In the middle of the eighteenth century, there lived in the county of Kirkcudbright, Scotland, a poor gardener named John Paul. He had a large family, and finding it no small task to feed so many mouths, accepted the offer of a distant relative named William Jones to adopt his oldest son, William, named in honor of that same relative. Jones owned a plantation in Virginia, and thither the boy accompanied him, being known thereafter as William Paul Jones. None of John Paul's numerous children, however, would have figured on the pages of history but for the youngest son, born in 1747, and named after his father, John Paul.
Little John Paul had a short childhood, for as soon as he could handle a line, he was put to work with the fishermen on Solway Firth to help earn a living for the family. By the time that he was twelve years old, he was a first-class sailor, and had developed a love for the sea and a disregard of its perils which never left him. Securing his father's consent, he shipped as apprentice for a voyage to Virginia, and visited his brother, who was managing his adopted father's estate near Fredericksburg. The old planter took a great fancy to the boy, and offered to adopt him also, but young John Paul preferred the adventurous life of the ocean to humdrum existence on a Virginia plantation. For the next fifteen years, he followed the sea, studying navigation and naval history, French and Spanish, and fitting himself in every way for high rank in his profession.
On the seventeenth of April, 1773, John Paul anchored his brig, the Two Friends, in the Rappahannock just below his brother's plantation, and rowed to shore to pay him a visit. He found him breathing his last. He died childless, and John Paul found himself heir to the estate, which was a considerable one. Resigning command of his vessel, he settled down to the life of a Virginia planter, adding to his name the last name of his family's benefactor, and being known thereafter as John Paul Jones.
Events were at this time hurrying forward toward war with Great Britain; Virginia was in a ferment, and Paul Jones was soon caught up by this tide of patriotism. When, in 1775, the Congress decided to "equip a navy for the defence of American liberty," Jones at once offered his services, and was made a senior first lieutenant. It is amusing to run over the names of those first officers of the American navy. As was the case with the first generals, out of the whole list only two names live with any lustre—Paul Jones and Nicholas Biddle.
Paul Jones was the first of these officers to receive his commission, John Hancock handing it to him in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, shortly after noon on December 22, 1775. Immediately afterwards, the new lieutenant, accompanied by a distinguished party, including Hancock and Thomas Jefferson, proceeded to the Chestnut street wharf, where the Alfred, the first American man-of-war was lying moored. Captain Saltonstall, who was to command the ship, had not yet arrived from Boston, and at Hancock's direction, Lieutenant Jones took command, and ran up the first American flag ever shown from the masthead of a man-of-war. It was not the Stars and Stripes, which had not yet been adopted as the flag of the United States, but a flag showing a rattlesnake coiled at the foot of a pine-tree, with the words, "Don't tread on me."
Three other small vessels were soon placed in commission, and the squadron started out on its first cruise on February 17, 1776. Through the inexperience and incompetency of the officers, the cruise was a complete failure, and resulted in the dismissal of "Commander-in-Chief" Ezekial Hopkins, and the retirement of Jones's immediate superior, Captain Dudley Saltonstall. It was a striking example of how the first blast of battle winnows the wheat from the chaff, and its best result was to give Paul Jones a command of his own. Never thereafter was he forced to serve under an imbecile superior, but was always, to the end of his career, the ranking officer on his station.
His first command was a small one, the sloop-of-war Providence, with fourteen guns and 107 men, but in six weeks he had captured sixteen prizes, of which eight were manned and sent to port, and eight destroyed at sea; was twice chased by frigates, escaping capture only by the most brilliant manoeuvring; and made two descents on the coast of Nova Scotia, releasing some American prisoners, capturing arms and ammunition, dispersing a force of Tories, and destroying a number of fishing smacks; and finally reached port again with a crew of forty-seven, all the rest having been told off to man his prizes.
Work of so brilliant a description won instant recognition, especially as contrasted with the failure of the first cruise, and Jones was promoted to a captaincy, and the Alfred, a ship mounting twenty-eight guns, added to his command. A cruise of thirty-three days in these two vessels resulted in seven prizes, two of them armed transports loaded with supplies for the British army.
Fired by these successes, Jones's great ambition was for a cruise along the coast of England. He argued that the time had come when the American flag should be shown in European waters, and that the moral effect of a descent upon the English coast would be tremendous. It would have this further advantage, that England was expecting no such attack, that her ports would be found unprepared for it, and that great damage to her shipping could probably be done. Lafayette, who had become a warm friend of the daring captain, heartily approved the plan, and on June 14, 1777, the Congress passed the following resolution:
Resolved, That the Flag of the Thirteen United States of America be Thirteen Stripes, Alternate Red and White; that the Union be Thirteen Stars in a Blue Field, Representing a New Constellation.