“What will be the effect in Paris’?” asks Walpole.
“What will be the effect! It will unchain the worst elements. The Assembly will now go to every red extreme. While Mirabeau lived, that strange concourse of evil spirits had a master. He is gone; the animals are without a keeper.”
Admiral Paul Jones returns to Paris, and finds a letter from Mr. Jefferson, now Secretary of State. Mr. Jefferson asks him to discover how far Europe will co-operate to crush out piracy in the Mediterranean. Also, he explains that President Washington will want the services of Admiral Paul Jones when he sends an expedition against the Barbary States.
While he is reading Mr. Jefferson’s letter, a deputation from the Assembly waits on him, and sets forth informally that it is the present French purpose to reorganize the navy, and call him, Admiral Paul Jones, to the command.
“Would you accept?” asks the deputation.
“It would be, gentlemen,” he returns, “the part of prudence, and I think of modesty, to defer crossing that bridge till I come to it.”
When the deputation goes away, he calls Benoît-André, and sits long into the night dictating a treatise on reforming the French navy. He points out how its present inefficiency arises from the fact that, for centuries, it has been the feeding-ground of a voracious but incompetent aristocracy, a mere asylum for impoverished second sons, and other noble incapables. He sends a copy of his treatise to Walpole, who writes him a letter.
“My dear Admiral,” says he of Strawberry Hill; “let France go. Either return home to America and rest upon your laurels, or come over to England, where even those who do not love you admire you. You have fought under two flags; isn’t that enough? I take your pamphlet to be simply a bid for a commission in the new French navy, and, because I love and admire you, I hope it will fail. It will be better so. Your laurels, won off Flamboro’ Head, will else be turned to cypress, when, as a French admiral, you become the target of British broadsides, with none of your stout Yankee tars to stand by and man your guns.”
The winter is at an end; the grass of spring is starting. Admiral Paul Jones receives a letter from President Washington, who speaks of the Barbary States, and asks him to give up his commission in the Russian service. There have been two whose requests with him were ever final—Franklin and Washington. He does not hesitate, but forwards his resignation to Catherine. She will not accept, and puts forward old Suwarrow.
“Do not, my good brother,” writes the old soldier—“do not let any siren entice you from the service of the Empress. Your Frenchmen are preparing a stew of mischief that must soon keep all Western Europe busy to save themselves. That will be Russia’s time. We shall then have a free hand with the Turk. Our command of the Black Sea is safe. Since you were there, we have built nine new ships of the line, and six stout frigates. You shall have them all. Also, I can now protect you from Court intrigues, which I could not do before. Courtiers, since Ismail, no longer trouble me; I brush them away like flies. In a new Turkish campaign, I would be Generalissimo by land and sea; you would be responsible to no one but me—a situation which, I flatter myself, would not be intolerable to you. Now, my good brother, the Empress has a copy of this letter, and agrees with all I say. Make no entanglements in the west; return to your old papa Suwarrow as soon as you can, and we shall discuss plans.”