“And now you will visit my plantation,” said he, when the time came for him to leave. “Is it not so? For there I can repay some of the kindnesses which you have shown me.”
“That we cannot do,” replied the French commander. “It would be most impolitic for us to accept entertainment ashore from persons known to be hostile to King George. But we thank you, exceedingly, for your kind offer.”
So John Paul Jones proceeded alone to his plantation, and the French warship sailed for Corunna, Spain, after firing one gun as a salute to the new-born nation.
The son of a Scotch gardener of Arbigland, Parish of Kirkbean, the youthful farmer had emigrated to America, where his brother owned the large plantation upon which he now resided. He found his kinsman dying of what was then called lung fever—in our time pneumonia—and, as he willed him his Virginian possessions, Jones was soon residing upon “3,000 acres of prime land, on the right bank of the Rappahannock; 1,000 acres cleared and under plough, or grass; with 2,000 acres of strong, first-growth timber.” He had a grist-mill; a mansion; overseer’s houses; negro quarters; stables; tobacco houses; threshing floors; thirty negroes of all ages; twenty horses and colts; eighty neat cattle and calves; and many sheep and swine. Thus lived the future sea-captain; in peace, plenty, and seclusion, at the outbreak of the American Revolution.
John Paul Jones had gone to sea at the early age of twelve. As a master’s apprentice upon the stout brig Friendship, he had sailed from Scotland to the North American Colonies, the West Indies, and back again. He had kept to his seaman’s life, and—so improved in knowledge of his profession—that he became second mate; then first mate; then Captain. At twenty-one he had amassed a fortune of about one thousand guineas ($5,000) in gold,—then equal, in purchasing power, to three times this sum. Besides this he had studied French and Spanish assiduously, so that he could speak the first like a native. It was to be of great help to the ambitious mariner. And he had plenty of nerve, as the following incident bears full witness:
Upon one of his many voyages, the crew was reduced, by fever, to five or six hands. One of them was a huge mulatto named Munro—or “Mungo”—Maxwell. They became mutinous, and, as Captain Jones was the only officer who could keep the deck, it was found necessary to subdue the refractory seaman.
“Will you obey my orders?” cried Jones, picking up a belaying pin.
“You go sit down,” cried Maxwell. “I no like you. Pish! I could kill you with one crack.”
John Paul Jones did not answer, but walking towards the big black, he struck him just one blow with his pin. “Mungo” dropped to the deck and lay there. He never rose again.
Upon arriving at port, Captain Jones surrendered to the authorities, and asked for a trial. It was given him.