THE BIRTH OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY
The following spring—that of 1775—Paul Jones decided to board his sloop and make a little pleasure trip by sea to Boston. With his crew and two favorite slaves, Cato and Scipio, he sailed down the river, worked out into the Atlantic, and keeping close to the New Jersey headlands, pointed north.
When he reached New York he dropped anchor, intending to meet some of his friends in that city. One of the very first of these he encountered was William Livingston. This patriot's face showed plenty of excitement. "Paul, have you heard the news?" he asked.
"I have not been favored," replied Paul Jones. "I trust it is nothing serious concerning your own family."
"I fear it is serious; but it concerns my family no more than it concerns any other family in the Colonies," was William Livingston's answer. "Paul, my friend, the British have beaten us at Lexington!"
Paul Jones was gravely concerned. He plied his friend with many questions. After a long discussion they parted. The young planter immediately gave up his plans for visiting Boston; he wished to go home and in the seclusion of the plantation calmly think over the matter and decide what to do.
Within twenty-four hours after his arrival he sent to Thomas Jefferson the following letter:
"It is, I think, to be taken for granted that there can be no more temporizing. I am too recently from the mother country, and my knowledge of the temper of the king, his ministers, and their majority in the House of Commons, is too fresh to allow me to believe that anything is, or possibly can be in store except either war to the knife or total submission to complete slavery.
"... I cannot conceive of submission to complete slavery; therefore only war is in sight. The Congress, therefore, must soon meet again, and when it meets it must face the necessity of taking those measures which it did not take last fall in its first session, namely, provision for armament by land and sea.
"Such being clearly the position of affairs, I beg you to keep my name in your memory when the Congress shall assemble again, and in any provision that may be taken for a naval force, to call upon me in any capacity which your knowledge of my seafaring experience and your opinions of my qualifications may dictate."
One morning, a short time after this, Paul Jones received word that two French frigates had come to anchor in Hampton Roads. With the hospitality of the true sailor and true Virginia planter he loaded his sloop with the best green vegetables the plantation afforded, and started down the Rappahannock to welcome the newcomers.
The two frigates were in command of Captain De Kersaint, one of the ablest officers in the French navy, who afterwards became an admiral. The second in command was no less than the Duc De Chartres, eldest son of the Duc D'Orléans, who had sent De Chartres to America on a "cruise of instruction," to fit him for the hereditary post of Lord High Admiral of France. He was Paul Jones's own age exactly, and with his charming wife, the Duchesse De Chartres, he received the young planter with a great cordiality. Their liking for Paul Jones increased as they chatted. In fact, the Duke himself took such a violent fancy to their guest that when the latter asked if he might be shown plans of the construction of their splendid frigate. La Terpischore, with a view to offering suggestions to the Colonists in building war craft, the French nobleman readily assented. With royal prerogative he ordered his ship's carpenter to make deck and sail drawings, hull details,—everything that could in any way aid the young Scotchman in understanding the essential constructive features of the vessel.
It was of inestimable advantage to Paul Jones to have had the opportunity of inspecting at such close range, much less get drawings of, one of the best and most modern ships of the French navy. It is not strange that the American frigate Alliance, built some time later, followed closely the same general lines as La Terpischore; that she mounted the same battery—twenty-eight long 12-pounders on the gun deck, and ten long 9-pounders above. Was this merely a coincidence? Or, on the other hand, did the young Scotchman have a hand in the matter?
At a meeting of the Continental Congress on May 10, 1775, the Naval Committee invited Paul Jones to lay before it such information and advice as might seem to him useful in assisting the committee in discharging its labors. Paul Jones felt strongly on the subject of establishing a navy, and thought that the only way to start was to offer prizes to the crews of privateersmen. In a letter to Joseph Hewes he observed:
"If our enemies, with the best established and most formidable navy in the universe, have found it expedient to assign all prizes to the captors, how much more is such policy essential to our infant fleet? But I need no argument to convince you of the necessity of making the emoluments of our navy equal, if not superior, to theirs."
In this appeal to Congress there was good common-sense. Paul Jones was not actuated by a love of gain; he was in the struggle because he thought it a righteous cause. Yet he knew that while he had the profits of his plantation for the past two or three seasons—some 4000 pounds—to fall back upon when his Government allowances should fail to meet expenses, the average Colonist did not. The wives and children of the latter must be fed and clothed while he was away fighting. Unless he could be promised ample revenue from prizes, Paul Jones knew that Jack would fight half-heartedly and in the dumps, even though he loved his country in every fiber of his being. His pitifully inadequate Government allowance of eight dollars a month was surely no attraction.
On November 15, 1776, Congress improved this situation somewhat, but did not meet Paul Jones's wishes in the matter, by resolving "that a bounty of twenty dollars be paid to the commanders, officers, and men, of such Continental ships or vessels of war as shall make a prize of any British ships or vessels of war, for every cannon on board such a prize at the time of such capture; and eight dollars per head for every man then on board and belonging to such prize."
In addition to this General Washington approved the following distribution of the prize: "That the captain or commander should receive six shares; the first-lieutenant, five, the second-lieutenant and the surgeon, four; the master, three; steward, two; mate, gunner, gunner's-mate, boatswain, and sergeant, one and one-half shares; the private, one share." Nothing was said about the poor cook. Undoubtedly he ranked with the ordinary seaman when the time of distribution came.
To all intents and purposes an American, the truth remains that Paul Jones was a Scotchman. His enthusiastic soul was wholly for the cause of liberty in his new country, but the men who envied him and wanted the offices for which his high capabilities fitted him so signally never let him and others forget that he was an alien. This was, of course, quite absurd; for what were they themselves? What had they been until a few months ago? The fact is, Paul Jones had served under three masters, until he was a far more competent officer than many of those in the established navies of Europe, where influence and patronage often made officers of men of long lineage and short experience.
Thus in the Journal of Congress, dated December 22, 1775, the name of Paul Jones heads the list of first-lieutenants, instead of the list of captains as it should. His friend Joseph Hewes, who championed the candidates from the southern colonies, had done his best to make the young planter a captain, but had failed at the antagonism of John Adams, who represented the candidates from the northern colonies, which demanded full control of naval affairs.
When affairs had at last been worked down to a point of action by sea, the nucleus of the first navy of the new country consisted of the Alfred, the Columbus, the Andrew Doria, the Providence, and the Cabot. Five little ships to face the finely-appointed scores of frigates and sloops-of-war in the service of the king!