“You would be charmed with Prince Potemkin. He is a most amiable man, and none can be more noble-minded. For the empress, fame has never done her justice. I am sure that no stranger who has not known that illustrious character, ever conceived how much her majesty is made to reign over a great empire, and to attach grateful and susceptible minds.”
The attentions which Paul Jones received from the Russian court greatly annoyed the English in and about St. Petersburg. They still insolently persisted in stigmatizing a commissioned officer in the American navy as a renegade and a pirate, because, having been born in Scotland, he had espoused the cause of American liberty.
Tooke, in his life of Catherine II., gives vent to all his bitter British prejudices. Calling Admiral Jones an “English pirate and renegado,” he adds, “Jones, not meeting with the consideration he expected in America, made a tender of his services to the court of St. Petersburg; and the British officers, applicants for employment, went in a body to the amount of near thirty to lay down their commissions, declaring it was impossibly to serve under him, or to act with him in any measure or capacity.”[capacity.”]
We read in an Edinburgh paper of that date the following notice of that event, probably written by a Russian officer. “Paul Jones arrived here a few days ago. He is to set out soon, to take command of a squadron in the Black Sea. I had the satisfaction to see this honest man, while he was examining one of our dock-yards. He is a well-made man of middle size; he wears the French uniform with the Cross of St. Louis, and a Danish order which he received at Copenhagen, where he had the honor to dine with the king. He has also received, since he came here, one of the first Orders of Merit in this country, so that it is to be feared that they will spoil him by making too much of him. The English officers in the service have presented a memorial to Admiral Greig, refusing to serve with Jones, and threatening to throw up their commissions. Whether they will stand to their text, it is difficult to say.”
The empress paid no attention whatever to this petulance. Admiral Jones treated it with profound contempt. In writing to Lafayette, in reference to his treatment by the Russian court, he says:
“This was a cruel grief to the English, and I own that their vexation, which was generally in and about St. Petersburg, gave me no pain.”
The empress with her own hands wrote to the admiral. In her letter she probably refers, though slightly, to this unmanly opposition of the English. We give her letter.
“Sir—A courier from Paris has just brought from my envoy in France, M. Simolin, the enclosed letter to Count Besborodko.[[F]] As I believe that this letter may help to confirm to you what I have already told you verbally, I have sent it, and beg you to return it, as I have not even made a copy be taken, so anxious am I that you should see it. I hope that it will efface all doubts from your mind, and prove to you that you are to be connected only with those who are most favorably disposed toward you. I have no doubt but that on your side you will fully justify the opinion which we have formed of you, and apply yourself with zeal to support the reputation and the name you have acquired for valor and skill on the element in which you are to serve.
“Adieu. I wish you happiness and health.
“Catherine.”