Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/201

 CHAPTER XVII

PAUL JONES, PIRATE AND PRIVATEER

We come now to consider the exploits of another historical character whose life and adventures will ever be of unfailing interest on both sides of the Atlantic. And yet, perhaps, this amazing Scotsman is to-*day better known in America than in Great Britain. Like many another before him he rose from the rank of ordinary seaman to become a man that was to be had in great fear if not respect. His fame has been celebrated in fiction, and very probably many a story of which he has been made the hero had no foundation in fact.

There is some dispute concerning his birth, but it seems pretty certain that he was the son of John Paul, head gardener on Lord Selkirk's estate near Kirkcudbright. Paul Jones first saw light in the year 1728. Brought up on the shores of the Solway Firth, it was only likely that he gave up being assistant to his father and preferred the sea to gardening. In his character there developed many of those traits which have been such marked characteristics of the pirate breed. To realise Paul Jones, you must think of a wild, reckless nature, burning with enthusiasm for adventure, yet excessively vain and desirous of recognition. He was a rebel, a privateer, a pirate and a smuggler; he was a villain, he was quarrelsome, he was petty and mean. Finally, he