Note 20 — FOREWORD

It was probably during this period that our log-book passed into the possession of Jones, who was urging his claims for rank and prize money before Congress.[20] Failing to obtain what he termed "proper consideration," after a cruise with the French fleet Jones was commissioned as agent to look after the prizes made on his cruises in European waters and sailed for France November 10, 1783, in the Washington, late General Monk, the ship captured by Barney in the Hyder-Ally and then commanded by Barney. Jones left in the care of a Mr. Hyslop of New York a portion of his papers, being the same which later turned up in the keeping of the baker in New York, and upon which Sherburne based his life of Jones, and from him the logs of the Ranger and Bon Homme Richard appear to have been purchased in 1824 by Captain Boyd, before alluded to. But Jones took with him those papers which he deemed most important to the discharge of his mission to France, not the least of which was the book containing the muster-roll of the Bon Homme Richard, which probably was the only authentic and official list then in existence, and indispensable to the proceedings in the French prize courts.