Bill’s prediction was carried out to the letter, for from the cheerless day the Ranger sailed out of Portsmouth harbor until she made the coast of France no prize was taken.
This was partly due to Captain Jones’s desire to get to the other side as quickly as possible. The weather was rough and the Ranger proved very crank, and it was not until the 2d of December that the port of Nantes was made. The guns were covered up, the portlids lowered, and everything as far as possible done to conceal the warlike character of the ship.
Paul Jones immediately set out for Paris, and on the third day he knocked at the door of a charming house at Passy, one of the most beautiful suburbs of Paris. This was a house belonging to M. Ray de Chaumont, a rich French gentleman whose sympathies with the American cause were so strong that he offered the American commissioners the use of his house until they could make permanent arrangements. Some instinct had told Paul Jones that he should find a friend in Benjamin Franklin, then at the zenith of his fame, and the most influential of the three American commissioners at Paris. The first meeting of these two great men, destined to be lifelong friends, was an event in history. Without the confidence and support of Franklin, Paul Jones would probably never had the means of achieving greatness, and this support and confidence never wavered from the moment these two immortal men stood face to face and looked through their eyes into each other’s souls. Franklin’s venerable figure and grave, concentrated glance contrasted strongly with Paul Jones’s lithe and active form and the piercing expression of his clear-cut features. The two men grasped hands and so stood for a moment, each fascinated by something in the aspect of the other.
“Welcome to France,” said Franklin. “I have heard of you, and every such man as you is a mighty help to our cause.”
Paul Jones murmured some words expressive of the admiration he felt for a man so truly eminent as Franklin, but his bold spirit was abashed in the presence of so much greatness in this patriarchal old man. They spent the whole of the short winter day in converse, each more and more dazzled and charmed by the other. At twilight they said farewell at the open door. As they clasped hands in parting, Paul Jones said:
“I had the honor of hoisting the flag of our country for the first time upon the ocean, and I intend to claim for it all the honors that it deserves. As soon as I am in the presence of the French fleet I shall demand a salute; and I shall get it, mark my words.”
“I believe you, if any man can, will get it,” answered Franklin. “And remember—if we can not secure you a ship worthy of you, and you are still compelled to keep the Ranger, you shall at least have carte blanche for your cruise, for I do not believe in hampering spirits so bold and enterprising as yours.”
As Paul Jones walked away in the dusk of twilight he glanced back and saw Franklin still standing in the doorway, with the light from an overhead lantern falling on his silvery hair. Paul Jones felt that the day of his meeting with Franklin was a great, a memorable day for him.
The American commissioners were indeed unable to obtain a better ship for him than the Ranger, and Paul Jones returned to his little vessel sore-hearted from his disappointment, but with the authority to rank all officers of American ships in European waters, and with perfect freedom to make his cruise as he liked. He determined, as he always did, to make the best of what he had. His first duty was to convoy a number of American merchant vessels from Nantes into Quiberon Bay, where a large French fleet, under Admiral La Motte Picquet, was to sail for America. There was now no need for disguising the character of the Ranger, and she sailed openly as a man-of-war. Paul Jones, with resistless energy, had worked at his ship until he had remedied many of her defects. Her lower masts were shortened; she was ballasted with lead; and she was much improved, as every ship that he commanded was improved by him. He also had, as a tender, the brig Independence.
It was on the 13th of February, 1778, that Paul Jones, flying the Stars and Stripes for the first time in the presence of a foreign fleet, anchored off the bay at Quiberon. He had a motive in not coming in the bay, and this was, as he had told Franklin, to have the flag of the United States saluted in open day by the French admiral. The treaty of alliance between the United States and France was not then published, and it required much address to obtain a salute.