Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=jZxBAAAAYAAJ
(Harvard University)
2. The diphthong oe is represented ny [oe].
[Illustration: Front Cover]
COMMODORE PAUL JONES.
[Illustration: Frontispiece
Paul Jones]
COMMODORE
PAUL JONES
BY
CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
AUTHOR OF
REUBEN JAMES, A HERO OF THE FORECASTLE;
THE GRIP OF HONOR; STEPHEN DECATUR; ETC.
_WITH PORTRAIT AND MAPS_
NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1900,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
Printed in the United States of America
THIS STORY
OF THE LIFE OF ONE OF THE
GREAT FOUNDERS OF THE REPUBLIC
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
TO
GEORGE CLIFFORD THOMAS,
A NOBLE EXEMPLAR
OF ITS CITIZENSHIP.
PREFACE.
In preparing this work I began, I admit, with an ardent admiration for
John Paul Jones, born of long study of his career. I have endeavored,
however, so far as possible, to lay aside my preconceived opinions and
predisposition in his favor, and I have conscientiously gone over the
immense mass of material bearing upon him, _de novo_, in an attempt to
be absolutely and strictly impartial. Perhaps I have not altogether
succeeded, but if it be found that I have erred in Jones' favor, I
shall be glad that I have followed the impulses of affection rather
than those of depreciation. I have not, I trust, been blind to the
faults in the character of the great sailor, nor to the mistakes he
committed, nor to the wrongdoings in his career to which I have called
attention; but, in spite of these things, which I have most
reluctantly recorded, I am happy that renewed investigation, careful
study, and much thought have only endeared him the more to me. I lay
down the pen with a higher respect, with a more affectionate regard,
with a greater admiration for him than ever.
In Miss Seawell's fine phrase, "It may be said of him as of the great
Condé: 'This man was born a captain.'" His place among the great sea
kings as a strategist, a tactician, and a fighter is now unquestioned
by the most calumnious of his defamers; but the wound he inflicted
upon British pride still rankles after the lapse of more than a
century, and his professional status and personal character are still
bitterly aspersed. So doth prejudice blind the eyes of truth. I have
devoted some space to the old charge that he was a pirate, which was
renewed recently in an article in the London Academy, one of the
leading journals of England, and I trust that the reader will find
that I have finally disposed of that absurd statement, and the other
slanders concerning him, in these pages. And I have tried to be fair
to the enemy as well.
Wherever it has been possible, without clogging the narrative or
letting it assume the form of a mere collection of letters, Paul the
sailor, like Paul the Apostle, hath been permitted to speak for
himself. Contrary to some of his biographers, I have made it a rule to
accept Jones' own statements unless they were controverted by adequate
evidence. It is proper to call attention to the fact that the intent
of the series, of which this is one, which deals primarily with the
subjects of the different volumes as great commanders, naturally
emphasizes their public exploits rather than their private life. This
will account for a lack of amplification in certain directions, and
for the omission of details of certain periods of his life which, were
the circumstances other than they are, would probably be treated of at
greater length. However, it is believed that enough appears in the
pages to complete the picture and exhibit the man.
There is a great amount of matter available for the study of his life,
in the shape of lives, essays, sketches, and general histories, and
contemporary memoirs, and an immense mass of manuscript reports and
correspondence, and Jones himself left several interesting accounts of
his career and services, which are of great value to his biographers.
I have freely used all sources of information to which I could gain
access, and they have not been few. It will be only justice, however,
if I acknowledge that among the authorities consulted I have found the
excellent life by Commodore Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, U. S. N.,
published in 1841, the most useful. Mackenzie was an officer and
seaman of wide experience and fine talents, whose life covered the
period of our naval development succeeding the War of 1812, and his
comments from a sailor's point of view are instructive and invaluable.
His work is marred by an unfortunate bias against Jones, which appears
in several instances; in a desire to be accurate and just he has gone
to a censurable extreme. Two other books have been most helpful: the
life by John Henry Sherburne, sometime Register of the United States
Navy, published in 1825, with its valuable collection of reports of
participants in different actions, and statements and official
documents not otherwise preserved; and the life compiled from the
manuscript furnished by Miss Janette Taylor, a niece of the great
commodore, published in 1830. I may also add that I have found Captain
Mahan's admirable papers upon the subject, in Scribner's Magazine, of
great value. Indeed, there are facts, observations, and deductions in
these articles which appear nowhere else, so sure is the touch of a
genius for historical accuracy and investigation like his. Among other
essayists, Miss Molly Elliott Seawell, whose facile pen has done so
much to exploit our early naval heroes, has written a notable and
interesting paper which appeared in the Century Magazine; while
Professor John Knox Laughton, the English naval expert, in his
celebrated but scandalous and utterly unjustifiable attack, gives us a
modern British estimate of the commodore. I shall pay my respects to
his contribution later. No extended life has been published for fifty
years.
My thanks are due to General Horace Porter and the Honorable
Charlemagne Tower, LL.D., ambassadors of the United States to France
and Russia respectively, for investigations in answers to inquiries,
and for suggestions; to Dr. Talcott Williams, of Philadelphia, for
valuable suggestions as to sources of possible information; to the
Rev. Dr. William Elliot Griffis, of Ithaca, New York, for much
interesting matter connected with the Baron van der Capellen, for
unpublished manuscript notes on North Holland, the Helder, and the
Texel, and for the rare copy of the old Dutch song, "Hir komt Pauwel
Jones aan," which appears in the appendix; to Lieutenant-General O. V.
Stubendorff, Chief of the Topographical Section of the Imperial
Russian General Staff, and to Major-General E. Sarantchof, of the
Russian army, for maps, reports, and other data concerning the
campaign on the Dnieper-Liman, not accessible in any American books;
to Mr. Charles T. Harbeck, of New York, for generous permission to
make use of rare books and pamphlets relating to Paul Jones in his
valuable collection of Americana; to Messrs. W. M. Cumming and Junius
Davis, of Wilmington, N. C., and Mrs. A. I. Robertson, of Columbia,
S. C., for information concerning the assumption of the name of Jones
by John Paul, not hitherto published in book form; to Mr. E. G.
McCollin and the Misses Mabel S. Meredith, Edith Lanigan, and Bertha
T. Rivailles for much important work in translation; and to Miss
Isabel Paris for invaluable assistance in transcribing the manuscript.
Lest any of the above should be involved in possible criticisms which
may be made of the book, I beg to close this preface with the
assurance that for everything which follows I alone am responsible.
CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY.
Philadelphia, Pa., _July, 1900_.
CONTENTS.
I.--ANCESTRY--BIRTH--EARLY YEARS--PROFESSION--SUCCESS--CHANGE OF NAME
II.--COMMISSIONED IN THE NAVY--HOISTS THE FIRST FLAG--EXPEDITION TO
NEW PROVIDENCE--ENGAGEMENT WITH THE GLASGOW
III.--THE CRUISE OF THE PROVIDENCE
IV.--THE CRUISE OF THE ALFRED
V.--SUPERSEDED IN RANK--PROTESTS VAINLY AGAINST THE INJUSTICE--ORDERED
TO COMMAND THE RANGER--HOISTS FIRST AMERICAN FLAG
VI.--THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE RANGER--SALUTE TO THE AMERICAN FLAG
VII.--THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE RANGER--THE DESCENT ON WHITEHAVEN--THE
ATTEMPT ON LORD SELKIRK--THE CAPTURE OF THE DRAKE
VIII.--STANDING AND WAITING
IX.--THE CRUISE OF THE SQUADRON
X.--THE BATTLE WITH THE SERAPIS
XI.--AFTER THE BATTLE--REMARKS ON THE ACTION
XII.--UPHOLDING AMERICAN HONOR IN THE TEXEL
XIII.--THE ESCAPE OF THE ALLIANCE
XIV.--HONORS AND REWARDS--QUARREL WITH LANDAIS--RELINQUISHES THE
ALLIANCE
XV.--THE CRUISE OF THE ARIEL
XVI.--CAREER IN THE UNITED STATES TO THE CLOSE OF THE WAR
XVII.--PRIZE AGENT IN FRANCE AND DENMARK--LAST VISIT TO THE UNITED
STATES--A BLOT ON THE ESCUTCHEON--FAMOUS PASSAGE OF THE
BALTIC
XVIII.--IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE--OTCHAKOFF AND THE CAMPAIGN IN THE
LIMAN
XIX.--SLANDERED IN RUSSIA--A SLAVONIC REWARD FOR FAITHFUL SERVICES
XX.--LAST YEARS AND DEATH
XXI.--PERSONAL APPEARANCE--CHARACTERISTICS--WAS HE A PIRATE?--FAREWELL
APPENDICES
INDEX
COMMODORE PAUL JONES.
CHAPTER I.
ANCESTRY--BIRTH--EARLY YEARS--PROFESSION--SUCCESS--CHANGE OF NAME.
Of the three great captains whose magnificent fighting has added such
glorious chapters to the history of our naval campaigns, but one,
George Dewey, the last of them all, is purely an American by birth and
generations of ancestors. Farragut, the greatest of the three, was but
one remove from a Spaniard. John Paul Jones, first of the group in
point of time and not inferior to the others in quality and
achievement, was a Scotsman. Only the limitation in means necessitated
by the narrow circumstances of his adopted country during his lifetime
prevented his surpassing them all. He remains to this day a unique
character among the mighty men who trod the deck and sailed the
ocean--a strange personality not surpassed by any in the long line of
sea fighters from Themistocles to Sampson. In spite of, nay, because
of his achievements, he was among the most calumniated of men. What
follows is an attempt to tell his story and to do him justice.
Near the close of the fifth decade of the eighteenth century, George I
reigned in England, by the grace of God and because he had succeeded
in putting down the rebellion of 1745; Frederick the Great was
tenaciously clutching the fair province of Silesia which Maria
Theresa, with equal resolution but with faint prospect of success, was
endeavoring to retain; Louis XV (the well beloved!) was exploiting the
privileges and opportunities of a king with Madame de Pompadour and
the _Parc aux Cerfs_; and the long war of the Austrian succession was
just drawing to a close, when there was born on July 6, 1747, to a
Scots peasant, named John Paul, and to Jean MacDuff, his wife, a son,
the fifth child of a large family.[1]
The youngster was duly christened John Paul, Junior, after his sire.
He is the hero of this history. He first saw the light on the estate
of Arbigland, in the parish of Kirkbean, in the county of
Kirkcudbright, a province once called the Royal Stewartry of
Kirkcudbright (pronounced "Kircoobree"), because it had been governed
formerly by a steward or deputy, appointed by the crown, of which the
county had been an appanage.
The father of the subject of this memoir filled the modest situation
of a master gardener, a precursor of the modern and scientific
landscape gardener, or engineer, in a small scale, in the employ of a
Scots bonnet laird named Craik. His remote family--peasants, yeomen
always--had come from the ancient lands of the Thanes of Fife, whence
his grandfather had removed to Leith, where he kept a mail garden or
wayside inn--in short, a tavern. It is to the credit of Master John
Paul, Senior--evidently a most honest and capable man in that humble
station in life into which it had pleased God to call him--that he
forsook the tavern and clung to the garden. When he had finished his
apprenticeship as gardener he removed to Arbigland, where he married
Jean MacDuff, the daughter of a sturdy yeoman farmer of the
neighboring parish of New Abbey, whose family had been established in
their present location from time immemorial.
The marriage was blessed with seven children, the two youngest sons
dying in infancy. The first was a boy named William; the next three
were girls, named Elizabeth, Janet, and Mary Ann; and the fifth and
last, considering the death of the infants, the boy named John, after
his father. _En passant_, there must have been something favorable to
the development of latent possibilities in gardeners' sons in that
corner of Scotland, for in the neighboring county of Ayr, a few years
later was born of similar bucolic stock the son of another tiller of
the soil, known to fame as Robbie Burns!
The cottage in which young Paul made his first appearance was a little
stone building in a verdant glade in a thriving wood hard by the north
shore of the Solway. In front of the cottage whose whitewashed walls
were in full view of the ships which entered the Firth there was a
patch of greensward. The country of that section of bonnie Scotland in
which is the parish of Arbigland is rugged and broken. To the east and
to the west, huge, craggy mountains shut in a thickly wooded plateau,
diversified by clear, rapid streams abounding in fish. The fastnesses
in the hills even then were covered with romantic ruins of decayed
strongholds of feudal times, reminiscent of the days of the Black
Douglasses and their men. The coast line, unusually stern and bold, is
broken by many precipitous inlets, narrow and deep. At the foot of the
cliffs at low tide broad stretches of sand are exposed to view, and
the rapid rise of the tide makes these shelving beaches dangerous
places upon which to linger. The water deepens abruptly beyond the
beaches, and vessels under favorable circumstances are enabled to
approach near the shore.
Amid such scenes as these the childhood of young Paul was passed. Like
every thrifty Scots boy of the period, he had plenty of work to do in
assisting his mother and father. The life of a Scots peasant of that
time was one of hard and incessant toil; his recreations were few, his
food meager, his opportunities limited, and the luxuries absent. Young
John Paul ate his porridge and did his work like the rest. It would
probably now be considered a sad and narrow life, which the stern and
rigid austerity of the prevailing form of Calvinism did nothing to
lighten. That gloomy religion, however, did produce men.
It was the parish school which shaped and molded the minds of the
growing Scots, and it was the Kirk which shaped and directed the
schools, and the one was not more thorough than the other. I doubt if
anywhere on earth at that day was the standard of education among the
common people higher and more universally reached than in Scotland.
During the short school year Paul was sent religiously to the nearest
parish school, where he was well grounded in the rudiments of solid
learning with the thoroughness which made these little schools famous.
No demands of labor were allowed to interfere with the claims of
education. On Sunday he was religiously and regularly marched to the
kirk to be duly inducted into the mysteries of the catechism, and
thoroughly indoctrinated with the theory of predestination and its
rigorous concomitants.
Of him, as of other boys, it is veraciously stated that he conceived a
great fondness for the sea, and it is related that all his plays were
of ships and sailors--a thing easily understood when it is remembered
that his most impressionable hours were spent in sight and sound of
the great deep, and that the white sails of ships upon the horizon
were quite as familiar a picture to his youthful vision as the
tree-clad hills and valleys of his native land. It is evident
that he had no fancy for the garden. A man of action he, from his
bib-and-tucker days. His chroniclers have loved to call attention to
the fact that even as a lad he manifested the spirit of one born to
rule, for in the sports and games it was his will which dominated his
little group of comrades--and the Scotsman, even when he is a child,
is not easily dominated, be it remembered. His was a healthy, vigorous
boyhood.
His desire for the sea must have been stronger than the evanescent
feeling which finds a place sooner or later in the life of most boys,
for in 1759, with the full consent of his parents, he crossed the
Solway to Whitehaven, the principal port of the Firth, where he was
regularly bound apprentice to a merchant named Younger, who was
engaged in the American trade. He was immediately sent to sea on the
ship Friendship, Captain Benson, and at the tender age of twelve years
he made his first voyage to the new land toward whose freedom and
independence he was afterward destined to contribute so much. The
destination of the ship happened to be the Rappahannock River. As it
fortunately turned out, his elder brother, William, had some years
before migrated to Virginia, where he had married and settled at
Fredericksburg, and by his industry and thrift finally amassed a
modest fortune. Young Paul at once conceived a great liking for
America which never faltered; long afterward he stated that he had
been devoted to it from his youth.
The ship duties in port not being arduous, the young apprentice,
through the influence of his brother, was permitted to spend the
period of the vessel's stay in America on shore under the roof of his
kinsman. There he continued his studies with that zeal for knowledge
which was one of his distinguishing characteristics, and which never
left him in after life; for it is to be noted that he was always a
student; indeed, had he not been so, his subsequent career would have
been impossible. It was largely that habit of application, early
acquired, that enabled him to advance himself beyond his original
station. He especially applied himself to the science of navigation,
the intricacies of which he speedily mastered, so that he became
subsequently one of the most expert navigators that sailed the sea.
His natural inclination for the sea stood him in good stead, and he
finally acquired a complete knowledge of the details of his trying
profession. Upon the failure of Mr. Younger, who surrendered the
indentures of young Paul to him as the only thing he could do for him
in his present circumstances, he was sufficiently capable to receive
an appointment as third mate on the slaver King George, of Whitehaven.
A few years after, in 1766, being then but nineteen years of age, he
was appointed to the most responsible position of chief mate of the
slaver Two Friends, a brigantine of Jamaica. The contrast between the
old and the new _régime_ is brought vividly before us when we learn
that to-day a cadet midshipman--the lowest naval rank at present--of
the same age has still a year of schooling to undergo before he can
even undertake the two years' probationary cruise at sea required
before he can be commissioned in the lowest grade.
Slave trading was a popular and common vocation in that day, not
reprehended as it would be at present. Gentlemen of substance and
station did not scruple to engage in it, either as providing money and
receiving profit, or as actually participating as master or supercargo
of ships in the traffic. It is interesting to note that young Paul, as
he grew in years and acquired character, became intensely dissatisfied
with slaving. The sense of the cruelties, iniquities, and injustice of
the trade developed in him with coming manhood, and gradually took
such possession of him that, as was stated by his relatives and
himself, he finally resolved to withdraw from it.
This determination, scarcely to be expected from one of his birth and
circumstances, was greatly to his credit. The business itself was a
most stirring and lucrative one, and for a young man to have attained
the rank he enjoyed so early in life was evidence that he need have no
fear but that the future would bring him further advancement and
corresponding pecuniary reward. In this decision he was certainly in
advance of his time as well; but that love of liberty which had been
bred in him by the free air of the bold hills of his native land, and
which afterward became the master passion of his life, for which he
drew his sword, was undoubtedly heightened and intensified by this
close personal touch with the horrors of involuntary servitude.
In the year 1768, therefore, giving up his position on the Two
Friends, he sailed as a passenger in the brigantine John, bound for
Kirkcudbright. It happened that the captain and mate of the vessel
both died of fever during the voyage, and at the request of the crew
Paul assumed command and brought the vessel safely to her port.
Currie, Beck & Co., the owners of the John, were so pleased with this
exploit that they appointed young Paul master and supercargo of the
vessel, in which he made two voyages to the West Indies. He was a
captain, therefore, and a merchant at the age of twenty-one. The
owners of the John dissolved partnership on the completion of his
second voyage, and disposed of the ship, giving Paul the following
honorable certificate upon his discharge from their employ:
"These do certify to whom it may concern, that the bearer, Captain
John Paul, was two voyages master of a vessel called the John, in our
employ in the West India trade, during which time he approved himself
every way qualified both as a navigator and supercargo; but as our
present firm is dissolved, the vessel was sold, and of course he is
out of our employ, all accounts between him and the owners being
amicably adjusted. Certified at Kirkcudbright this 1st April, 1771.
"Currie, Beck & Co."
One incident in his West Indian service is worthy of mention, because
it afterward crept out in a very ugly manner. On the second voyage of
the John the carpenter, a man named Mungo Maxwell, formerly of
Kirkcudbright, who had been mutinous, was severely flogged by the
order of Paul. Maxwell was discharged at the island of Tobago. He
immediately caused Paul to be summoned before the judge of the
vice-admiralty court for assault. The judge, after hearing the
testimony and statement of Captain Paul, dismissed the complaint as
frivolous. Maxwell subsequently entered on a Barcelona packet, and in
a voyage of the latter ship from Tobago to Antigua died of a fever.
Out of this was built up a calumny to the effect that Maxwell had been
so badly punished by Paul that he died from his injuries. When Paul
was in the Russian service years afterward the slander was enhanced by
the statement that Maxwell was his nephew. There was nothing whatever
in the charge.
After his retirement from the command of the John he engaged in local
trading with the Isle of Man. It has been charged that he was a
smuggler during this period; but he specifically and vehemently denied
the allegation, and it is certain that the first entry of goods
shipped from England to the Isle of Man, after it was annexed to the
crown, stands in his name on the custom-house books of the town of
Douglas. Soon after this he commanded a ship, the Betsy, of London, in
the West India trade, in which he engaged in mercantile speculations
on his own account at Tobago and Grenada, until the year 1773, when he
went to Virginia again to take charge of the affairs of his brother
William, who had died intestate, leaving neither wife nor children.
Very little is known of his life from this period until his entry into
the public service of the United States. From remarks in his journal
and correspondence, it is evident, in spite of his brother's property,
to which he was heir, and some other property and money which he had
amassed by trading, which was invested in the island of Tobago, West
Indies, that he continued for some time in very straitened
circumstances. He speaks of having lived for nearly two years on the
small sum of fifty pounds. It is probable that his poverty was due to
his inability to realize upon his brother's estate, and the difficulty
of getting a return of his West Indian investments, on account of the
unsettled political conditions, though they were of considerable
value. During this period, however, he took that step which has been a
puzzle to so many of his biographers, and which he never explained in
any of his correspondence that remains. He came to America under the
name of John Paul; he reappeared after this period of obscurity under
the name of John Paul Jones.
It is claimed by the descendants of the Jones family of North Carolina
that while in Fredericksburg the young mariner made the acquaintance
of the celebrated Willie (pronounced Wylie) Jones, one of the leading
attorneys and politicians of North Carolina. Jones and his brother
Allen were people of great prominence and influence in that province.
It was Jones' influence, by the way, which in later years postponed
the ratification of the proposed Constitution of the United States by
North Carolina. Willie Jones seems to have attended to the legal side
of Paul's claims to his deceased brother's estate, and a warm
friendship sprang up between the two young men, so dissimilar in birth
and breeding, which, it is alleged, ended in an invitation to young
Paul to visit Jones and his brother on their plantations.
The lonely, friendless little Scotsman gratefully accepted the
invitation--the society of gentle people always delighted him; he ever
loved to mingle with great folk throughout his life--and passed a long
period at "The Grove," in Northampton County, the residence of Willie,
and at "Mount Gallant," in Halifax County, the home of Allen. While
there, he was thrown much in the society of the wife of Willie Jones,
a lady noted and remembered for her graces of mind and person, and
who, by the way, made the famous answer to Tarleton's sneer--wholly
unfounded, of course--at the gallant Colonel William A. Washington for
his supposed illiteracy. Morgan and Washington had defeated Tarleton
decisively at the Cowpens, and in the course of the action Washington
and Tarleton had met in personal encounter. Washington had severely
wounded Tarleton in the hand. The Englishman had only escaped capture
by prompt flight and the speed of his horse. "Washington," said the
sneering partisan to Mrs. Jones, "why, I hear he can't even write his
name!" "No?" said the lady quietly and interrogatively, letting her
eyes fall on a livid scar across Tarleton's hand, "Well, he can make
his mark, at any rate."
The Jones brothers were men of culture and refinement. They were Eton
boys, and had completed their education by travel and observation in
Europe. That they should have become so attached to the young sailor
as to have made him their guest for long periods, and cherished the
highest regard for him subsequently, is an evidence of the character
and quality of the man. Probably for the first time in his life Paul
was introduced to the society of refined and cultivated people. A new
horizon opened before him, and he breathed, as it were, another
atmosphere. Life for him assumed a different complexion. Always an
interesting personality, with his habits of thought, assiduous study,
coupled with the responsibilities of command, he needed but a little
contact with gentle people and polite society to add to his character
those graces of manner which are the final crown of the gentleman, and
which the best of his contemporaries have borne testimony he did not
lack. The impression made upon him by the privilege of this
association was of the deepest, and he gave to his new friends, and to
Mrs. Jones especially, a warm-hearted affection and devotion amounting
to veneration.
It is not improbable, also, that in the society in which he found
himself--and it must be remembered that North Carolina was no less
fervidly patriotic, no less desirous of independence, than
Massachusetts: it was at Mecklenburg that the first declaration took
place--the intense love of personal liberty and independence in his
character which had made him abandon the slave trade was further
developed, and that during this period he finally determined to become
a resident of the new land; a resolution that made him cast his lot
with the other colonists when the inevitable rupture came about.
It is stated that in view of this determination on his part to begin
life anew in this country, and as a mark of the affection and
gratitude he entertained for the family of his benefactors, he assumed
the name of Jones. It was a habit in some secluded parts of Scotland
and in Wales to take the father's Christian name as a surname also,
and this may have been in his mind at the time. He did not assume the
name of Jones, however, out of any disregard for his family or from
any desire to disguise himself from them, for, although he last saw
them in 1771, he ever continued in correspondence with them, and found
means, whatever his circumstances, to make them frequent remittances
of money during his busy life. To them he left all his property at his
death. It is certain, therefore, that for no reason for which he had
cause to be ashamed did he affix the name of Jones to his birth name,
and it may be stated that whatever name he took he honored. Henceforth
in this volume he will be known by the name which he made so
famous.[2]
One other incident of this period is noteworthy. During his visit to
North Carolina he was introduced by the Jones brothers to Joseph
Hewes, of Edenton, one of the delegates from North Carolina to the
first and second Provincial Congresses, and a signer of the great
Declaration of Independence. In Congress Hewes was a prominent member
of the Committee on Naval Affairs, upon which devolved the work of
beginning and carrying on the navy of the Revolution. When the war
broke out Paul Jones was still living in Virginia. But when steps were
taken to organize a navy for the revolted colonies, attracted by the
opportunities presented in that field of service in which he was a
master, and glad of the chance for maintaining a cause so congenial to
his habit of life and thought, he formally tendered his services to
his adopted country. The influence of Willie Jones and Hewes was
secured, and on the 7th of December, 1775, Jones was appointed a
lieutenant in the new Continental navy.
_Additional note on the assumption of the name of Jones_.
Mr. Augustus C. Buell, in his exhaustive and valuable study of Paul
Jones, published since this book was written, states that the name was
assumed by him in testamentary succession to his brother, who had
added the name of Jones at the instance of a wealthy planter named
William Jones, who had adopted him. Mr. Buell's authority rests on
tradition and the statements made by Mr. Louden, a great-grandnephew
of the commodore (since dead), and of the sometime owner of the Jones
plantation. On the other hand, in addition to the letters quoted in
the Appendix, I have received many others from different sources,
tending to confirm the version given by me. Among them is one from a
Fredericksburg antiquarian, who claims that William Paul never bore
the name of Jones in Fredericksburg. General Cadwallader Jones (who
died in 1899, aged eighty-six), in a privately published biography,
also states explicitly that he heard the story from Mrs. Willie Jones
herself. Mr. Buell, in a recent letter to me, calls attention to the
fact--and it is significant--that absolutely no reference to the North
Carolina claim appears in any extant letter of the commodore, and
claims that Hewes and Jones were acquainted before John Paul settled
in America. As the official records have all been destroyed, the
matter of the name will probably never be absolutely determined.