Jones sailed for a Dutch port, accompanied by his other
vessels. The _Countess of Scarborough_ had been captured after about an
hour's fight, and Jones had more than five hundred British prisoners in
his charge, including two captains and a number of lesser officers.

Although many difficulties and dangers still beset him, Jones' fame was
now assured. England and France rang with his victory, and while the
English drew cartoons of him as a bloody pirate, strutting on a quarter
deck that was lined with the bodies of his victims, the French king,
Louis the Sixteenth, presented him with a gold mounted sword and the
cross of the Order of Military Merit. Congress passed a resolution
commending him for his gallantry and he received a complimentary letter
from General Washington.

When the war with England ended and the United States had secured their
independence, Paul Jones entered the service of the Russian Empire
under Catherine the Great with the rank of Rear Admiral. He gave the
new country of his adoption the greatest service in their war with the
Turks, many of whose vessels Jones sunk or destroyed. But he was
disgusted with Russian intrigue, resigned his commission and returned
to Paris.

All this time he had remained an American citizen. He considered this
the greatest honor of any that had come to him--that he could call
himself a citizen of the Republic for which he had fought so often and
so well against such great odds. But his health had been failing him
and he died in Paris on July 18, 1792. He was given a public funeral by
the French National Assembly.

For a long time his body remained in France. At length, however, its
resting place was discovered by General Horace Porter, U.S.A., and all
that remained of Paul Jones was brought back in state to America on a
great steel ship the like of which he had never seen. He was given a
national funeral at Annapolis and his body was entombed in the
beautiful Chapel of the Naval Academy, which institution Jones himself
had urged Congress to found. It is a fitting resting place for
America's greatest naval hero,--for while we have many distinguished
and noble sailors, there is no name that has the ring of Paul Jones.

CHAPTER XX

MOLLY PITCHER

In the days of the American Revolution a young woman lived as a servant
in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with the family of General Irving, a retired
British officer, who had fought in the French and Indian War and had