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 % 302 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS after-thought of his career was in the service of Mr. Younger, a merchant in the American trade, who sent his apprentice on a voyage to Virginia, where an elder brother of Paul had profitably established himself at Fredericksburg. This gave him an early introduction to the country with which the fame of the future soldier of fortune was to be especially identified. The apprenticeship of Paul was of short duration. The failure of his em- ployer threw the youth upon his own resources ; but he lost no time in taking care of himself. His studies on shipboard had already qualified him for the higher duties of the mercantile service ; the slave-trade, the active pursuit of those days, offered him an engagement ; he sailed for the African coast in the King George, a vessel engaged in this infamous traffic, out of Whitehaven, and in his nineteenth year was trusted as chief mate of the Two Friends, another vessel of the trade, belonging to Jamaica. Having carried his human cargo to the island, sickening of the pursuit, he sailed as a passenger to Kirkcudbright, in his native district. Opportunities are always presenting themselves to the watchful and the initiated. The chief officers of the vessel died of the fever ; Paul took command and carried the ship in safety to the owners. They put him in command of the brig, the John, on another West India voyage. Finally, in 1771, he left Scotland never to return to it, save to carry terror among its population. He proceeded to London ; found employment in the West India trade, and in 1773 settled himself for a while in Virginia on the es- tate of his brother, to whom he had now become heir. This was a grand turning- point of his career, and to signalize it properly, Paul, who was somewhat of a fanciful turn, added the name Jones to his proper appellation, John Paul. On the organization of the infant navy of the United States, in 1775, John Paul Jones, as he is henceforth to be called, received the appointment of first of the first lieutenants in the service, in which, in his station on the flag-ship Alfred, he claimed the honor of being the foremost, on the approach of the commander- in-chief. Commodore Hopkins, to raise the new American flag. This was the old device of a rattle-snake coiled on a yellow ground, with the motto, Doiit tread on me, which is yet partially retained in the seal of the war-office. The first service of the new squadron was the attack upon the island of New Providence, in which Jones rendered signal assistance. On the return voyage, the unsatisfactory encounter with the Glasgow occurred, which afterward resulted in the dismissal of one of the American officers, and Jones's appointment in his place to the command of the Providence, of twelve guns and seventy men. His exploits in this vessel gained him his first laurels. He now received the rank of captain, and sailed on various expeditions, transporting troops, conveying merchantmen, out-sailing British frigates, and greatly harassing the enemy's commercial interests. His success in these enterprises induced Commodore Hopkins to put him in command of the Alfred and other vessels on an expedi- tion to the eastward, which resulted in the capture of various important prizes of transport and other ships, and extensive injury to the fisheries at Canso. On his return, he was superseded in the command of the Alfred, his seniority in the ser-