JOHN PAUL JONES

Kirkbean, Scotland
July 6, 1747−July 18, 1792
A Long Voyage Home

Jones was one of the most daring—and ill-tempered—commanders in the Continental Navy. He came to America under suspicious circumstances, which are not always included in his biographies. That did not affect his navy career or his reputation for bravery, though. Jones would not give up in a naval engagement, which inspired his sailors to be tough and determined. He is best known for his victory over the British warship Serapis off the coast of England. Jones took the fight to the British navy—and dared them to stop him.

REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS

Jones was born John Paul. He added the Jones sometime in the mid-1770s, possibly due to an incident in Tobago in 1773 in which he killed a member of his crew aboard the Betsy. The sailor started a mutiny. Jones let his temper get the best of him. He confronted the mutineer with a sword to force him into obedience. According to Jones, the man attacked him with a piece of wood, so he killed him in self-defense. A few days later, Jones fled Tobago, traveled to America, changed his name, and “reinvented” himself. That was his story, and he stuck to it.

An Early Start

John Paul Jones began his sailing career at the age of twelve, when he sailed to America aboard a merchant vessel named Friendship. Its destination was Rappahannock, Virginia, where Jones’s older brother, William, lived. John Paul lived with William for a while when he was not at sea learning his trade.

Jones got his first chance to command a ship by luck. He was traveling aboard a ship, ironically named John, as a passenger. Both the captain and the first mate died at sea of yellow fever. Jones assumed command of the John and brought it safely into port. The company rewarded him by appointing him as captain of the ship. At age twenty, he had his first command.

Jones stayed at sea for a few more years with different employers. In 1773, he learned that his brother had died and left him his estate. He returned to Virginia to live.

Two years later he offered his services to the Continental Navy, writing a letter on April 25, 1775, to Joseph Hewes, Robert Morris, and Thomas Jefferson asking for a commission in the navy. Four months later, he was asked to outfit the navy’s first ship, Alfred.

On December 7, 1775, Congress appointed him as the first first lieutenant in the Continental Navy. He was assigned to Alfred, commanded by Stephen Hopkins’s brother, Esek. The navy offered him his own ship to command, either Providence or Fly. Jones turned down the offer and sailed aboard the Alfred because he believed he could learn more about seamanship and fleet maneuvers by serving as a first lieutenant on a warship under the tutelage of an experienced commander than he could by commanding his own ship.

Victory at Sea

Jones’s first voyage went well. The Alfred sailed with an American fleet to New Providence, Nassau, where the crew captured military supplies and gunpowder. En route back to the United States, they captured two British ships and engaged an enemy warship, Cabot, which escaped.

Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

“I WISH TO HAVE NO CONNECTION WITH ANY SHIP THAT DOES NOT SAIL FAST FOR I INTEND TO GO IN HARM’S WAY.”

—JOHN PAUL JONES

After a few routine assignments in the first half of 1776, he received a commission as captain. He quickly demonstrated why Congress and the navy had faith in him.

On September 1, 1776, while commanding Providence, Jones skirmished with two British warships. None of the ships were damaged. Between September 3 and September 8, he captured sixteen enemy merchant vessels off the northeast coast of America. He burned eight of them and sent the rest to port as prizes. He also destroyed a Nova Scotia fishery and wreaked havoc with shipping in the area. His string of successes, however small, deprived the British of ships, sailors, and supplies.

Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

“AN HONORABLE PEACE IS AND ALWAYS WAS MY FIRST WISH! I CAN TAKE NO DELIGHT IN THE EFFUSION OF HUMAN BLOOD; BUT, IF THIS WAR SHOULD CONTINUE, I WISH TO HAVE THE MOST ACTIVE PART IN IT.”

—JOHN PAUL JONES

Jones was making a name for himself, at home, and among his British enemies.

In January 1777, Commodore Hopkins replaced Jones as commander of Providence. Not too long after, Jones assumed command of Ranger, and resumed making life miserable for British shipping into 1778.

REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS

Jones received a unique honor on February 14, 1778. Admiral La Motte Piquet, commanding a French squadron, gave Jones, captain of Independence, a thirteen-gun salute and received a nine-gun salute in return. It was the first time a foreign power ever rendered a salute to the American flag.

Older and Bolder

Sailing in foreign waters brought out the best in Jones. On April 22, 1778, he sailed into Whitehaven, on the coast of England, where he spiked guns and burned ships. The next day he visited St. Mary’s Isle, intending to capture the Earl of Selkirk. The earl was not at home, so Jones contented himself with liberating 160 pounds of silver. The British could not let him go on taunting them. But it was not until September 23 that they made a serious attempt to put him and his antiquated ship, Bonhomme Richard, out of commission.

REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS

On June 3, 1778, an embarrassed Jones told Benjamin Franklin that he was broke. He had spent £1,500 of his own money, but had not received any wages to offset his expenditure. Finally, on July 25, 1781, Congress approved his accounts and referred him to the Treasury Board for payment.

In one of the most famous battles in naval history, Jones captured and commandeered the British warship Serapis, which was escorting a British convoy carrying naval supplies to England. The Serapis was much larger than the Bonhomme Richard and outgunned it considerably. Jones used his expert seamanship skills to close in on the Serapis, tie the ships together, and negate the larger ship’s firepower advantage. Eventually, Jones’s crew prevailed, although he lost his ship. The Bonhomme Richard was damaged so badly it was no longer seaworthy. It sank between 10 and 11 A.M. on September 25, 1778. The victorious Jones and his crew sailed off aboard the Serapis—and into the annals of naval warfare history.

The battle ended Jones’s fighting career with the U.S. navy. From that point on he was kept busy handling political and administrative affairs in Paris and receiving awards for his bravery and daring.

REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS

On July 21, 1778, the King of France received Jones at Versailles and presented him with a gold sword in recognition of his accomplishments on the behalf of independence.

Jones bounced around Europe for a couple years, and negotiated for prize money from Denmark. Then, the Russians asked him to join their navy.

He hoisted his flag as a rear admiral in the Russian navy aboard Wolodimir on May 26, 1788.

In mid-1788, Jones fought against the Turks and performed as brilliantly as he had for the American navy in the Revolutionary War. He left the Russian navy in mid-1789, planning to return to the United States to purchase a farm. It was 127 years before he made the trip.

Jones died in Paris on July 18, 1792, and was buried in a local cemetery. When it came time to exhume his remains and return him to the United States, no one could find his grave.

On July 14, 1848, the secretary of the U.S. Navy, William A. Graham, learned that the Protestant cemetery in the rear of the Hotel Dieu in Paris where Jones was supposed to have been buried had been sold. All the bones were removed to a different location.

Finally, on February 22, 1905, General Horace Porter, U.S. ambassador to France, announced that Jones’s remains had been located. President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched a ship to bring John Paul Jones home. He was reburied at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, at a ceremony in April 1906.

It had been a long trip, but the naval hero of the Revolutionary War was finally home.