command the
ship _Ranger_" (a brand-new sloop-of-war which had just been launched
at Portsmouth, N. H.).

This boat was designed to carry a battery of twenty long six-pounders
and was planned expressly for speed. She was one hundred and sixteen
feet long, twenty-eight feet in breadth, and her bottom was covered
with copper: the first American ship to be thus protected. Captain
Jones put fourteen long nine-pounders in her and only four
six-pounders, but even then she was top-heavy.

In spite of the fact that it was not quite safe to carry full sail, if
clearing to windward, close-hauled in squally weather; when running
free--before the wind--she could course through the water like a
jack-rabbit. In outward appearance she was a perfect beauty, and, as
she was rather low in the water for her length, and her masts raked
two or three degrees more than any other ship of the day, she was--on
the whole--the sauciest craft afloat. Jones was delighted.

"I have the best crew I have ever seen," said he. "I believe it is the
best in the world. They are nearly all native Americans, and the
proportion of able seamen to the total is much beyond the average. I'm
going to make one or two short runs off the coast--a day or two at a
time--to shake down the sails and find the best trim of the ship. Then
away to the shores of England and France!"

He waited impatiently for orders to proceed across the blue Atlantic.
On October the 18th, 1777, a courier raced frantically into
Portsmouth, crying,

"Burgoyne has surrendered! Burgoyne has surrendered!" And Jones'
impatience to be off increased ten-fold.

There were no details of the American victory, for the courier had
reached the sleepy New England town from the field of Stillwater, in
about thirty hours, and it was one hundred and forty-seven miles--as
the crow flies--or, about one hundred and seventy-five by the shortest
road. He had stopped only long enough to saddle a fresh horse and
shift his saddle, eating his meals in the stirrups, and never thinking
of rest until he had shouted his tidings for three full days. The
patriot country was wild with enthusiasm.

"I will spread the news in France in thirty days," said Jones, when
his dispatches were placed in his hands, about midnight of October
the thirty-first. And, running by the whirling eddies of
"Pull-and-be-damned" Point, he soon had the _Ranger_ clear of the
low-lying Isle of Shoals: the sea cross and choppy, but the good