In 1773, John Paul’s brother died, in Virginia. He died childless, and left no will. John repaired to his brother’s former residence to settle the estate. Here, for some reason which has never been satisfactorily explained, he assumed the surname of Jones, so that he ever afterward became familiarly known as Paul Jones. His subsequent achievements became such, that probably that name will never be obliterated from the memories of men. He had acquired considerable property, which he intrusted to agents at Tobago, and it was all lost.
Captain Jones, weary of the wandering life of a sailor and its unsatisfactory results, was now disposed to devote his days to the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and to study, for which he had very strong predilections. In his letters to his friends he often expressed his desire to enter upon a life of “calm contemplation and poetic ease.” Man proposes, God disposes. The tumultuous career into which he was led, was not one which he would have sought for himself. He was almost forced into it by the state of the times.
When in the midst of the stormiest scenes, without a family and without a home, he wrote pensively to the Countess of Selkirk, that duty to his country had compelled him “to sacrifice not only his favorite scheme of life, but the softer affections of his heart, and his hopes of domestic happiness.” His letters all indicate that he was a thoughtful man, one who deeply pondered the mystery of this our earthly being, and who made frank acknowledgment of his moral and religious obligations.
His favorite poet was Thomson; and his “Seasons” he read and re-read. It is not possible that any man of frivolous nature should develop a taste so serious and so elevating. The loss of all his property at Tobago disheartened him, and repelled him from the risks of a commercial life. This probably decided him to settle down as a planter in Virginia, and to remain satisfied with the humble competence of a cultivator of the soil, in a rural home. He wrote to the Hon. Robert Morris:
“I conclude that Mr. Hewes has acquainted you with a very great misfortune which befell me some years ago, and which brought me into North America. I am under no concern whatever, that this, or any other past circumstance of my life, will sink me in your opinion. Since human wisdom cannot secure us from accidents, it is the greatest effort of human wisdom to bear them well.”
From the age of thirteen, America had been the country of his adoption. Increasing years but added to his attachment to the principles of liberty which were being developed here. His innate mental constitution revolted from the feudal subserviency which a haughty aristocracy exacted in Europe. When the struggle was commencing between the mother country and these her infant colonies, Mr. Jones, with all the ardor of his nature, espoused the colonial cause. He then occupied the position of a Virginia gentleman, highly respected for his character and his endowments. The rank of those with whom he was in correspondence indicates his social position. He was not a friendless adventurer, but an intelligent patriot, whose influence was constantly increasing through the sound judgment, the courage, and the spirit of self-sacrifice he was ever exhibiting.
He often expressed deep regret for the painful necessity which compelled him to take up arms against the Government of his native land. But he was struggling for the maintenance of his own rights, and those of his fellow-countrymen, goaded to resist unendurable tyranny. In a letter which he wrote to Baron Vander Capellan, then Dutch minister at the Hague, he says:
“I was indeed born in Britain; but I do not inherit the degenerate spirit of that fallen nation, which I at once lament and despise. It is far beneath me to reply to their hireling invectives. They are strangers to the envied approbation that greatly animates and rewards the man who draws his sword only in support of the dignity of freedom. America has been the country of my fond election from the age of thirteen, when I first saw it. I had the honor to hoist, with my own hands, the flag of freedom, the first time it was displayed on the Delaware, and I have attended it with veneration ever since on the ocean.”
When the war of the Revolution, in 1775, commenced, England had a thousand war-vessels. The colonies had not one. Congress equipped a naval force of five vessels to resist the most powerful naval armament this world has ever known. Paul Jones was appointed first lieutenant of one of these, the ship Alfred. He owed this appointment to the Hon. Joseph Hewes, a member of Congress, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who chanced to be acquainted with the rare qualifications of Mr. Jones for the position. Captain Saltonstall commanded the Alfred.
On the 14th of November, 1776, the Alfred, a frigate of 44 guns was lying at anchor off Chestnut Street wharf, in Philadelphia. We had then no national banner. As the commander came on board, Lieutenant John Paul Jones, with his own hands, raised the first American naval flag, under a salute of thirteen guns. This flag, it is said, then consisted of thirteen stripes, emblematic of the thirteen colonies, and a pine-tree with a rattlesnake coiled at the roots, as if about to spring. Underneath was the motto, “Don’t Tread upon Me.” In commemoration of this event, Miss Sherburne wrote an ode, from which we quote two stanzas: