hes and biographies, some of which contain rich
collections of his letters and extracts from his journals. The
biographies which I have found most useful are the "Life," by John Henry
Sherburne, published in 1825, which is mainly a collection of Jones's
correspondence; another volume, composed largely of extracts from his
letters and journals, called the "Janette-Taylor Collection," published
in 1830; the first and only extended narrative at once readable and
impartial, by Alexander Slidell MacKenzie, published in 1845; and the
recently published "Life" by Augustus C. Buell. To Mr. Buell's
exhaustive work I am indebted for considerable original material not
otherwise accessible to me. On the basis of the foregoing mass of
material I have attempted, in a short sketch, to give merely an unbiased
account of the man.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. EARLY VOYAGES 1

II. CRUISES OF THE PROVIDENCE AND THE ALFRED 17

III. THE CRUISE OF THE RANGER 30

IV. EFFORTS IN FRANCE TO SECURE A COMMAND 44

V. THE FIGHT WITH THE SERAPIS 56

VI. DIPLOMACY AT THE TEXEL 70

VII. SOCIETY IN PARIS 80

VIII. PRIVATE AMBITION AND PUBLIC BUSINESS 91

IX. IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE 108

X. LAST DAYS 118

_The portrait is from the original by C. W. Peale, in Independence Hall_

PAUL JONES

I

EARLY VOYAGES

John Paul, known as Paul Jones, who sought restlessly for distinction
all his life, was born the son of a peasant, in July, 1747, near the
ocean on which he was to spend a large portion of his time. His father
lived in Scotland, near the fishing hamlet of Arbigland, county of
Kirkcudbright, on the north shore of Solway Firth, and made a living for
the family of seven children by fishing and gardening. The mother,
Jeanne Macduff, was the daughter of a Highlander, and in Paul Jones's
blood the Scotch canniness and caution of his Lowland father was united
with the wild love of physical action native to his mother's race.

Little is known of the early life of the fifth and famous child of the
Scotch gardener. He went to the parish school, but not for long, for the
sea called him at an early age. When he was twelve years old he could
handle his fishing-boat