he would leave them
vessels enough to carry them back to England. The fishermen heartily
agreed to the proposition, and worked faithfully for several days at
the task of fitting out the captured vessels. The night before the day
on which Jones had intended leaving the harbor, the wind came on to
blow, and a violent storm of wind and rain set in. Even the usually
calm surface of the little harbor was lashed to fury by the shrieking
wind. The schooner "Sea-Flower"--one of the captured prizes--was torn
from her moorings; and though her crew got out the sweeps, and
struggled valiantly for headway against the driving storm, she drifted
on shore, and lay there a total wreck. The schooner "Ebenezer," which
Jones had brought from Canso laden with fish, drifted on a sunken
reef, and was there so battered by the roaring waves that she went to
pieces. Her crew, after vainly striving to launch the boats, built a
raft, and saved themselves on that.

The next day the storm abated; and Capt. Jones, taking with him three
heavily laden prizes, left the harbor, and turned his ship's prow
homeward. The voyage to Newport, then the headquarters of the little
navy, was made without other incident than the futile chase of three
British ships, which ran into the harbor of Louisbourg. On his
arrival, Jones reported that he had been cruising for forty-seven
days, and in that time had captured sixteen prizes, beside the
fishing-vessels he burned at Cape Breton. Eight of his prizes he had
manned, and sent into port; the remainder he had burned. It was the
first effective blow the colonists had yet struck at their powerful
foe upon the ocean.

Hardly had Paul Jones completed this first cruise, when his mind, ever
active in the service of his country, suggested to him a new
enterprise in which he might contribute to the cause of American
liberty. At this early period of the Revolution, the British were
treating American prisoners with almost inconceivable barbarity. Many
were sent to the "Old Jersey" prison-ship, of whose horrors we shall
read something later on. Others, to the number of about a hundred,
were taken to Cape Breton, and forced to labor like Russian felons in
the underground coal-mines. Jones's plan was bold in its conception,
but needed only energy and promptitude to make it perfectly feasible.

He besought the authorities to give him command of a squadron, that he
might move on Cape Breton, destroy the British coal and fishing
v