|
THERE is little doubt that in the minds of
most people the name of Paul Jones instantly calls up the form of a
villainous pirate seeking whom he could devour. Varied as was his
career, the Skull and Crossbones never fluttered from his mast-head; he
never commanded privateer or smuggler, or sailed with even a letter of
marque. From the day he left the merchant service, with the exception of
two years on his plantation, he was in the navy of the United States,
and later in the service of Imperial Russia, though still holding his
former commission. But a century ago the word America, to the world at
large, invoked a vague jumble of Indians scalping captives at the stake,
bloodthirsty buccaneers, and all sorts of joyful lawlessness in which
Morgan, Captain Kidd and John Smith, with Pocahontas in the background,
rollicked shoulder to shoulder in the jollity of universal brotherhood.
By a process of reasoning the colonists became desperate law-breakers,
and Paul Jones, from the fact of such association with ships and
colonists, developed into the dare-devil pirate of fiction, with red
shirt carelessly flung open, displaying a brawny chest, luridly tattooed
with fearful and mystic symbols. An individual with slouched hat pulled
low over his villainous countenance, who in place of the necessary and
harmless cigarette, carried between his clenched teeth a gleaming
cutlass, oblivious of the discomfort of such a pastime, when he wished
to rush hastily through a narrow hatchway. His sash bristled with
pistols, which he habitually used in target practice on his crew or to
stimulate the exertions of such of his passengers as were occupied in
the gymnastic and risky exercise of walking the plank. The name of the
"Black Douglas" was not more terrifying in his day than that of Paul
Jones; in fact, it is quite unbelievable if there were not authentic
records of the fact. Many a merchant would have rejoiced to hear that he
had died the customary hanging-in-chains death of the pirate he never
was, for, had not his desperate forays on unprotected coasts and in home
waters doubled the rate of insurance.
Paul Jones was the theme of endless ballads,
chapbooks and prints, embodying in his person as he did, without
recourse to the inventiveness of the writer, all the romance needed to
weave a glowing tale. His personality was fascinating, as was the hint
of mystery and noble birth clinging to him; he enjoyed a noted success
in the world of fashion, and became the intimate of royalties; his
unsurpassed brilliancy as a commander, his conquests in love and war
created a character which for a typical hero could not have been outdone
by the most fertile pen.
From the date of his death, 1792, until
the early part of the eighteenth century, he was the subject of many a
tale, whose inventors let nothing stand in the way of embellishment. He
is generally described as the "son of the Earl of Selkirk's head
gardener, but his real father is Captain John Maxwell, Governor of the
Bahama Islands." In others, he was left on the doorstep of the Paul
cottage, to be brought up as one of their children. Some time in his
early infancy he became a desperate smuggler, rapidly saved up two
hundred pounds, and in his varied enterprises got to the north coasts,
where exciting adventures came thick and fast.
"Being impressed on a man-o'-war, he
availed himself of the first opportunity to escape, and the second time
commenced a smuggler, and assumed the command of a vessel himself,
appointing such of his companions officers as he knew from experience to
be able seamen. The crew consisted of sixteen persons, and the vessel
was provided with every kind of ammunition and necessary for hazarding
desperate adventures, and proved a most formidable annoyance to the
maritime trade of the whole kingdom."
No sooner had war broken out between
England and America than he rushed off to the latter country, entering
into negotiations with "Silas Deane and others," to whom he offered
"very valuable communications and intelligence. He obtained from time to
time several remittances," which enabled him to "cross the Atlantic to
Europe twice, to pick up further particulars of our coasts. Upon this
account he is generally said to have changed his name, and assumed that
of Captain Paul Jones. Government not being apprised of the sort of spy
that had arrived in the country, he was at liberty to go about the
capital, and dwelt f or a short time at Wapping," where, according to
this narrative, he occupied himself in buying up all the maps, charts,
soundings and information having to do with the coasts that he could get
his hands on, "all this information making him more valuable to those
who employed him." He goes through stirring scenes in the early part of
the revolution, and, one is inclined to wonder if there is more truth
than fiction in the comments the writer makes on the fiasco with the
Glasgow, alleging that the "Commander of the Fleet Ezekiel Hopkins was
in reality in the pay of the enemies of his country."
Paul is credited with a number of voyages
that would have put the Ancient Mariner to the blush, and taken several
lifetimes to make. His failure to take the Drake the first time is laid
to the fact that "the mate, who had drunk too much brandy, did not let
go the anchor according to orders," and this is amusing, for the
official report lays the blame on the mate, though the brandy is not
mentioned.
The description of his informal call at
St. Mary's Isle is not to be omitted, as, after some preliminary
conversation, "Lady Selkirk herself observed to the officers that she
was exceedingly sensible of their commander's moderation; she even
intimated a wish to repair to the shore, although a mile distant from
her residence, in order to invite him to dinner; but the officers would
not allow her ladyship to take so much trouble." Such a charming entente
cordiale between a peeress of the realm and a piratical son of the sea
in the midst of war is quite idyllic, and it is no wonder Paul spared no
expense in returning the family plate at the earliest opportunity.
Paul had an eye for stage effect, such as
dressing his men up in "red clothes," and putting some of them aboard
the prizes to give the appearance of transports full of troops. The
action between the J3onlzornme Richard and the Serapis is thrillingly
described, being illustrated by a lurid picture of "Paul Jones Shooting
Lieutenant Grub For Endeavouring to Lower the American Flag to the
Serapis, Captain Pearson, off Flamborough Head, Sept. 1779." In this
memorable scene Paul is adorned with a pair of jet-black whiskers, of
the " Piccadilly weeper" fashion, that would have wrought havoc with the
heart of an Early Victorian beauty. Considering the heated and
sanguinary engagement in which all parties were participating, the
exquisite neatness of the Commander's white trousers is most noticeable.
To continue this exciting tale, the
captain of the Serapis, "hearing the gunner express his wish to
surrender in consequence of his supposing that they were sinking,
instantly addressed himself to Jones, and exclaimed, 'Do you ask for
quarter? do you ask for quarter?' Paul was so occupied at this period,
in serving three pieces of cannon on the forecastle, that he remained
totally ignorant of what had occurred on deck. He replied, however, 'I
do not dream of surrendering, but I am determined to make you strike!'
In this dilemma, Lieutenant Grub proceeded directly to tear the stripes
from the stump they had been nailed to. The Commodore caught him in this
disgraceful act, and shot him instantly with a boarding-pistol, which,
as it is a circumstance of remarkable temerity, has as often been
asserted as denied, and not seldom misrepresented; but the reader is
assured of the fact, which came from the most undoubted authority, that
of Lieut. Wm. Grub's widow.'"
Alas, for the veracity of "Wm. Grub's
widow"! The roster of the f3onlzomme Richard shows but one of that name,
and he, "Beaumont Grub, midshipman," was "absent and not in action." And
in the ship's log there is no mention of Jones having shot any one.
As many famous actors used to play
classical parts in contemporary periwigs and red-heeled shoes, copying
the exaggerated dress of the fops who patronised them, so fashion has
left its stamp on the mass of prints handed down to us. Pictures of Paul
Jones vary as much as the histories of him, and even in the portraits by
recognised artists, his eyes rival the chameleon, sometimes black, at
others an innocuous bluish-purple, as in the miniature at the Hermitage,
St. Petersburg; while that painted by the Comtesse de la Vandhal, which
was his favourite portrait, gives him eyes of a dark but elusive hazel.
In a print of the Grub incident, issued in 1826, Paul and the
nonexistent Grub are depicted with resplendent ebony whiskers, while in
an earlier one, about 1803, when these adornments were not fashionable,
they are guileless of such attractions, though Paul is shown with a
beautiful nose, strongly reminiscent of the Iron Duke. He also wears
top-boots, and Mr. Grub is stylishly clothed in striped trousers, which
add a certain éclat to the scene of battle. The Comtesse de la Vandhal's
miniature presents him as a man of fashion in all the nicety of Court
dress, but above all, Houdon's bust is the most characteristic,
reproducing the keen, shrewd, strong features, the forceful
concentration, the virility of purpose and doggedness, without which he
could never have succeeded. The artist's conception of him is as varied
as the historian's idea of his character. From a low-browed, snub-nosed,
villainous individual, with a negligee shirt and sash full of pistols,
to one wherein he resembles "the Father of his Country," if that
gentleman ever appeared minus his wig in the stress of battle, they run
the gamut. He had remarkably well-shaped hands, as, in the three-quarter
portraits of him, this fact is generally emphasised, unless, after the
fashion of Sir Joshua Reynolds, one pair of elegant hands served the
artist of his day as models for every sitter.
As is the case with a man who had such
ardent admirers, Paul had his detractors, bitter and unscrupulous,
unsparing in their malignant slanders. He is supposed, after having
completed his "servitude" with Captain Johnson, to have "signed articles
with Captain Baines, who was then in the Guinea trade; and here his
cruel disposition blazed forth in its proper colours by his attempt to
sink and destroy the ship and cargo, in consequence of a slight
reprimand from the captain, who was a man that bore an excellent
character for justice and humanity to his inferiors. For this offence he
was brought home in irons; but owing to some defect in the evidence
produced on his trial, he was acquitted of the charge." After admitting
that this voyage changed Paul's views of a seafaring life, and made him
stay ashore, the writer naively remarks: "We are sorry to observe that
in this part of the history we have no favourable record to make of the
wanderings of our turbulent hero."
Though every moment of these years is now
accounted for, this anonymous writer, more remarkable for his total
abstention from the truth than anything else, endows young Paul with
characteristics that would put the rakes of the Restoration to the
blush.
"After committing a number of excesses in
the neighbourhood of his patron's residence the patron being Lord
Selkirk, who, it is an authentic fact, Paul Jones had never seen, though
his father is assigned to him as gardener, and his services with Mr.
Craik ignored—" he attempted to seduce (and but too successfully
succeeded) the virtue of some three young women of some respectability;
two of whom soon after became pregnant. The evil did not stop here; it
appears he was resolved upon completing the wretchedness of his victims,
and placing his own villainy beyond the possibility of a doubt. For it
was no sooner known by Paul that the young persons were in a thriving
way, than he endeavoured, by his artifices and insinuations, to prevail
upon each of them to form an acquaintance with a wealthy farmer, for the
sole purpose of making him father the unfortunate and innocent
offspring! And it is a fact generally accredited, that he completely
succeeded in this abominable design."
Not satisfied with this scandal, it
continues, " From the respect the Earl of Selkirk had for his father,
young Paul was admitted into the house as a domestic, but not without
some excellent admonitions from his father, who earnestly entreated him
to leave the dissolute part of his companions and take himself seriously
to amend his life. In this, as in many other cases, it proved only loss
of time to reason with so depraved a character, for he had no sooner got
into this situation, than he paid his addresses to one of the females in
the house, and who very prudently refused to accept them. But Paul had
made sure of this prize also, and determined to run all hazards rather
than forgo the objects of his pursuits. He accordingly watched an
opportunity when he saw her enter the dairy, and immediately rushed in
and fastened the door after him, he then, in the most deliberate manner
proceeded to insult the terrified woman, and had nearly accomplished her
ruin, when her repeated shrieks brought the Earl (who was at that time
near the spot) "—evidently being an inquisitive peer with an interest in
dairy farming—"to her assistance. So flagrant an act of injustice could
not easily be forgotten, and in lofty language the Earl banished such a
desperate character from his estates," this reason being very
ingeniously made the motive for the attempt to carry off Selkirk some
years later.
And the reader will learn, " Paul's
hatred to the Earl, from this occurrence, was continually rankling in
his bosom; and that he embraced the first opportunity for retaliating."
Not satisfied yet, Paul became a
smuggler, and married a "beautiful farmer's daughter with three hundred
pounds." But life ashore becoming monotonous, he again headed his
smuggler's hand, running into "a port in France, and after most
tempestuous weather (during which Paul actually threw a man overboard
for a trifling disobedience of orders!) arrived at Boulogne, where the
cargo was disposed of, to a great disadvantage from the damage it
sustained in the last storm."
If Paul had lived a few years later he
would have been one of the shining lights among the "Latter Day Saints,"
for "our hero now turned his thoughts towards a smirking widow "—not
having had the benefit of the immortal Mr. Weller's advice—" the
mistress of the hotel where he too had lodgings during his stay in
Boulogne." But this "merry widow" was well able to take care of herself,
and "after using every kind of stratagem for three months successively
without being able to prevail upon the fair hostess to accompany him to
the altar of Hymen, he deposited two hundred guineas as a proof of the
sincerity of his intention to return and render her completely happy,
and then took an affectionate leave." Once on the seas he reverted to
the joys of a smuggler's life. "Rightfully judging that Dover was an
eligible situation, he hired a capital house there, and figured as a
first-rate merchant. Having a confidential superintendent, he had many
opportunities of visiting the whole coast; and in one of his excursions,
falling in with a number of associates, they formed the resolution of
boarding an armed vessel in the Downs, which had been fitted out by our
merchants to act against the Barbary cruisers. Enterprising and
audacious as this undertaking was, from the numerous revenue cutters
usually stationed in the Downs, they completely succeeded; two men and a
boy were the only persons on board, and from their never having been
heard of, the owners supposed the vessel had been driven out to sea, and
that all on board perished."
Then Paul goes through a variety of
stirring events, vanquishing customs-house men, after sanguinary fights,
landing under the cover of dense fogs, and plundering houses of gold and
jewels, to which the famed riches of Golconda were "as moonlight unto
sunlight." From Sussex to the Isle of Man they roved, ultimately
receiving intelligence of some merchant ships laden with gold and
silver, which they took, "and that not one of the richest; but Paul
Jones, finding himself entitled to a share amounting to upwards of five
hundred pounds, determined to pursue his amour at Boulogne."
Where, during all this time, was his
legal bride, "the beautiful farmer's 'daughter," who does not appear
again in the narrative? On reaching l'Orient, Paul generously presented
"the vessel and her appurtenances" to his companions; binding them,
however, in a solemn oath that they should deal with him only in such
articles as were proper for sale at Boulogne and the Isle of Man. . . .
Paul slept that night ashore; and in the morning, after sending his
comrades a present of twelve dozen of wine and a liberal supply of fresh
provisions, set out for Boulogne. On his arrival he was heartily
welcomed by the widow, with whom he had held correspondence during the
several months of his absence." Bigamy had no terrors for this
roistering blade, as "in about five days they were married, and having
assumed the character of landlord, he gave the principal customers of
the house an elegant entertainment. For several weeks his behaviour was
so affable and condescending, and the articles in which he dealt so good
of their respective kinds, and so moderate in price, that the custom of
the house surprisingly increased. But nature had not made him to keep
within the bounds of moderation. The idea of being possessed of property
sufficient to render him independent of business, and the prospects of
greater riches, swelled his pride to that pitch that he was no longer
able to act under the mask of humility that had for some time disguised
his natural turbulence." Just what he did is not hinted, "but the
customers were disgusted with his shameful conduct . . . and sought
other places of entertainment," so possibly Paul raised the prices. "The
decay of the business inflamed him to a degree of the utmost
extravagance; and in all probability his wife would have fallen a
sacrifice to the impetuosity of his temper had not the amiable'
tenderness of her disposition been capable of giving some degree of
moderation to his violent, restless and impatient spirit."
Apparently he had a partiality for
smuggling transactions connected with the Isle of Man, and hearing that
the Earl of Derby was about to sell it to the Crown, he decided to "go
there and put his affairs on a firm footing, which he did, leaving his
wife in charge of the hotel. . . . On the high seas he met his old
pirate crew, but waved his hand in token of greeting," upon which they
sailed away leaving him unmolested. "As soon as he arrived he made the
first entry of licensed goods transported from England into the Isle of
Man." Returning to Boulogne he carried on his smuggling until the death
of his wife, when he "again went to the Isle of Man, and transacted some
business in the legal way the better to elude the suspicion of his being
engaged in contraband dealing," though, sad to relate, except with the
law, smugglers were exceptionally popular characters, helped by high and
low alike in their efforts to foil the "Preventive" men.
If he ever went to see bride the first,
there is no note of the fact; undoubtedly he did not, being a very much
occupied individual with his many sporting ventures, not "yet an
absolute pirate, but a desperate smuggler." His crew was formed of
ruffians of all nationalities, "Blacks, Swedes, Americans, Irish and
Liverpool men were particularly welcome to him, and in the north of
England he was called the English corsair." He amassed three thousand
pounds in these ventures, but his "avaricious mind had led him to take
great advantage of several of the smugglers with whom he dealt, some of
whom he apprehended might at length be provoked to lodge information
against him on account of the illegal traffic he had so long pursued."
So he got rid of his various encumbrances, and went to keep a
coffee-house in Dunkirk—stocked with the money which he had borrowed
from confiding individuals before leaving the Isle of Man. He kept on
dealing in contraband goods, but was "driven nearly to a state of
distraction by those to whom he had entrusted his goods allowing them to
be seized, as through his want of precaution the goods had fallen into
the hands of the king's officers." Paul now shut up his house in
Dunkirk, and prepared to embark for England, having "previously remitted
a small sum to each of the persons he had defrauded in the Isle of Man;
and as they accepted of payment in part, they destroyed every idea of
felony, and constituted their respective claims into mere matters of
debt; he was therefore no longer under apprehension of prosecution from
the criminal laws."
Having concluded the matters which
brought him to Rochester, Paul re-turned his attention to the ladies.
Taking a "lodging in Long Acre, where he had not resided many weeks
before he debauched his landlady's daughter, who removed with him to
Tottenham, but in about three weeks he deserted her, and she became a
common prostitute." Shocking to relate, "Our hero now engaged in a
criminal intercourse with the mistress of a notorious brothel in the
neighbourhood of Covent Garden, who assumed his name, and passed under
the character of his wife." But again was he bereaved, "the woman being
seized with a fit of apoplexy, she expired while he was examining some
accounts in a parlour adjoining to her bedroom. He no sooner discovered
her situation, than he searched her pockets, and taking her keys,
secreted all her ready money, and some other valuable effects, amounting
in the whole to about three hundred pounds, and then absconded with his
booty." Moving to Paternoster Row, where he gambled recklessly, until
reduced to the sum of £io8, with which, after a good deal of brawling in
billiard-rooms and pot- houses, he again went to sea as a smuggler,
"committing many depredations along the coast, and capturing a Spanish
galleon of inestimable treasure, which struck on a rock, going to the
bottom with all hands on board. There were innumerable merchant vessels
that found him unpleasantly on the alert, and on one foray he went to
Whitehaven, where he seized a young woman while she was standing on the
wharf, and placed her in the hold; and the following day he enticed a
publican on board, and immediately got under weigh. The man returned
several years after, but the woman has never been heard of since."
Now all this is an amazing tissue of
lies, as Paul Jones was born in 1757 and went to America in 1773, he was
less than seventeen when most of these disreputable adventures were
being enacted. Is it odd that he was spoken of with bated breath,
shunned as more dangerous than the plague, and that mothers hushed
naughty children with the invocation of his name? His services in France
and Russia are ignored, and he is sent to Kentucky, where he gained
great wealth and estates, dying in the early eighteen hundreds.
In a three-volume romance by Allan
Cunningham, Paul dies in Paris, poor and miserable, wrapped in his cloak
on a truckle bed, just as he is about to receive the appointment of
commander of the Republican navy; Fenimore Cooper wrote of him in Tue
Pilot.,- and Thackeray in Dennis Duval, and Dibden wrote a "melodramatic
romance" about him, which was played at the Metropolitan minor theatres,
and the great Dumas took him as the subject of one of his least-known
novels, under the title of Captain Paul. In this book he is the natural
son of a great French family, a beneficent dens ex maclzina to his left-
handed brothers and sister, whom he showers with favours. On the many
voyages which he made to the West Indies, he always visited this sister
and her husband, who was governor of Guadeloupe. The story floats in
hysterical tears, in which Paul joins frequently, finally disappearing,
after a touching scene with his mother, who presses on his acceptance a
diamond-encrusted miniature of his long dead father, the Comte de
Morlaix. This, for twenty-five years, the secretive lady had kept,
unknown to her husband, who shot Paul's father in a duel, where the
latter refused to fire; an incident so disturbing to his mind that he
went mad. It is a great jumble, with all the elements of purest
melodrama. That very puissant lady, Margaret Blanche de Sable, Marquise
d'Auray, his mother, was an austere character with a great reputation
for piety, and her children stood in wholesome awe of her. She must be
pardoned her early indiscretion, for she had been engaged to the Comte
de Morlaix, when, alack! a sort of Montagu-Capulet unpleasantness
happened, and the lovers were parted. Dumas, with most unusual
inaccuracy, buries his hero in Père la Chaise, which was not opened
until 1804.
The ballad writers sang in praise of his
deeds, quite unfettered by hampering truth, and the following is one of
the best examples. It begins—
PAUL JONES
(From the collection of A. M. Broadley, Esq.)
"An American frigate,
called the Rachel by name,
Mounted guns forty-four, from New York she came,
To cruise in the Channel of old England's fame,
With a noble commander, Paul Jones was his name.
We had not cruised long when two sails we espied,
A large forty-four, and a twenty likewise.
Fifty bright shipping, well loaded with store,
And the convoy stood in for the old Yorkshire shore."
It goes on to relate how they came
alongside, with the customary interview through the speaking-trumpet,
and says—
"We fought them four
glasses, four glasses so hot,
Till forty hold seamen lay dead on the spot,
And fifty-five more lay bleeding in gore,
While the thun'dring large cannons of Paul Jones did roar."
The fight continued amid much smoke of
battle, and
"Paul Jones he then
smiled, and to his men did say,
Let every man stand the best of his play,'
For broadside for broadside they fought on the main
Like true buckskin heroes, we returned it again.
The Cerapus wore round our
ship for to rake,
Which made the proud hearts of the English to ache,
The shot flew so hot we could not stand it long,
Till the bold British colours from the English came down.
And now, my bold boys, we
have taken a rich prize,
A large forty-four, and a twenty likewise;
To help the poor mothers, that have reason to weep,
For the loss of their sons in the unfathomed deep." |
