Paul Jones

“ The prize money gets into a tangle, and Commodore Paul Jones consults his friends, Mirabeau and the venerable Malesherbes. Then he visits America, and is feted and feasted, while his Aimee—each year rounder and plumper and more bewitching—with the red-gold hair growing ever redder and more golden—stays in Paris by the side of the good Marsan, and keeps a loving eye on the vine-clothed cottage in the Rue Vivienne.
Nothing can exceed the honors wherewith Commodore Paul Jones is stormed upon and pelted while in America. ”

“ Back to the deck springs Commodore Paul Jones, while the face of Captain Pearson is stricken old and white. For the earliest time he realizes the desperate heart of that unconquerable one who has him in a death-grapple, and a premonition of his own defeat pierces his heart like a dagger of ice. As Commodore Paul Jones regains the deck, he observes Boatswain Jack Robinson who has waddled aft. The cloud of anger fades from his brow, and he breaks into a loud laugh that is tenfold worse than the cloud. ”

“ Paul Jones, planter for two years, has made himself a foremost figure in Virginia. Twenty-eight, cultured, travelled, gallant, brilliant, and a bachelor, he is welcome in every drawing-room. Besides, is there not the Jones plantation, with its mile of river front, its noble mansion house, its tobacco teeming acres, its well-trained slaves, and all turning in those yearly one thousand yellow guineas under the heedful managing thumb of canny Duncan Macbean? Planter Paul Jones is a prince for hospitality, too ”

“ Like all men of feeling heart and deep imagination, Paul Jones, after the inspiration of battle and the glory of victory, always felt a keen distress at the ruin and desolation it wrought. The sight of the gallant men cold in death, that lay in rows upon the reeking deck of the Bon Homme Richard, covered by the flag whose honor they had so gloriously maintained, wrung his heart and filled his eyes with tears. ”

“ Something of the indomitable spirit of Paul Jones seems to have inspired every man under him, for he afterward spoke of the steady, composed courage of his officers and men.
Two days and three nights did he spend in the midst of these horrors, and when, on the 12th of October, the gale abated so that jury masts could be rigged, the ship was almost a wreck. But it was not destined that Paul Jones should perish on the ocean, and so he, without the loss of a single man, made his way back to L’Orient. ”

“ Sixty lionhearts, who gave their lives for victory, are laid side by side on the deck. The petticoat flag flies proudly from the ensign gaff. Commodore Paul Jones, from the deck of the Serapis, watches the Richard to the last. The tears dim his sight, and he is driven more than once to dash them away; for a sailor loves his ship as though it were a woman. ”

“ Commodore Paul Jones snatches a firelock from one of the agitated French marines. Steadying himself against a backstay, he raises the weapon to his shoulder and fires. The ball goes crashing through the seaman’s head as he raises his hatchet to cut free the anchor. Another leaps forward and grasps the hatchet. Seizing a second firelock, Commodore Paul Jones stretches him across the anchor’s shank, where he lies clutching and groaning and bleeding his life away. As the second man goes down, those nearest fall back. That fatal starboard anchor is a death-trap; they want none of it! ”

“ Whether Paul Jones walked in the gardens of Paris or upon the boulevards, he was followed by a respectful and admiring crowd. The first night he went to the theater, as soon as he entered the word went round, “There is Paul Jones!” As he advanced and took his seat the whisper increased to a buzz, and then into an uproar, the audience rising and applauding excitedly. Paul Jones, with a blush upon his manly features, rose and returned the salutations of the crowd. ”

“ Commodore Paul Jones has been too well trained as a courtier to let fall the polite mask which he wears, and nothing could be more elaborately suave than are the manners he assumes. The ferocious Catherine gets some glimmer of his inward thought for all that. Every inch the Empress, she is even more the woman. To the day of her death the unpardonable offence in any male of her species is a failure to fall in love with her. She receives some chilling touch of her new Admiral’s aversion, and it turns her into angry ice. ”

“ Nothing but the piercing black eyes which burned and gleamed out of his face in the darkness bespoke the high humanity of the man.
"Is it--" "Captain John Paul Jones, at your service, gentlemen."
"My sword," said Pearson, tendering it to him formally. "I regret," he added ungraciously, "at being compelled to strike to a man who has fought with a halter around his neck."
"Sir," said Jones, with a magnanimity as great as his valor, "you have fought like a hero, and I make no doubt that your sovereign will reward you in the most ample manner. Mr. Brooks, escort these gentlemen to my cabin." ”

“ At forty every man is either a fool or a doctor. Now I am over forty; and, as a fellow-practitioner, I promise you that our patient, Paul Jones, is out of danger and on the mend.” Then, gayly: “Come, Gourgaud, don’t croak! Take a glass of wine, man; you frighten Aimee with your long looks.” Gourgaud takes his wine; but his looks are quite as long as before.
Abruptly and apropos of nothing, Admiral Paul Jones decides to make his will.
“Your will!” protests Gouverneur Morris, somewhat aghast. ”

“ But ill as I am, there is yet something left of the man—not the admiral, not the chevalier—but the plain, simple man whom it delights me to hear you call 'Paul Jones,' without any rank but that of fellowship, and without any title but that of comrade. So now I say to you that whatever is left of that man, be it never so faint or feeble, will be laid, if necessary, upon the altar of French Liberty as cheerfully as a child lies down to pleasant dreams! ”

“ Commodore Paul Jones, after having shown to all Europe, and particularly to the enemies of France and the United States, the most unquestionable proofs of his valor and talents, is about returning to America to give an account to Congress of the success of his military operations. I am convinced, Sir, that the reputation he has so justly acquired will precede him, and that the recital of his actions alone will suffice to prove to his fellow citizens that his abilities are equal to his courage. ”

“ Planter Paul Jones becomes all the more the petted darling of the drawing-rooms. This of itself is a destiny most friendly to his taste; for our Virginia Bayard lives not without his tender vanities. Bright eyes are more beautiful than stars ”

“ In the deep and breathless silence every occasional sound could be heard, and scarcely a word was uttered except the orders, as the ship ran down the chain of islands, with a fair wind, in the moonlit night. Bill Green was at the wheel, while three or four officers, stationed at various points along the deck, repeated the orders called out in Paul Jones’s clear and penetrating voice, so that no mistake might be made. A man on the port side and another on the starboard kept the lead going constantly. Commodore Hopkins and Captain Saltonstall paced the deck together. ”

“ As Captain Paul Jones says this, a resentful red is burning on his brow. Doctor Franklin breaks in from over the way, with:
“You should not too much listen to Mr. Lee, sir. I tell you that the French merchants have offered to send Captain Jones to sea as admiral of an entire fleet of privateers, and he refused. Have my word, sir; the last thing he thinks on is money.”
The girl-Duchess is gazing reproachfully at Captain Paul Jones. ”

“ When one adds to it that Planter Paul Jones rides like a Prince Rupert, fences like a Crillon, gives blows with his fist that would stagger Jack Slack, and is death itself with either gun or pistol, it will be seen how he owns every quality that should pedestal him as a paragon in the best circles of his day. ”

“ The American commissioners were so poorly provided with money that they could never secure Paul Jones a ship worthy of him, and the best they could do was to get the Ariel, a French sloop of war. But Richard Dale and Henry Lunt, together with nearly all the officers and men of the Bon Homme Richard, were available for the Ariel, so that Paul Jones had the same splendid company that had served under him in his last glorious cruise. ”

“ That Planter Paul Jones has thus lived for two years, and moved and had his social being among the most beautiful of women, and escaped hand free and heart free to tell the tale, is strange to the brink of marvellous. It is the more strange since no one could be more than he the knight of dames. ”

“ Madame Houdetot, Mrs. Adams and the rest adopt her example. And still the girl-Duchess holds Captain Paul Jones to herself:
“I am to have one evening—one before you go?” she pleads; and her tones are a woman’s tones and deeply wistful; and are not in any respect the tones of a Bourbon.
“One evening? You shall have every evening—ay! and every day.”
“Remember!” and as she makes ready to go the girl-Duchess takes firmer command of her manner and her voice; “remember! You have promised to lay an English frigate at my feet.” ”

“ For a corking tale of the sea it would be hard to find in all fiction a story to equal that of John Paul Jones, a figure of sober history. Yet history was not so "sober" after all, in those days when piracy was an actual fact, and even nations at times winked at privateering on the high seas. Jones was born with a love of the salt spray in his nostrils. He came to this country as a mere lad, but already a skilled sailor. When the Revolution broke out, he obtained command of a ship, and was the first to fly the Stars-and-Stripes in foreign waters. ”

“ In death as in life Dulwich was close to his heart.
Paul Jones was a young man of herculean strength—tall, muscular, deep-chested and broad-shouldered. But he had one grave physical defect. He was extremely short-sighted, had worn spectacles habitually from his sixth year and was almost helpless without them. In fact, his vision was not one-twelfth of normal. Much to his chagrin, his myopia excluded him from the Infantry which he tried to enter in the spring of 1915, and he had to put up with a Commission as a subaltern in the Army Service Corps. ”

“ Jones loved France and France loved him, and with him and France we were able to gain our liberty from the British yoke. He loved America because he loved liberty, and he put all his grand titles aside when making his last will and testament to sign himself, "I, John Paul Jones, an American citizen." Such men as Washington, Franklin, Hamilton and LaFayette, were his staunch friends. Kings and Queens delighted to do him favor. Louis XVI knighted him and presented him with a sword of honor. ”

“ As far as his deeds are concerned, Paul Jones appears in the popular consciousness as he really was,—a bolt of effectiveness, a desperate, successful fighter, a sea captain whose habit was to appear unexpectedly to confound his enemies, and then to disappear, no one knew where, only to reappear with telling effect. He has been the hero of the novelists, who, expressing the popular idea, have pictured him with essential truth. A popular hero, indeed, he was, and will remain so, justly, in the memory of men. ”

“ By the combined efforts of crew and prisoners, the fire in both ships was extinguished. Then all bent their efforts to removing the wounded and prisoners from the Richard to the Serapis, together with ammunition and other valuables.
All the rest of that night the heroic old craft kept afloat, with the Stars-and-Stripes—the same flag the Colonial maids of Portsmouth had given Paul Jones upon his departure in the Ranger—flying proudly at her peak. Then, as if waiting for daylight to illuminate her last action before man, she slowly sank just as the sun came up across the waters in the east. ”

“ Commodore Paul Jones turns to his orderly,
Jack Downes. “Present my compliments to Lieutenant Dale,” says lie, “and ask him to step aft.”
Bloody, powder-grimed, Lieutenant Dale responds.
“Dick,” observes Commodore Paul Jones, “he’s too heavy for us. We must close with him; we must get hold of him. Bring what men you have to the spar-deck, and serve out the small arms for boarding.”
The breeze veers to the west, and freshens up a bit. This helps the Richard sooner than it does the Serapis; Commodore Paul Jones, having advantage of it, wears and makes directly for his enemy. ”

“ It seemed as if every man on deck shouted, "Aye, sir!" As might be expected Wannashego, the young Narragansett, was among the first.
Paul Jones smiled with satisfaction. "With so many volunteers I see I shall have to choose my thirty men from among you. The strongest and most active are the ones I want."
He then proceeded to make his selections. When he was done he noticed that he had forgotten the faithful Indian youth. "I shall make it thirty-one, on second thought," he said promptly, and at once called upon the happy Wannashego to step forth with the other volunteers. ”

“ It was a little after midnight when, with his men in two boats, Paul Jones left the Ranger. It was so far in to the piers that it was almost dawn when they finally arrived at one of the outer ones. All haste must be made or the light of the approaching day would disclose their movements and prevent their success.
Paul Jones ordered one boat, under the direction of Mr. Hill and Lieutenant Wallingford, to proceed on the north side of the harbor and set fire to the shipping there, while with the second party the commander went to the other side, to perform a similar work. ”