Paul Jones

by Hutchins Hapgood

EFFORTS IN FRANCE TO SECURE A COMMAND

War having broken out between England and France, Jones was detained in Europe, instead of sailing home in the Ranger, through the request of the French Minister of Marine, de Sartine, who wished an important command to be assigned to the famous conqueror of the Drake. The difficulties, however, in the way of doing so were great. The commissioners had few resources, and one of them, Arthur Lee, was hostile to Jones. Moreover the French government naturally thought first of its own officers, of whom there were too many for the available vessels. Several privateering expeditions were suggested to Jones, which he quite justly rejected. Several opportunities had also been given him for small commands, which he had likewise rejected. His manner in doing so could not exactly be called diplomatic. He wrote M. Chaumont, that patriotic and benevolent gentleman whom Jones alternately flattered and reviled, a rather typical letter: "I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way. You know, I believe, that this is not every one's intention. Therefore buy a frigate that sails fast, and that is sufficiently large to carry twenty-six or twenty-eight guns on one deck. I would rather be shot ashore than sent to sea in such things as the armed prizes I have described."

The innumerable delays which consequently intervened between his arrival at Brest, in May, 1778, and his departure on his next cruise a year later, in June, 1779, put the active Scotchman in a state of constant irritation. He continued his dunning correspondence with the greatest energy, alternately cajoling, proposing, complaining, begging to be sent on some important enterprise. He wrote innumerable letters to de Sartine, Franklin, the Duc de Rochefoucauld, de Chaumont, and many others, and finally to the king himself, with whom he afterwards had an interview. The statement of his wrongs in his letter to the king, reiterated in letters to many others, involves an account of the many promises de Sartine had made and broken, and of Jones's various important proposals for the public good, which had been slighted.

"Thus, sire," he writes, "have I been chained down to shameful inactivity for nearly five months. I have lost the best season of the year and such opportunities of serving my country and acquiring honor as I can hardly expect again in this war; and to my infinite mortification, having no command, I am considered everywhere an officer cast off and in disgrace for secret reasons."

Jones's pertinacity and perseverance in working for a command are quite on a par with his indomitable resolution in battle, and he was finally rewarded, probably through the king's direct order, by being put in command of a small squadron, with which he made the cruise resulting in the capture of the Serapis and in his own fame.

Jones was highly delighted with the appointment, but his troubles continued in full measure, and to all his troubles Jones gave wide and frequent publicity. All the ships of his squadron, with the exception of the Alliance, were French, largely officered and manned by Frenchmen. The expense of fitting out the expedition was the king's. The flag and the commissions of the officers were American. The object of the French government was to secure the services of the marauding Jones against the coasts and shipping of England. This could better be done under the United States flag than under that of France; for the rules of civilized warfare had up to that time prevented the British from ravaging the coasts of France as they had those of rebel America, and France was therefore not morally justified in harassing the English shipping and coasts directly; as, on the principle of retaliation, it was fair for America to do.

This peculiar character of the expedition brought with it many drawbacks and difficulties for the unfortunate Jones. He had a motley array of ships,—those which were left over after the French officers had been satisfied. The flagship, the Bonhomme Richard, was a worn-out old East Indiaman, which Jones refitted and armed with six eighteen-pounders, twenty-eight twelve-pounders, and eight nine-pounders—a battery of forty-two guns. The crew of 375, of many nationalities, contained, when the fleet sailed, only about fifty Americans; but fortunately, a few days later, Jones was compelled to put back to port, where he was unexpectedly able, owing to a recent exchange of prisoners, to get rid of some of his aliens, and to secure 114 American officers and sailors, who proved to be the backbone of the Richard's crew. The Alliance, the only American ship, was a good frigate rating as a large thirty-two or medium thirty-six, but captained by a mad Frenchman in the American service, Landais, who refused to obey Jones, and in the important fight with the Serapis turned his guns against his commander. The Pallas, thirty-two guns, the Vengeance, twelve guns, and the little Cerf were all officered and manned by Frenchmen.

The greatest hindrance, however, to the efficiency of the squadron was the famous concordat, or agreement between the captains, which Jones was compelled to sign just before sailing. The terms, indeed, which related largely to the distribution of prize money, left Jones in the position of commander in chief, but the fact that there was any agreement whatever between Jones and his subordinates weakened his authority. Of this, as of so many other injustices, Jones complained most bitterly all through his subsequent life. He signed it, however, because, he said in his journal, he feared that he would otherwise be removed from his position as commodore. In a letter to Hewes he gave Franklin's command as the cause.

The squadron, accompanied at the outset by two French privateers, sailed finally from L'Orient, after one futile attempt, August 14, 1779, and made during the first forty days of the fifty days' cruise a number of unimportant prizes. On the 18th of August, the privateer Monsieur, which was not bound by the concordat, took a prize, which the captain of the Monsieur rifled, and then ordered into port. Jones, however, opposed the captain's order, and sent the prize to L'Orient, whereupon the Monsieur parted company with the squadron. According to Fanning, one of Jones's midshipmen, who has left a spirited account of the cruise, Jones attempted to prevent the departure of the privateer by force, and when she escaped was so angry that he "struck several of his officers with his speaking trumpet over their heads," and confined one of them below, but immediately afterwards invited him to dinner. "Thus it was with Jones," says Fanning, "passionate to the highest degree one minute, and the next ready to make a reconciliation."