John Paul Jones – Bob Blythe
John Paul Jones was America's greatest Revolutionary naval commander and
founder of America's naval tradition. He was born simply John Paul, the son of an
estate gardener in Scotland in 1747. At the age of 13, John Paul was apprenticed
to a ship owner and began his career at sea. He immediately entered into the
Atlantic trade that linked England, America, the West Indies, and Africa. He was
a crew member on at least three slaving voyages to Africa and grew to hate the
traffic in human cargo. At the age of 21, on a voyage from Jamaica to Scotland,
John Paul took command of the brig John when her captain and first mate died
from fever, bringing ship and crew safely into port.
John Paul was well on his way to success as a merchant sailor when disaster
struck. In 1773 on the island of Tobago, mutinous sailors looking for advance pay
attacked him. In defending himself, John Paul killed one of the men. Convinced
that he could not get a fair trial on the island, he escaped to America and took the
name - John Paul Jones - that would make him famous. He arrived in America at
a time when the conflict with Britain over taxes and self-government was
reaching a boiling point. Familiar from birth with Great Britain's harsh treatment of
the Scottish people, Jones was immediately sympathetic to America's quest for
liberty. After war broke out in 1775, Jones volunteered for service in the brandnew Continental Navy. Having long been protected by the powerful British navy,
America began the Revolutionary War without naval power of any kind. Congress
acted quickly to convert merchant ships to ships of war and to begin building new
ships for the navy. With his sea-going background and the support of a North
Carolina congressman, Jones was quick to see service. After a brief stint as
second in command of the Alfred, Jones in May 1776 took command of the sloop
Providence, which mounted 21 guns. Jones soon captured 16 British vessels on
a single cruise.
Promoted to the rank of captain, Jones took command of the Alfred and soon
had more prizes. In April 1778, as captain of the Ranger, he was cruising the
waters close to Britain. Jones conceived the bold plan of attacking the town of
Whitehaven on the west coast of England. He hoped to capture an important
individual and then negotiate the exchange of American naval prisoners being
held as common criminals in English jails (see sidebar). The raid on Whitehaven
did little damage, but it rattled the British to think that the American navy could
reach them at home. Jones's greatest victory came in September 1779. He now
commanded a fleet of five ships. His flagship, a 40-gun frigate, was a converted
French merchant ship. Jones re-named it the Bonhomme Richard, in honor of
Benjamin Franklin (Bonhomme Richard being the French translation of Franklin's
Poor Richard). Jones knew that in the fall, rich British fleets from the West Indies
and the Baltic returned to England, and he planned to take one or both. On
September 23rd, the 41 ships of the Baltic convoy came into view off the east
coast of England. As the merchant ships ran for safety, the two escorting British
warships, Serapis and Countess of Scarborough, squared off against the
Bonhomme Richard and another American ship, the Pallas. After three hours of
maneuvering, the Bonhomme Richard rammed the Serapis, and Jones tied the
two ships together. They poured deadly cannon fire into each other for two hours.
When the British captain, Richard Pearson, asked if the Americans were ready to
surrender, Jones roared back, "I have not yet begun to fight!" An American
grenade then exploded below decks on the Serapis and it was the British who
surrendered. The Bonhomme Richard was damaged beyond repair, so Jones
transferred his flag to the Serapis, bringing it and the Countess of Scarborough to
Holland as prizes. Jones's courage and resourcefulness in this fight brought him
international recognition.
American plans to provide Jones with a large new ship never materialized. At the
war's conclusion, Jones urged Congress to maintain a strong navy as the best
insurance against future conflicts. The new nation had neither the funds nor the
desire to do so, and the Continental Navy soon disbanded. After brief but
distinguished service in the Russian navy against the Turks in 1788-1789, Jones
went to Paris, where he met old friends and made plans to buy a country estate
in America. His health declined, though, and he died in France on July 18, 1792,
at the age of 45. More than one hundred years later, his remains were returned
to the United States and placed in a magnificent sarcophagus in the chapel of the
Naval Academy in Annapolis. His tomb has become a shrine to this founding
father of the United States Navy.