Hero Tales from History — The Immortal Reply of John Paul Jones
THE IMMORTAL REPLY OF JOHN PAUL JONES
Of the millions of boys who have had “sea fever,” perhaps none suffered with it more than John Paul, a bright, sandy-haired Scotch lad.
His father was a gardener on the estate of a noble lord.
John went to school but little, yet he studied hard while he was there.
He had learned to sail a boat quite well when he had a chance, at twelve years old, to go to America as a cabin boy.
When the owner of the ship soon after failed in business, John Paul entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman.
He learned all he could in the short time he was a “middy,” but, as his father was poor, he saw no chance to get ahead there.
He left the navy and found work on a merchant ship running between Scotland and the West Indies.
Coming back from a voyage to Jamaica, the ship’s captain and mate both died, and John Paul, though still a mere boy, sailed the ship home.
So he became a captain before he was twenty.
In those days, shipmasters treated their men roughly, and once young Captain Paul had to flog the ship’s carpenter.
The man died some time afterward of fever, and, to spite the young shipmaster, he claimed that he had been fatally injured by John Paul’s cruelty.
After that, on another voyage, the sailors mutinied or turned against their captain, and tried to kill him.
In self-defense the young master knocked the leader down stairs and he died of the fall.
The next time John Paul was heard from, he was living in America with a wealthy man named Jones.
It was just at the beginning of the War for Independence, and the young Scotchman was so in love with liberty and the new country that he decided to become an American.
In doing this he took the name of his new-found friend Jones.
Instead of John Paul, the British subject, he now called himself Paul Jones, American.
He went to the Congress in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, in May, 1775, to offer his services.
He was promptly given command of several ships to defend the colonies against Great Britain.
The next year the Declaration of Independence was signed.
On the 14th of June, 1777, the Congress appointed him to the command of the American ship-of-war, _Ranger_.
On the same day the Congress adopted a flag and made this record: “_Resolved_, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, and that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.
” Captain Paul Jones had a silk flag made at once and raised it on the _Ranger_, on the first birthday of the United States, July 4th, 1777. The first voyage of this ship was to France, and the young United States captain announced to the French admiral, in the harbor he was about to enter, that he would expect the French fleet to salute the new American flag.
After some delay, the French officer consented and the _Ranger_ sailed into port between two rows of French ships-of-war, which had French flags flying, and French sailors and soldiers manning the yardarms, and cannon booming all along the line, in honor of the Stars and Stripes.
That was a great day for the United States, for this was the first time a foreign kingdom recognized the new republic of America.
France not only treated the United States as an equal, but she went to war with England and helped the Americans win their independence.
Captain Jones was a little, peppery man, and had been an American only two years, but he was trying to make up for lost time.
He believed so much in the people’s right to be free, that he considered being an American citizen the highest honor in the world.
He begged the high French officials and Doctor Franklin, who represented the United States in France, to let him take the _Ranger_ out and fight England all by himself.
The British had taken American prisoners and treated them as spies and traitors, instead of as prisoners of war.
Captain Jones wished to capture some British prisoners and teach the enemy how prisoners of war should be treated.
When the Americans in Paris and the French tried to convince the brave little captain that it would be dangerous for him to go out with but one ship, he replied that he liked nothing better than “going into harm’s way,” and he finally went.
He waited outside an English port till the warship _Drake_ came out.
The British commander stared at the new flag, for he had never seen it before.
“What ship is that?
” he asked.
“It is the American ship _Ranger_.
” Some one on the _Drake_ made fun of the new flag, saying it looked like a patchwork quilt.
“Very well,” retorted Captain Jones, “we will cover your Union Jack with it, then.
” The battle between the _Ranger_ and the _Drake_ lasted just one hour and four minutes.
When it was over, the _Drake_ had lost her captain and first lieutenant and thirty-eight men, killed and wounded, while the loss on the _Ranger_ was only two killed and six wounded.
When Captain Jones returned to the shores of France he brought with him the _Drake_ as a prize, with a goodly crew of British prisoners to exchange for Americans.
As he had promised, the Stars and Stripes were at the _Drake’s_ masthead over the British flag.
There was no trouble then about saluting the American flag.
All France and America went wild over this victory.
In fact, nearly every nation under heaven--excepting Great Britain--was greatly pleased with the escapade of brave little Captain Jones.
Of course, Captain Jones had just had enough to make him long to be “going into harm’s way” on a larger scale.
But France now had her own troubles with England.
She needed all the ships and men she could raise to make a navy able to beat the big fleet Great Britain was getting ready for a great naval battle.
Still, Captain Jones would not be put off.
With Doctor Franklin’s help the French found him a poor old ship which they told him to arm and man and go ahead with.
Jones did his best, but the foundry did not fill his order for cannon, and he was obliged to take some old guns which were too heavy for the positions he had to give them.
It was bad enough to be forced to fight the whole British navy with a poor, slow, rotten old hulk with out-of-date guns, but the men he had to take to do the fighting were worse.
Among them were Portuguese and Malays who could not understand orders in either French or English; but, worst of all, there were a hundred or more English prisoners, who would watch their chance to stab or shoot the few Americans in command, and surrender the ship to their own countrymen.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard” almanac had been published as a French book, under the title of “Bonhomme Richard,” or “Goodman Richard.
” So Jones, in compliment to his genial friend and helper, named his newly-made-over ship, _Bonhomme Richard_.
Before he got this craft ready, several French commanders and crews wished to join him.
These men were not capable commanders, but they had better ships and crews than Captain Jones, the one man best able to use them to advantage.
When Jones started out with the _Richard_, he was followed by a sort of private fleet, among which were the _Alliance_ and the _Pallas_.
The commanders of the other ships refused to obey orders unless they happened to feel so disposed.
Most of the other ships got lost or started off, like pirates, after prizes for themselves, so that when Jones met the leading ships of the British, there were only the _Richard_, the _Alliance_, and the _Pallas_ left.
When the three ships came round a high point called Flamborough Head and saw there the British men-of-war, _Serapis_ and _Countess of Scarborough_, Commander Jones ordered the _Pallas_ to engage the _Countess_ while he, with the _Richard_, tackled the _Serapis_.
The commander had one lieutenant, Richard Dale, an American who had escaped in the most mysterious way from an English prison.
Without the heroic aid of this officer Jones might have lost the day--or the night, for the battle did not begin until dark.
There were hundreds of people on the shore watching the fight.
At the very beginning they saw--and heard--the old cannon on the _Richard_ bursting and killing nearly all the gunners and powder-boys serving them.
Meanwhile the _Serapis_, which was a brand-new ship with twice the number and weight of guns that Jones had, was raking the _Richard_ fore and aft, and shooting great, ragged holes in her sides.
The sea came pouring into the ship and the British prisoners came running up, yelling frantically, “We are sinking!
” By sheer force of will and fear of eye, Paul Jones and Richard Dale drove those excited Englishmen back into the hold to work the pumps, as though they would pump the North Sea dry.
Jones sailed his ship close to the _Serapis_, intending to catch hold of its side with hooks called grappling-irons.
This made it possible for the men on both ships to fight hand to hand.
The _Richard_ came alongside with such force that a spar which stuck out at the side (called the jib-boom) was driven into the ropes which held the mast nearest the stern of the _Serapis_ (called the mizzenmast).
The grip which Captain Jones now had on the _Serapis_ was like that of a Boston bulldog who has an English mastiff by the throat.
If one ship went down, the other would have to go too.
“Well done, my brave lads.
We have got her now!
” shouted Jones; and he ordered the sailing master to haul the _Richard’s_ cable over and tie the jib-boom of the _Serapis_ to his own mizzenmast.
When the cable caught and became tangled the master uttered an oath.
“Don’t swear,” said Jones calmly.
“In another moment we may be in eternity; but let us do our duty.
” The ropes and spars of the two ships were now so tangled that the men in the top of the _Richard_ scrambled across into the rigging of the enemy, like monkeys in two treetops.
In spite of all the captain’s efforts, the _Richard_ was now on fire in a dozen places.
The people on shore cheered, for it looked as if the English were burning the “pirate” ship.
The master-at-arms, hearing a report that the captain and Dale had both been killed, started with two others to surrender to the commander of the _Serapis_, all three shouting, “Quarter!
” The commander of the _Serapis_, hearing the cry, asked Jones if he was ready to give up.
“No,” shouted the American commander, “_I have not yet begun to fight!
_” By this time even the masts of the _Richard_ were burning; but an American sailor saw a chance to do great harm to the enemy.
Seizing a hand grenade, or bomb, he crept across the yardarms of both ships and threw it down upon the deck of the _Serapis_.
The bomb fell and burst on a train of gunpowder scattered by broken cartridges.
The flame blazed along past several of the big guns, ending in a terrific explosion.
This turned the tide of the battle.
The Americans swarmed on board the _Serapis_ and took possession of it.
The English commander surrendered by pulling down the flag of his ship.
In giving up his sword to Jones he said, with a sneer, “It is painful to me that I must resign to a man with a halter around his neck.
” The American captain seemed not to notice the intended insult.
Every American boy and girl has a right to be proud of Paul Jones for his noble reply: “Sir, you have fought like a hero.
” [Illustration: JOHN PAUL JONES COMMANDING THE “BON HOMME RICHARD” IN THE BATTLE WITH THE “SERAPIS.
”] The _Pallas_ had captured the _Countess of Scarborough_ after an hour’s fighting.
The _Bonhomme Richard_, when cut loose from the _Serapis_, sank to the bottom of the sea.
Before the rest of the enemy’s fleet could stop them, Jones and the commander of the _Pallas_ sailed away with the _Serapis_ and the _Countess_ to a safe neutral port in Holland.
The British now offered a reward of more than fifty thousand dollars for Captain Paul Jones, dead or alive.
The people of Holland begged him not to fly the American flag, as there were two British fleets waiting outside that Dutch harbor to capture him.
But Paul Jones insisted on flying the Stars and Stripes, not only in that port, but when he came out and ran the gauntlet of more than forty British men-of-war.
He passed them all with colors flying, and reached a French port in safety.
Captain Paul Jones was one of the heroes of the world.
The French made him a knight and King Louis presented him with a magnificent gold-handled sword.
The United States Congress voted him a gold medal in honor of his greatest victory and passed a resolution commending “his zeal, prudence and intrepidity,” assigned him to the command of a new ship of the line then being built, and proposed to create for him the rank of real admiral, until then unknown in the American navy.
General Washington wrote him a letter of congratulation in which he said: “You have won the admiration of the world.
” Thus the son of a poor gardener became our greatest naval hero in the War of the Revolution.
But above all the honors he received at home and abroad, this was Paul Jones’s proudest boast: “_I have ever looked out for the honor of the American flag.
_”
