John Paul Jones Our First Naval Hero

The American army during the Revolution was, for the most part, led by native Americans; the officers of English birth were for one reason and another less popular and less successful than the Americans. This, however, was not the case with the American navy, created and manned to meet the exigency of the time. The twenty-six vessels did valiant service, capturing during the first two years of the war eight hundred merchantmen and gaining many brilliant victories. The man whose achievements shed most luster upon it was a Briton.

John Paul, known to us as Paul Jones, was the son of a Scotch gardener. In childhood he showed a love for the sea and he became a sailor when he was twelve years old. One of his first long voyages was on a ship which came to Virginia for a cargo of tobacco. He studied naval history and tactics, though he remained in the merchant-service. There he rose in rank, until he became captain of a trading-vessel. When he was about twenty-five, his brother, who had settled in Virginia, died and John Paul, for by this name he was still known, took charge of his estate. He does not seem to have been a successful farmer, and he led an uneventful life until the Revolution began. Then he offered his services to Congress. We do not know why he cast his lot with his adopted country instead of his native one, but he gave it faithful and brilliant service, without pay or allowance.

From this time, however, he dropped his real name of John Paul and chose to be known as John Paul Jones—perhaps because he did not wish his friends and countrymen to know that he was aiding the “rebel” cause.

He was at first appointed to a subordinate position. In the early part of 1776 the first American squadron, with Paul Jones first lieutenant on one of its vessels, the Alfred, sailed to the Bahama Islands. Its mission was to take the military supplies so needed by the Americans from the forts on New Providence. The Americans were unable to enter the harbor, and the expedition would have been a failure but for Paul Jones. He had been informed that there was a good landing near the harbor, and he undertook to guide the Alfred to it. He did so and the other ships followed. They seized the military stores, including a hundred cannon, and sailed back to America.

Soon after this Paul Jones was given charge of a little sloop and sent to sea on a six-weeks’ cruise. He had encounters with several English frigates and on more than one occasion his vessel was saved only by his courage and seamanship. At the end of his cruise he returned to Newport with sixty-six prizes. The gallant and successful captain was deprived of command by a jealous superior officer and for several months he was without a ship. He repeatedly asked Congress for a ship and he requested that it might be a good one, “for I intend to go in harm’s way,” he said—and he generally carried out his intention.

While on shore Jones gave Congress valuable advice about fitting out a navy. He recommended that “1. Every officer should be examined before he receives his commission. 2. The ranks in a navy should correspond to those in an army. 3. As England has the best navy in the world, we should copy hers.”

In June, 1777, he was put in command of the Ranger and over this he hoisted, for the first time on the seas, the American flag, the Stars and Stripes, lately adopted by Congress. He thought that the most effective way to wage war was to “carry it into the enemy’s country.” Accordingly he went to Whitehaven on the English coast, where nearly three hundred vessels were in harbor. He took his men ashore in two boats and ordered them to set fire to the ships, while he surprised the two batteries and the fort and spiked their cannon. When he returned to the harbor, he found that his orders had been disobeyed,—not one ship had been fired. It was now day and the people were aroused, but Paul Jones was unwilling to go without carrying out a part of his plan and with his own hand he set fire to the largest ship.

The English made many attempts to seize the doer of this daring deed, and at one time there were forty-two British ships on the waters seeking to capture the bold rover. One of the ships which set out to capture the Ranger was the Drake. Jones met it in battle and defeated and captured the English vessel which had more guns and better-trained and better-equipped men than his.

The Ranger was recalled to defend the coast of America, and for months Paul Jones was in France without a ship. At last he was given an old trading-vessel fitted out as a war-ship. He called it Bon Homme Richard, the French name for Poor Richard in honor of his friend Franklin’s Poor Richard of the almanac. In September, 1779, Commodore Jones sailed toward the English coast with four small vessels. There he met two large English war-ships that were convoying, or accompanying, a fleet of forty merchant-vessels. The merchant-vessels took refuge on the English coast, and the war-ships advanced to fight. The shots of the English ship, the Serapis, inflicted so much injury on the Richard that Captain Pearson of the Serapis thought it was sinking and asked the American commander, “Has your ship struck?”

“I have not yet begun to fight,” was Jones’s stern reply.

He had the two vessels lashed together. Then, with his own hands helping to work the guns, he directed the fight with dauntless resolution. His ship was riddled with shot and on fire; still he refused to yield; when the vessel seemed sinking, he drove his prisoners to the pumps and made them work for life itself. One of his ships, instead of coming to his aid, fired on him. His situation seemed desperate. Captain Pearson called again to know if he had struck and he answered, “No,—that if he could do no better he would sink with his colors flying.”

After a deadly combat of three-and-a-half hours, in which the Serapis and the Richard literally “shot each other to pieces,” the Serapis had to yield. The king conferred on Captain Pearson the honor of knighthood as a reward for his brave, though unsuccessful, fight. When Jones heard of this he said that if ever he met Pearson at sea again he would make a lord of him. After the Revolution in which he served America so bravely and ably, Jones made his home in France. There in 1792 ended his adventurous life in which he had, as he said, “twenty-three battles and solemn rencounters by sea.”