Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/162

 JONES

JONES

before a British jury, the complaint being that lie had displayed cruelty in the punishment of Mungo Maxwell, a carpenter on his ship, who was the leader of a mutiny. After a delay of six months, the jury failed to render a verdict and to justify himself Paul made an affidavit, pro- claiming his innocence, and charging his enemies with a conspiracy to take his life. He was fully acquitted, and he left the service to devote him- self to agriculture and study in Virginia, where he undertook the management of his brother's estate near Fredericksburg, William Paul having died intestate in 1773. Attracted by the early ex- ploits of the New England navy, he went to Phil- adelphia in 1775, and offered his services to congress. He was commissioned senior first lieutenant, and it was about this time that he assumed the name of Jones, although his reason for so doing is not definitely known. It is sup- posed that he did so because of his admiration for the wife of Willie Jones, of North Carolina (q. v.). He was second officer on the Alfred and, as Lieutenant Jones, he was the first naval officer to hoist the American naval flag under a salute of thirteen guns. This flag then consisted of thirteen stripes, alternating red and wliite, with a rattlesnake undulating across the folds, and the motto, " Don't Tread on Me," underneath. He sailed under Commodore Esek Hopkins on the expe- dition that captured New Providence, and on the re- PAUL joA<ts' FLAG ' turn of the fleet to New London, took part in his first naval fight : the engagement of the Cabot, the Alfred, and the Columbus, with the British frigate Glasgow off Block Island. He was promoted captain and given command of the Providence, May 10, 1776, and convoyed vessels laden with cannon and army supplies between Providence, New York and Philadelphia. He received his commission as captain of the Providence from John Hancock, president of congress, Aug. 8, 1776, and cruised with her for six weeks, capturing sixteen prizes, and by his skilful seamanship succeeding in evading the British frigate Solway off Bermuda and keeping up a running fight with the British frigate Milford. He cruised as far north as Canso, where he captured three schooners and nine fishing vessels, and after transferring the valuable cargo to his own vessel and to such crafts as he intended to take into port, he sup- plied the remaining vessels with sufficient provi- sions and sent the captured crews home to Eng- land. He attacked a coal fleet at Cape Breton, in November, 1776, and rescued the American sailors imprisoned in the coal mines there. He also captured a large transport laden with provi-

sions and clothing, and a privateer from Liverpool, which, after arming and manning, he gave ta the command of Lieutenant Saunders. Upon his return to Boston he was relieved of command, but did not cease to advise the government as to the needs of the new navy, suggesting many ways in which it could be strengthened and improved. He was made commander of the new sloop-of-war Ranger in May, 1777, his commission bearing date, June 14, 1777, the same day that the new flag, composed of thirteen stripes alternating red and white, and a vinion of thirteen stars, white on a blue field, was adopted by congress. This new flag was sent to the Ranger and thus John Paul Jones was the first American naval officer to run up the Stars and Stripes to the masthead of a U.S. naval vessel. He set sail in the Ranger from Portsmovith, N.H., Nov. 1, 1777, carrying a letter from congress to the American commis- sioners at the court of Versailles, designating him the commander of the American navy in Europe. Upon his arrival at Versailles, he was disappointed in not finding ready for him a man-of-war with such other vessels as would make up a fleet, and he employed his sloop in cruising between Nantes and Brest, and in acting as a convoy to American vessels. Tiring of this inactivity he set sail with the Ranger, April 10, 1778, to invade the British waters. Although an American by adoption, he was a Scotchman by birth, and in this movement he ran the chances, if captured, of death as a traitor or the penalties at- tached to a pirate. On April 14, 1778, he captured an English brigantine, and after securing her crew, set her on fire. When off Dublin, April 17, 1778, he captured the Lord Chatham, which he manned and sent to Brest. On the 18th he en- countered the sloop-of-war Drake, but by skilful manoeuvring outsailed her and put into the harbor at Whitehaven, where he had planned to land and capture the town. The wind shifted, however, and he was obliged to head seaward to avoid being blown ashore. On April 19 he captured a schooner and a sloop, both of which he scuttled and sank. He entered the harbor of Whitehaven, effected a landing and leading a party of thirty men in small boats he gained the fort, locked the sleeping garrison in the guard houses, spiked the guns, and set fire to a number of vessels in the harbor. The illumination from the burning vessels disclosed their bold operations and the awakened inhabitants gathered on the wharves, and Jones was obliged to return to his sloop. He ran over to St. Mary's Isle, where the Earl of Selkirk resided, intending to seize the earl as hostage to insure tlie release of the American seamen confined on the prison ships in America and in Mill prison, Plymouth, England, but upon landing they found the earl absent, and the