Commodore Paul Jones 3

Commodore Paul Jones 3

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.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II.

COMMISSIONED IN THE NAVY--HOISTS THE FIRST FLAG--EXPEDITION TO NEW

PROVIDENCE--ENGAGEMENT WITH THE GLASGOW.

 

 

The honor of initiative in the origin of the American navy belongs to

Rhode Island, a doughty little State which, for its area, possesses

more miles of seaboard than any other. On Tuesday, October 3, 1775,

the delegates from Rhode Island introduced in the Continental Congress

a resolution which had been passed by the General Assembly of the

province on August 26th of the same year, in which, among other

things, the said delegates were instructed to "use their whole

influence, at the ensuing Congress, for building, at the Continental

expense, a fleet of sufficient force for the protection of these

colonies, and for employing them in such manner and places as will

most effectually annoy our enemies, and contribute to the common

defense of these colonies."

 

Consideration of the resolution was twice postponed, but it was

finally discussed on the 7th of October and referred to a committee.

On the 13th of October the committee reported, and Congress so far

accepted the Rhode Island suggestion that the following