturally gave a youth of spirit an inclination to life on the ocean; and he had not far to seek for employment in the trading-port of Whitehaven, in the opposite county of Cumberland. Paul's first adventure-the appendix of Jones was an afterthought of his career was in the service of Mr. Younger, a merchant in the American trade, who sent his apprentice on a voyage to Virginia, where an elder brother of Paul had profitably established himself at Fredericksburg. This gave him an early introduction to the country with which the fame of the future soldier of fortune was to be especially identified. short duration. The failure of his employer threw the youth upon his own resources; but he lost no time in taking care of himself. His studies on shipboard had already qualified him for the higher duties of the mercantile service; the slave-trade, the active pursuit of those days, offered him an engagement; he sailed for the African coast in the King George, a vessel engaged in this infamous traffic, out of Whitehaven, and in his nineteenth year, was trusted as chief mate of the Two Friends, another vessel of the trade, belonging to Jamaica. Having carried his human cargo to the island, sickening of the pursuit, he sailed as a passenger to Kirkcubright, in his native district. Opportunities are always presenting themselves to the watchful and the initiated. The chief officers of the vessel died of the fever; Paul took the command, and carried the ship in safety to the owners. They put him in command of the brig, the John, on another West India voyage, in the course of which an incident happened which gave him for some time an ill name, and diverted him from his country. He had occasion to punish the carpenter, Mungo Maxwell, for some infraction of duty, by flogging; The apprenticeship of Paul was of Maxwell complained to the authorities, at Tobago, without redress, and the whole affair would have been thought of no consequence, had not the complainant died shortly after; not indeed of his wounds, but of a West India fever. The report gained ground that Captain Paul had killed him. In consequence of annoyance from this affair, or other difficulties, Paul left Scotland, finally, in 1771, never to return to it, save to carry terror among its population. He proceeded to London; found employment in the West India trade, and in 1773 settled himself for awhile in Virginia on the estate of his brother, to whom he had now become heir. This was a grand turning-point of his career, and to signalize it properly, Paul, who was somewhat of a fanciful turn, added the name Jones to his proper appellation, John Paul.1 His biographers have offered various conjectures as to the motive of this change. One thinks it was with the intention of founding a new race in a new country, as if there had not been Joneses enough in the world already; another is of opinion, that as he might be called upon to On the organization of the infant navy of the United States in 1775, John Paul Jones, as he is henceforth to be called, received the appointment of first of the first lieutenants in the ser vice, in which, in his station on the flag-ship Alfred, he claimed the honor of being the foremost, on the approach of the commander-in-chief, Commodore Hopkins, to raise the new American flag. This was the old device of a rattlesnake coiled on a yellow ground, with the motto, Don't tread on me, which is yet partially retained in the seal of the war-office. The first service of the new squadron was the attack upon the island of New Providence, in which Jones rendered signal assistance. On the return voy age, the unsatisfactory encounter with the Glasgow occurred, which afterwards resulted in the dismissal of one of the American officers, and Jones' appoint ment in his place to the command of the Providence, of twelve guns and seventy men. His exploits in this fight against England, it would be better that his old vessel gained him his first laurels. He now received the rank of Captain, and sailed on various expeditions, transport friends should not know him-which is making Paul, or Jones, of more consequence than he, at that time, really was; another, who thinks that the addition was made a little later, fancies in it a compliment to his friend, Gen. ing troops, convoying merchantmen, William Jones, of North Carolina; while Cooper, the novelist and naval historian, makes up his mind, after a consideration of all these suppositions, that on the principle of a dog having an ill name, being worth nothing but to be hung, Paul, in reality, became Jones on account of a distasteful recollection of the haunting odium of that unfortunate Maxwell affair. If John Paul were not in itself as good a name as any to "fill the trump of fame," we should be inclined to think the conscious hero had chosen the new designation simply with an eye to its sound. Certainly, whatever may have been the impulse, the name, short, sonorous, emphatic, capable of being heard in the uproar of a tempest, or the crashing of a cannonade, has been a decided popular success. There is much in the naming of heroes; and, indeed, our naval service. from the time of Paul Jones himself, has been particularly fortunate in this respect. There is a stirring outsailing British frigates, and greatly harassing the enemy's commercial interests. IIis success in these enterprises induced Commodore Hopkins to put him in command of the Alfred and other vessels on an expedition to the eastward, which resulted in the capture of various important prizes of transport and other ships, and extensive injury appeal in the very names-Bainbridge, Decatur, Ferry. Preble, Somers, Lawrence. to the fisheries at Canso. On his On the tenth of April, 1778, he sailed return, he was superseded in the com- from Brest on a cruise in British mand of the Alfred, his seniority in the waters. Directing his course to the -service being set aside, a grievance haunts of his youth, he captured a which led to remonstrance on his part, brigantine off Cape Clear and a London and a correspondence with the Commit- ship in the Irish Channel; planned tee of Congress, in the course of which various bold adventures on the Irish Jones made many valuable suggestions coast, which he was not able to carry as to the service, and gained the friend- out by adverse influences of wind and ship of that eminent business man of tide, but well-nigh succeeded in burnthe old Confederacy, Robert Morris. ing a large fleet of merchantmen in the There appear to have been several docks of Whitehaven. In this last appointments for him in progress when adventure, he made a landing at night, his somewhat unsettled position became and advanced to the capture of the determined by the resolve of Congress town-batteries, leaving his officers to to send him to France for the purpose of taking command of a frigate to be provided for him by the Commissioners at Paris. By the resolution of June 14, 1777, he was appointed to the Ranger, newly built at Portsmouth, and a second instance of the kindhad the honor of hoisting for the first time the new flag of the stars and stripes; at least he claimed the distinction, for the bustling vanity of Jones made him punctilious in these accidental matters of personal renown. It took some time to prepare the Ranger for sea, but Jones got off on his adventure in November, made a couple of prizes by the way, and at the end of a month reached Nantes. Disappointed in obtaining the large vessel which he Nor was this all. He immediately had expected, and obliged to be con- crossed to his native shore of Scotland, tented with the Ranger, he employed with the intention of seizing the Earl his time in making acquaintance with of Selkirk, at his seat on the promonthe French navy at Quiberon Bay, and tory of St. Mary's Isle on the Solway, offering valuable suggestions for the near Kirkcudbright. Landing at the employment of D'Estaing's fleet on the spot, he ascertained that the earl was American coast. He soon determined from home. Disappointed in his ob to put to sea on an adventure of spirit.ject, he would have returned, when the fire the ships, of which there were about two hundred in the port. His orders were not obeyed, either from insufficient preparations or the relenting of his agents, when he himself set fire to one of the largest of the vessels. It was now day, and the people were warned by a deserter from his force, but Jones managed to hold the whole town at bay till he made good his retreat. This daring affair was an im promptu of Jones' genius, justified in his view by similar depredations of the British on the American coast; but it had an ugly look of ingratitude to the place which had sheltered his youth, and first given him promotion in the world. officers in his boat insisted upon a de- after the affair of St. Mary's, he ran mand for the family plate. Jones de- across the channel, and had the fortune murred, for he had always much of the to meet the Drake coming out of Cargentleman about him; but yielded with rickfergus. She was getting to sea to the proviso that the thing was to be check the exploits of the Ranger, which done in the most delicate manner pos- had now alarmed the whole region. sible. His lieutenant, Simpson, under- Jones desired nothing more than an entook the business, and introduced him- counter. As the ship drew up she self to Lady Selkirk, who was, con- hailed the Ranger. Jones gave the reveniently enough for his purposes, ply through his sailing-master-"The engaged at breakfast. She had at first American continental ship Ranger. We taken the party for a press-gang, and are waiting for you. Come on. The had offered them refreshments; on be- sun is little more than an hour high, ing informed of the nature of their and it is time to begin!" A broadside visit, their request, backed by the engagement commenced, and continued armed crew at the door, was complied at close quarters for an hour, when the with. The butler collected the plate, Drake surrendered. Her captain and estimated in one account at a hundred first lieutenant were mortally wounded, pounds, in another at a thousand. her sails and rigging terribly cut up, Meanwhile, we are told, "Paul Jones and hull much shattered. The loss of strolled under the noble oaks and chest- the Ranger was two killed and six nuts that adorn St. Mary's Isle, with wounded; that of the Drake, fortyreflections, which his sudden return two. The Drake had two guns the adamong scenes so attractive, where every vantage of her adversary. The action object was so familiar to him, must took place on the 24th of April; on have strangely blended with exultation | the 8th of May, Jones having traversed and with pain." If Jones thought of the channel, carried his prize safely into anything at this time, it was of the un- Brest. happy errand on which his men were engaged; for we shall presently find him at the first interval of leisure taking measures to repair the act. For the moment, however, he had more serious work on hand. In his upward voyage along the Irish coast, he had looked into Belfast Lough, after his majesty's sloop-of-war Drake, of twenty guns, which he attempted to board in a night attack by a bold manoeuvre, which came within an ace of success. Immediately 1 1 Mackenzie's Life of Paul Jones, I. 71. His first thought now was to make some amends to Lady Selkirk, and his own reputation for the plundering visit of his lieutenant. He therefore addressed to her, the very day of his landing, an extraordinary letter-Jones was fond of letter-writing-full of highsounding phrases, and professions of gallantry and esteem, in the midst of which he failed not to recite the splen did victory of the Ranger. He drew a picture of the terrors inflicted by the British in America; and in respect to that unfortunate plate, expressed his |