CHAPTER VI
JOHN PAUL JONES
While the Revolution was being fought out on the land, important battles were taking place also at sea. Until this war began, the Americans had had no need of a navy because the mother country had protected them. But when unfriendly feeling arose, Congress ordered war vessels to be built. These were very useful in capturing British vessels, many of which were loaded with arms and ammunition intended for British soldiers. Powder, as you will remember, was sorely needed by Washington’s army.
John Paul Jones.
Among the men who commanded the American war vessels were some noted sea-captains, the most famous of whom was John Paul Jones.
He was of Scottish birth. His father, John Paul, was a gardener, who lived on the southwestern coast of Scotland. The cottage in which our hero spent his early boyhood days stood near the beautiful bay called Solway Firth, which made a safe harbor for ships in time of storm.
Here little John Paul heard many sailors tell thrilling stories of adventure at sea and in far-away lands. Here, also, to the inlets along the shore, the active lad and his playmates took their tiny boats and made believe they were sailors, John Paul always acting as captain. Sometimes when he was tired and all alone, he would sit by the hour watching the big waves rolling in, and dreaming perhaps of the day when he would become a great sea-captain.
When he was only twelve, he wished to begin his life as a real sailor. So his father apprenticed him to a merchant at Whitehaven who owned a vessel and traded in goods brought from other lands. Soon afterward John Paul went on a voyage to Virginia, where the vessel was to be loaded with tobacco. While there he visited an older brother, who owned a plantation at Fredericksburg.