|
ARE we not inclined, like
children, disappointed at beholding king and queen in commonplace,
everyday clothes, when fancy adorned them in glittering crown and robes,
to picture our heroes as living from cradle to grave in a blaze of
glory? As moving through life to soft, musical murmurs of praise,
greeting acquaintances with a politely uplifted halo, in place of the
hat of ordinary mortals? When we hear of these fortunate ones, they have
reached the pinnacle which they occupy naturally, so that we forget the
mighty effort which put them there.
We read glowing accounts
of the battles Nelson won—but do not think much about the routine which
made his success; admire Wellington, with the laurels of Waterloo
becomingly surmounting that historic nose —but forget the obscure youth
and hard work which gave him name and fame, great enough to have a boot
called after him. We carelessly forget, too, the hundreds of petty,
everyday annoyances, the backbiting and strife, which the successful
must conquer or ignore. In fact, we enjoy effect, without much thought
as to the cause. Paul Jones achieved fame, he did not have it thrust
upon him. We hear of him as an always successful captain, and, from the
time he was allowed to act alone, without senior officer, or
cut-and-dried orders, he sprang into renown in a night. He was not a
conceited or egotistical man, but he had that fore-sense of what he
could do, which never led him into a blunder. His only failures were
when he was forced to act in concert with those who had not been put
under his absolute command. The, more one analyses Paul Jones and his
career, the more remarkable it seems, for he had no one on whom to
depend or look to for favour. The influence of the boudoir played little
part in his early struggles for recognition. No mysterious relative in
slouched hat, with drooping plumes and cloak concealing the lower part
of his face, met him 'neath a blasted oak in the moonlight, pressed
purses, heavy with gold, into his surprised hand, and vanished with a
hoarse whisper of further benefits to be conferred, if due secrecy were
observed. No inopportune old retainer hindered his footsteps, for "the
sake of the family." He was singularly free from these romantic
encumbrances. By sheer grit and determination he carried himself on,
accomplishing, not planning, those deeds which brought him lasting fame.
From first to last it was a struggle, unceasing, unending.
One sometimes wonders how
different the history of his period might have been if chance had guided
his steps into the navy of his own country, where he could have fought
alongside Nelson and Howe, in steady command, sure of promotion and the
future, and not had to solicit employment which was his by right of
ability. Despite the cant of democracy and merit alone succeeding, the
United States navy, like those of older lands, was from the first the
toy of favouritism. To this may be attributed its early blunders and
failures. The navy was controlled by the gentlemen from Massachusetts,
and John Quincy Adams, its virtual dictator, filled the desirable posts
with those who had the luck to please him, without the slightest
reference to their fitness. Nevertheless, war is no respecter of
favouritism, and the dire failures, the blunders of the
"Commander-in-Chief" and Captain Dudley Saltonstall, who was also
dismissed the service, opened the eyes of Congress to the state of
things, and served to place Paul Jones in a position free from "the
incubus of imbecile superiors." From that moment, to the end of his
eventful career, Paul Jones was always the ranking officer on his
station, and never afterward served under the orders of a senior.
In person, Paul Jones was
about middle height, so slender as to be wiry, so lithe as to be
compared to a panther; so swift in his movements that he was described
as "chain lightning." Swarthy as a Spaniard, with eyes so grey as to be
black in moments of excitement, with a well-turned leg and aristocratic
hands and feet, and a wonderful voice which could command sharply or
melt into the most winning endearments. Nathaniel Fanning, his friend
and shipmate, describes him—
"Though of low stature
and slender build, the Commodore's neck, arms and shoulders were those
of a heavy-set man. His neck was out of proportion to the rest of him.
The strength of his arms and shoulders could hardly he believed; and he
had equal use of both hands, even to writing with the left as well as
the right hand. He was past master in the art of boxing, and though
there were many hard nuts to crack in the various crews he commanded, no
one ever doubted that the Commodore was the best man aboard. To all this
he added a quickness of motion that cannot be described except by saying
that he was quicker than chain lightning. When roused, he would strike
more blows and do more damage in a second than any other man I ever saw
could do in a minute. Even when calm and unruffled, his gait and all of
his bodily motions were exactly like those of the panther—noiseless,
sleek, and the perfection of grace, yet always giving one the idea that
it would be well to keep out of reach of his paws and teeth.
He always fought as if
that was what he was made for, and it was only when most perfectly at
peace that he seemed ill at ease, or, at least, restless.
"He was never petulant
toward those subordinate to him. Even in cases of failure to carry out
his orders or meet his expectations he would be lenient, patient and
forbearing so long as he did not detect or think he detected wilfulness
or malice. But if he obtained such an impression, there could be no
peace with him. He was not a quarrelsome man, in the sense of proneness
to pick quarrels; but he was the easiest person I have ever seen for any
fighting man to pick a quarrel with.
"In ordinary intercourse,
either official or personal, it was a constant delight to be with him,
at least for those who by their conduct had gained his esteem; and in
his air and manner toward such there was a charm the like of which I
have never seen or heard of in any other man."
Even so stolid a person
as the old Quaker, Franklin, felt the extraordinary fascination of the
sailor's vivid personality, as is readily shown in the letter which he
sent, introducing him to the Comtesse d'Houdetot, June 1780—
"No matter what the
faults of Commodore Jones may be . . . I must confess to your ladyship
that when face to face with him, neither man, nor, so far as I can
learn, woman, can for a moment resist the strange magnetism of his
presence, the indescribable charm of his manner; a commingling of the
most perfect self-esteem that I have ever seen in a man; and, above all,
the sweetness of his voice and the purity of his language. I offer these
thoughts to the gracious consideration of your ladyship, no less as a
warning than as a favourable introduction."
Paul Jones undeniably
possessed the powerful charm of an inscrutable personality; none might
boast his confidence or read his heart; mystery stir- rounded his origin
with an impenetrable veil. The fair sex were his slaves, he had only to
choose. His tender chivalry towards all women is often mentioned. His
discretion in affairs de coeur was only matched by his popularity and
the number of his conquests. Of all this there is no word, no hint in
memoir or journal; no yellowing indiscreet letters, lying forgotten in a
ponderous coffer heavy with the dust of dead things, betrays the secret
kept so well. Intuition whispered that one day the world would wish to
know his life, his innermost soul; to dissect his very heart and he
destroyed all tokens of the women who had loved him.
To others he was lavish;
his own tastes were the most simple; towards his inferiors he behaved
with the generosity of a prince; to his sailors he was commander and
friend. He never ordered flogging on any ship he commanded, and is known
to have personally thrown the cat-o'-nine-tails overboard. On the
occasion, years later, when he allowed the look-outs to be punished for
dire carelessness, lie—it is said— ordered that the men should be
flogged in their shirts, which made the chastisement a farce. He "talked
to the men like a father," or, most terrible punishment devised by human
cruelty, stopped their grog for three days, which had a chastening
effect. He interested the sailors in the smallest details of their work,
gave them lessons in rope-splicing, or reproved a young sailor for his
"lubberly walk," with a personal demonstration of the correct swagger to
be kept in mind by Jack afloat. Every one of those "gun-deck hearties"
knew the Captain was the best man aboard, that his methods were summary
and much to the point.
"I tell you, my men," he
said, "once for all, that when I become convinced that a sailor of mine
must be killed, I will not leave it to be done by boatswain's mates
under slow torture of the lash; but I will do it myself; and so G— d—
quick that it will make your heads swim.
These pacific and briefly
expressed opinions, so casually mentioned by their commander, had the
merit of letting those "hard nuts" in the various crews he commanded
know just where they stood, should occasion arise.
From his earliest life at
sea he showed distaste for the tavern brawls and rowdy amusements of
Jack ashore, preferring the company of the better classes in the ports
visited. His spare time was profitably employed in reading such books as
he could obtain, and in the study of naval history. Ambition was bred in
his bone. Perhaps it was hereditary; an unconscious desire to take the
place in the world that was his rightfully—if one disallows the peasant
origin. He was a famous shot with the duelling pistol, which, with his
delighted readiness to fight, made men wary of treading too heavily on
forbidden ground in his presence.
The more one reads of
John Paul Jones, of his ease and perfect sang-froid in the highest
society, of his well-turned compliments to royalty, of his never
offending the susceptibilities of the French, and, in after years, the
Englishmen of rank with whom he formed friendships, the more one is
inclined to pause and wonder who his parents really were. It seems
incredible, at a time when class distinctions were as rigid as the laws
of the Medes and Persians, when education was of the most primitive,
that the son of a gardener and a lady's maid could pass the tests to
which he was hourly subjected, without once making a fauz pas. Though
his detractors were many, and he was called a pirate, a privateer, and
by other terms of opprobrium, those who knew him intimately, the
royalties by whom he was received, the courtiers and men of letter;, and
all those with whom in his active life he came in daily intercourse,
have left no comment but that in the highest degree favourable to him.
He was elegant in manner, and during the last years of his life so
exquisite in his dress as to be remarked in any assembly. Later
portraits of him display a foppish niceness most incompatible with the
legendary pirate and buccaneer so greatly feared on the boundless ocean.
His life was a romance. He appealed to the strongest primitive passion
in man the love of fighting, which, civilise us as you may, is only
dormant, ready to burst forth at the first beat of the drum. We remember
him because he fought and loved it, and because he was victorious. He
was a living example of the old saying "There is nothing so successful
as success." If he was the unwanted child of a great family, did his
mother follow his meteoric career with pride, or with some regret for
the part convention compelled her to play?
American politics were in
a turmoil, there was much "mounting in hot haste" and galloping about
the country. From morning till night Paul Jones was hurrying from one
point to another, too busy to mind fatigue, too full of enthusiasm to be
daunted by the colossal proportions of the task he had undertaken making
a navy without ships, and manning it without sailors. It was on one of
these hasty journeys from Philadelphia, while stopping to change horses
at Alexandria, that he was wakened out of a clay-dream by the unusual
sound of the French and German languages, mingled with broken English;
and saw a party of gentlemen trying to make their wants under- stood to
the innkeeper, who spoke no language but his own.
This was Jones's first
meeting with the rattle-pated Lafayette, who had run away from his home
and family to put his finger in the pie of American independence.
Lafayette spoke a little English, the Baron de Kalb none at all, so
Jones, who was one of the four captains in the United States Navy who
spoke French, and the only one to do so fluently, stepped into the
breach. Lafayette relates the incident.
"A slender, black-haired,
black-eyed, swarthy gentleman in a naval uniform and of most martial and
distinguished bearing approached, and said in perfect French—
Pardon, Monsieur; ii me
semble que, peut-être, je beuz VOUS aider. En tel cas, commandez, s'il
vous Plait.
"Delighted to hear my
mother tongue so unexpectedly and so opportunely spoken, I informed the
gentleman who we were, and asked whom I might have the honour to
address. To which he replied 'f'ai l'honneur d'etre Capitaine de frgate
de la marine des Etais Unis; ci on m'apele Paul Jones, a volie service,
Monsieur.'
Profoundly acknowledging
his courtesy, I at once turned over to Captain Paul Jones the task of
composing our difficulties, and instantly discovered that he was a
captain in fact as well as by title. The people there seemed to know him
well. He assumed an air of easy, though quite imperious, mastery of the
situation, and in a very short time our cavalcade was ready to set out.
He had an appointment to dine that evening with friends in Alexandria,
but upon invitation to join our party, he hastily sent a messenger to
cancel the engagement, by reason of a sudden and unexpected pressure of
public duty of grave importance,' and journeyed with us thence to
Philadelphia."
Of course, Lafayette
heartily endorsed Jones's pet scheme of cruising in foreign waters, with
the object of harassing the enemy's shipping as much as possible. The
new flag of the United States must be displayed on the high seas and
enter the ports of other lands, bringing tangible proofs of its
existence to the rulers of the old world, before the new republic could
hope to be accepted as an accomplished fact. English shipping must be
injured to make other nations aware that a new navy had appeared on the
seas of the world. Though the successes of the American ships had been
gratifying, their fame was local. Vital as it was to the colonists,
their struggle was spoken of contemptuously, and not treated with much
seriousness, till the Revolution had gone so far that to kill it was
impossible. The comatose, bewigged old gentlemen who had the management
of the colonies in their hands, were too much wrapped in the cotton-wool
of perfect self-content to pull that wool from over their ears, and
listen to what was going on in the outside world.
It was Lafayette's idea
that a squadron of French ships should he fitted out and sail under the
commission and flag of the United States. This course would embroil
England and France, and also provide better ships than the United States
could construct or buy. He wrote to Washington that "Captain Jones
possesses, far beyond any other officer in your service, that particular
aplomb, grace of manner, charm of person and dash of character always
required to captivate the French fancy." He declared far and wide that
Paul Jones was the only captain in the United States Navy qualified to
undertake this mission; that "by his knowledge of the French language he
fulfilled the first and greatest prerequisite; because," Lafayette said,
"it would be useless and perfectly idle to send a captain over there who
would need an interpreter."
Lafayette had a great
deal to say, and was listened to, being the only one of those
distinguished volunteers who came with full, and returned with empty,
hands. He was a personal friend of Washington, and essayed to sway that
stolid gentleman in Paul Jones's favour on every occasion that arose,
though not always with success.
Captain Jones now applied
for the Trumbull, one of the thirteen frigates built by Congress, to run
against the spite of Mr. Adams, who intended the ship for Dudley
Saltonstall; who, having recovered from the effects of his
court-martial, was ready for further service. It is strange that one man
should hate another in the petty way Adams hated Paul Jones, to whom he
always alluded as a "smooth, plausible and rather capable adventurer,
with some smattering of general knowledge and a fair command of French
and Spanish, due wholly to his earlier career as an English merchant
captain trading to the West India Islands and Spanish Main." Mr. Adams
maintained that he was a man of no family connection, which, coming from
a good republican, in a land where "all men" are declared to have been
born "free and equal," is amusing. As to the motive for the dislike,
Jones's correspondent, Mr. Hewes, lets the cat out of the bag. One
evening in June 1775, Jones was at a party given by Colonel and Mrs.
Carroll of Carrollton at their house near the falls of Schuylkill; Mr.
Adams was also present.
"Mr. Adams was nothing if
not pedantic. In the course of the entertainment he essayed to relate an
anecdote of Fontenelle to a group of young ladies, among whom were Miss
Betty Faulkner of Virginia and Miss Josephine Mayrant of South Carolina.
Miss Faulkner had been educated in France, and Miss Mayrant belonged to
one of the Carolina Huguenot families in which French was retained as
the domestic tongue. Mr. Adams related his anecdote of Fontenelle in
French.
"When he was gone, Jones,
at the request of the young ladies, related the anecdote correctly both
as to text and accent. One of the younger ladies then asked Jones what
he thought of Mr. Adams's French?"
Mr. Hewes asserts that
Jones was always reckless with his wit, an assertion which is not
confirmed by the study of his life, and "more than once in his career
sacrificed an interest for the sake of an epigram. On this occasion, not
reflecting that such a bon moe would he likely to find repetition in
such a social circle as that was, he replied with mock gravity—
A very free translation
being, "It is very fortunate, ladies, for the cause of the rights of
man, that the political sentiments of Mr. Adams are not so English as
his French is; because, if they were, he would easily be the greatest
Tory in the country."
"This delicious but
ill-judged satire was not slow in reaching the ears of Mr. Adams, and he
ever afterwards hated Paul Jones with all the sturdy hate of the Puritan
nature when its vanity is wounded."
If Paul Jones has been
represented as something of a fire-eater by certain writers, and called
quarrelsome, the facts must be taken into consideration that from his
first service in the United States, until his appointment as
rear-admiral in the Russian navy, he experienced enough annoyance and
hindrance in everything he undertook to arouse the anger of a much
milder man. He loathed deceit, and had a profound contempt for those who
would shield their incapacity and blunders behind the back of a
political godfather in preference to facing the music. When the
incompetent Saltonstall stood in the way of Jones's getting command of
the Trumbull, he threatened to make public the charges which he had long
before made against him, of cruelty to his men, and incivility to his
officers aboard the Alfred; which, thanks to political influence, had
been kept dark. Jones grew tired of so much procrastination, and "rather
vigorously informed Mr. Morris that if he could not secure appropriate
action in the regular way, he would conceive it his duty to publish the
facts over his own name and on his personal responsibility; as he
believed the public entitled to know what kind of a naval servant they
had in Captain Saltonstall."
This did not meet the
views of Mr. Morris, who thought "it would be a sorry spectacle to see
naval officers killing each other when there were so many enemies to be
accounted for." . . . Jones bluntly told Mr. Morris that he "considered
it his duty to rid the navy of Captain Saltonstall, and if he were
denied the opportunity of doing it in the regular way, by court-
martial, it was quite immaterial to him what other way must he resorted
to." Mr. Morris, amazed at this fierce outbreak, inquired if Jones had
taken any advice in this most serious affair? Jones answered that he
most certainly had taken advice. "Of whom, pray?" asked Mr. Morris. Of
General Cadwalder and Captain Biddle, sir!
"Bless me! " exclaimed
Mr. Morris, "the two fieriest and least tractable men in Pennsylvania.
Each the soul of honour and the embodiment of courage, but both wholly
lacking in prudence and calm judgment where any personal issue is
concerned. They will always give you advice to fight, which, by the way,
you yourself need as little as any man I know."
There was much heated
discussion, which ended in Morris commanding Jones, "as he valued his
friendship," to give him all the papers, and proceed no further in the
matter. So Jones, unwillingly, against his judgment, did as his friend
ordered; but when, two years later, he heard how Saltonstall had lost a
fine new thirty-two gun frigate, the Warren, in Penobscot Bay, under
circumstances which all his political friends could not prevent from
ending his career, he wrote bitterly to Morris: "I have just learned the
miserable fate of the Warren. To some extent I reproach myself. If I had
obeyed the dictates of my sense of duty in 1777, instead of yielding to
the persuasions of the peacemaker, our flag might still be flying on the
Warren."
But this is anticipation,
and Saltonstall got the Trumbull. Jones appealed to Washington, before
whom he laid his ease, "with an earnestness which my recent
disappointment about the Trumbull may have made somewhat vehement."
Lafayette was present at the interview, also the Generals Knox and "Mad
Anthony Wayne." Lafayette made no secret of his sympathies; but General
Washington, calm and imperturbable, walked up and down, mostly
listening, but now and then asking a question or uttering a syllable of
assent. He remained in this mood for some time after I had done. Then,
approaching me, he took me by the hand and said: 'Captain Jones, you
have conceived the right project, and you are the right man to execute
it. I will at once see members of the Marine Committee and insist that
you be forthwith provided with the best means at their disposal.'"
Washington did not offer
to use his influence to take the Tiumbull from Saltonstall, as it "would
cause friction in higher quarters, which he wished to avoid." He was
sorry there were not enough frigates for Jones, the sixth captain, to
have one. This is an instance where family connection and backing would
have decided the matter in the Scotchman's favour. Washington kept his
word. Jones was sent to Boston with orders to enlist seamen for his pet
project of a European cruise, and take them over on l'Amphirite, a
French merchantman, chartered for the purpose. But the captain objected
on the ground that, if caught by the English, his ship would be
condemned for violation of neutrality, as England and France were not at
war, and so the whole thing fell through, much to Jones's disgust. |
