Lieutenant Paul Jones bows his thanks, but speaks never a word. This silence arises from the deep emotions that hold him in their strong grip, not from churlishness.
“And now,” observes Mr. Hewes, who is thinking only of heaping extra honor on his young friend, “since we have a fully commissioned officer to perform the ceremony, suppose we make memorable the day by going down to the Alfred and ‘breaking out’ its pennant. Thus, almost with the breath in which we commission our first officer, we will have also commissioned our first regular ship of war.”
“Would it not be better,” interposes Mr. Hancock, thinking on the possible angers of Mr. Adams, “to wait for the coming from Boston of Captain Saltonstall?”
Mr. Hewes thinks it would not. Since Mr. Hewes’ manner in thus thinking is just a trifle iron-bound, not to say acrid, Mr. Hancock decides that, after all, there may be more peril in waiting for Captain Saltonstall than in going forward with Lieutenant Jones. Whereupon, Mr. Hewes, Mr. Hancock and Lieutenant Jones depart for the Alfred, which lies at the foot of Chestnut Street. In the main hall of Congress the three pick up Colonel Carroll, Mad Anthony Wayne. Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Livingston, and Mr. Morris. These gentlemen, regarding the event as the formal birth of the new navy, decide to accompany the others in the rôle of witnesses.
The flag is ready in the lockers of the Alfred—a pine tree, a rattlesnake, with the words “Don’t Tread on Me.” Lieutenant Paul Jones, as he shakes out the bunting, surveys the device with no favoring eye.
“I was ever,” observes Lieutenant Paul Jones, looking at Mr. Hewes but speaking to all—“I was ever curious to know by whose queer fancy that device was adopted. It is beyond me to fathom how a venomous serpent could be regarded as the emblem of a brave and honest people fighting to be free.”
After delivering this opinion, which is tacitly agreed to by the others, the flag is bent on the halyards, and “broken out.” Also, a ration of grog is issued to the crew—so far as the Alfred is blessed with a crew—by way of fixing the momentous occasion in the forecastle mind. The crew cheers; but whether the cheers are for the grog, or Lieutenant Paul Jones who orders it, or the rattlesnake pine tree ensign that causes the order, no one may say.