Miss Taylor also presented to a relative the original certificate of Jones' membership in the Society of the Cincinnati, signed by Washington, dated October 31, 1785, which is now owned by Colonel N. Arnott of Edinburgh, a descendant of the Paul family.[25] The original commission of Jones authorizing him to arrange the difficulties with the Barbary powers is in the remarkable collection of Mr. Grenville Kane, of New York. Eighteen autograph letters from and to Jones are now offered for sale by a London dealer for the modest sum of $5,000; these evidently escaped from the Taylor family.
The editor has deemed it not uninteresting, although not immediately connected with the principal object of this publication, to refer to the dispersion of Jones' letters and public documents, and to print in the Appendix an interesting letter to Commodore Esek Hopkins,[26] also a letter from Captain James Nicholson to Commodore John Barry relating to Jones' efforts before Congress to be placed at the head of the navy, both of which are in the editor's collection of manuscripts. In the Appendix will also be found a copy of a letter of Jones, addressed to John Wendell—which as a composition may be considered as one of the most remarkable of all his epistolary effusions. The original letter is now in the possession of the Wendell family. None of these letters have ever been published.[27]
In concluding this preamble to the logs, it will be noted that the editor has supplemented the ship's stories by drawing largely upon the accounts of the events, barely touched upon in the remarks to be found in the numerous biographies of John Paul Jones, and upon the papers relating to his career now deposited in the Congressional Library. This has been done because it was possible that, as the biographies are out of print and rather scarce, they might not be readily available to many of the readers.
The first authentic "Life of Jones," throwing aside the numerous so-called chap-books, was that of André, published in French in Paris, 1798, translated and republished in "Niles' Register" for the year 1812. Following the discovery of Jones' letters, Sherburne produced his first edition in 1825. The manuscript of this first edition he sent also to John Murray in London, who caused it to be edited by Disraeli, later the Earl of Beaconsfield, and published the book in the same year, 1825.[28] The preface of this book, according to the editor of the "Life of Disraeli," was the earliest appearance of Disraeli as an author. Sherburne was aware of the existence of the papers in the possession of the Taylor family, and endeavored to obtain them; but his request was refused, as they were already in the hands of the author of the Edinburgh "Life of Jones," published in 1830.
Then followed the "Life of Jones" by Robert C. Sands, from the original letters and manuscripts in the possession of Miss Jeanette Taylor—New York, 1830. Mackenzie's "Life," in 1845, and Cooper's "Life," in 1846—both based upon Sands and Sherburne—contain but few additional matters of interest. Sherburne's "Life," published in 1825, was so freely criticized that a second edition, corrected and enlarged, was published in 1851.