CHAPTER IV
CAPTAIN PAUL JONES
The Greatest of America's Naval Heroes
ONCE upon a time there lived in Scotland a poor gardener named John Paul, who had a little son to whom he gave the same name. The rich man's garden that the father took care of was close by the sea, and little John Paul came to love blue water so much that he spent most of his time near it, and longed to be a sailor.
He lived in his father's cottage near the sea until he was twelve years old. Then he was put to work in a big town on the other side of the Solway Firth. This town was called Whitehaven. It was a very busy place, and ships and sailors were there in such numbers that the little fellow, who had been put in a store, greatly liked to go down to the docks and talk with the seamen who had been in so many different lands and seas and who could tell him all about the wonderful and curious places they had seen, and about their adventures on the great oceans they had sailed over.
In the end the boy made up his mind to go to sea. He studied all about ships and how to sail them. He read all the books he could get, and often, when other boys were asleep or in mischief, he was learning from the books he read many things that helped him when he grew older. At last he had his wish. When he was only thirteen years old, he was put as a sailor boy on a ship called the Friendship.
The vessel was bound to Virginia, in America, for a cargo of tobacco, and the young sailor greatly enjoyed the voyage and was especially delighted with the new country across the sea. He wished he could live in America, and hoped some day to go there again.
When this first voyage was over, he returned to Whitehaven and went back to the store. But soon after, the merchant who owned the store failed in business, and the boy was out of a place and had to look out for himself. This time he became a real seaman. For many years he served as a common sailor. He proved such a good one that before he was twenty years old he was a captain. This was how he became one: While the ship in which he was sailing was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a terrible fever broke out. The captain died. The mate, who comes next to the captain, died; all of the sailors were sick, and some of them died. There was no one who knew about sailing such a big vessel, except young John Paul. So he took command and sailed the ship into port without an accident, and the owners were so glad that they made the young sailor captain of the ship which he had saved for them.