that curt phrase which comes ringing through the
centuries like a trumpet call to battle; the words with which he
replied to the demand of the astonished Pearson, who saw his enemy's
ship beaten to a pulp, and wondered why he did not yield:

"_I have not yet begun to fight!_"

That was the finest phrase, under the circumstances, that ever came
from the lips of an American sailor. "It was no new message. The
British had heard it as they tramped again and again up the
bullet-swept slopes of Bunker Hill; Washington rang it in the ears of
the Hessians on the snowy Christmas morning at {288} Trenton; the
hoof-beats of Arnold's horse kept time to it in the wild charge at
Saratoga; it cracked with the whip of the old wagoner Morgan at the
Cowpens; the Maryland troops drove it home in the hearts of their
enemies with Greene at Guilford Court House; and the drums of France
and America beat it into Cornwallis's ears when the end came at
Yorktown. There, that night, in that darkness, in that still moment of
battle, Paul Jones declared the determination of a great people. His
was the expression of an inspiration on the part of a new nation. From
this man came a statement of our unshakeable determination, at whatever
cost, to be free! A new Declaration of Independence, this famous word
of warning to the brave sailor of the British king."

V. What Jones Did for His Country

Never in his long career did Jones have a decent ship or a respectable
crew. His materials were always of the very poorest. His officers,
with the exception of Richard Dale, were but little to boast of. What
he accomplished, he accomplished by the exercise of his own indomitable
will, his serene courage, his matchless skill as a sailor, and his
devotion to the cause he had espoused. After his death, among his
papers, the following little memorandum, written in his own hand, was
found:

"In 1775, J. Paul Jones armed and embarked in the first American ship
of war. In the Revolution he had twenty-three battles and solemn
_rencontres_ by sea; made seven descents in Britain, and her colonies;
took of her navy two ships of equal, and two of superior force, many
store-ships, and others; constrained her to {289} fortify her ports;
suffer the Irish Volunteers; desist from her cruel burnings in America
and exchange, as prisoners of war, the American citizens taken on the
ocean, and cast into prisons of England, as 'traitors, pirates, and
felons!'"

Ind