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PREFACE
AMONG the brilliant
adventurers who passed meteor- like across the closing years of the
eighteenth century, no name is better known than that of the famous
Scotsman John Paul Jones.
In response to his ardent
plea for a sailor's life, he was apprenticed and sent to sea at the age
of twelve to seek his fortune. He rose rapidly, unaided by favour or
influence, and at nineteen became chief mate of a slaver, at twenty-one
captain of a West India trading vessel; then came his experience as a
Virginia planter. At twenty-eight he was commissioned lieutenant in the
American Continental Navy, at twenty-nine became captain, at thirty-two
commodore, "the ocean hero of the Old World and the New," spoiled,
adulated, petted by great and small. Special envoy to the French Court
at thirty- six; at forty, in commemoration of the victory of the
Bonhomme Richard over the Serapis, voted a gold medal by Congress; and
now the thread of life shows its first sign of wearing. . . . A
vice-admiral in the Navy of the Russian Empress at forty-three, waiting
for the last brilliant chapters to be written; at forty- five dead!
At heart he was a
free-lance, without a country, without family; he had his brief hour,
his life was like "the stuff that dreams are made of." He left no book
of his hopes, his secrets, for us to pore over. Self- contained being
that he was, we do not know if the mystery of his parentage ever
sorrowed him. He asked nothing from the world but fame and glory, and
these he may justly claim, for who does not—if but in a vague way—know
the name of that "rebel," "corsair" and "pirate," Paul Jones?
CONTENTS
Chapter I - 1747-1773
Chapter II - 1773 - 1775
Chapter III - 1775 - 1777
Chapter IV - 1777
Chapter V - 1777
Chapter VI - 1777
Chapter VII - 1777
Chapter VIII - 1777
Chapter IX - 1777 - 1778
Chapter X - 1778
Chapter XI - 1778
Chapter XII - 1778
Chapter XIII - 1778
Chapter XIV - 1778
Chapter XV - 1778
Chapter XVI - 1778 - 1779
Chapter XVII - September 23, 1779
Chapter XVIII - 1779
Chapter XIX - 1779
Chapter XX - 1779
Chapter XXI - 1780 - 1783
Chapter XXII - 1783 - 1788
Chapter XXIII - 1788 - 1789
Chapter XXIV - 1789 - 1790
Chapter XXV - 1789 - 1792
An account of how his
body was found in France and transferred to America can be found here! |
