Paul Jones   By: Hutchins Hapgood (1868-1944)

NUMBER 12

PAUL JONES

BY

HUTCHINS HAPGOOD

The Riverside Biographical Series

1. ANDREW JACKSON, by W. G. BROWN.

2. JAMES B. EADS, by LOUIS HOW.

3. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, by PAUL E. MORE.

4. PETER COOPER, by R. W. RAYMOND.

5. THOMAS JEFFERSON, by H. C. MERWIN.

6. WILLIAM PENN, by GEORGE HODGES.

7. GENERAL GRANT, by WALTER ALLEN.

8. LEWIS AND CLARK, by WILLIAM R. LIGHTON.

9. JOHN MARSHALL, by JAMES B. THAYER.

10. ALEXANDER HAMILTON, by CHAS. A. CONANT.

11. WASHINGTON IRVING, by H. W. BOYNTON.

12. PAUL JONES, by HUTCHINS HAPGOOD.

13. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, by W. G. BROWN.

14. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN, by H. D. SEDGWICK, Jr.

15. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, by HORACE E. SCUDDER.

Each about 140 pages, 16mo, with photogravure portrait, vols. 1 9, 75 cents; other subsequent vols., each 65 cents, net ; School Edition , each, 50 cents, net .

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. BOSTON AND NEW YORK.

[Illustration: Paul Jones [signature]]

PAUL JONES

BY HUTCHINS HAPGOOD

[Illustration: Publisher's logo]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1901

COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY HUTCHINS HAPGOOD

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published November, 1901

PREFACE

The amount of material bearing on Paul Jones is very large, and consists mainly of his extensive correspondence, published and unpublished, his journals, memoirs by his private secretary and several of his officers, published and unpublished impressions by his contemporaries, and a number of sketches and biographies, some of which contain rich collections of his letters and extracts from his journals. The biographies which I have found most useful are the "Life," by John Henry Sherburne, published in 1825, which is mainly a collection of Jones's correspondence; another volume, composed largely of extracts from his letters and journals, called the "Janette Taylor Collection," published in 1830; the first and only extended narrative at once readable and impartial, by Alexander Slidell MacKenzie, published in 1845; and the recently published "Life" by Augustus C. Buell. To Mr. Buell's exhaustive work I am indebted for considerable original material not otherwise accessible to me. On the basis of the foregoing mass of material I have attempted, in a short sketch, to give merely an unbiased account of the man.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. EARLY VOYAGES 1

II. CRUISES OF THE PROVIDENCE AND THE ALFRED 17

III. THE CRUISE OF THE RANGER 30

IV. EFFORTS IN FRANCE TO SECURE A COMMAND 44

V. THE FIGHT WITH THE SERAPIS 56

VI. DIPLOMACY AT THE TEXEL 70

VII. SOCIETY IN PARIS 80

VIII. PRIVATE AMBITION AND PUBLIC BUSINESS 91

IX. IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE 108

X. LAST DAYS 118

The portrait is from the original by C. W. Peale, in Independence Hall

PAUL JONES

I

EARLY VOYAGES

John Paul, known as Paul Jones, who sought restlessly for distinction all his life, was born the son of a peasant, in July, 1747, near the ocean on which he was to spend a large portion of his time. His father lived in Scotland, near the fishing hamlet of Arbigland, county of Kirkcudbright, on the north shore of Solway Firth, and made a living for the family of seven children by fishing and gardening. The mother, Jeanne Macduff, was the daughter of a Highlander, and in Paul Jones's blood the Scotch canniness and caution of his Lowland father was united with the wild love of physical action native to his mother's race.