Correspondence with Lord Selkirk.—Terrible Battle with the Ship Drake.—Capture of the Ship.—Carnage on board the Drake.—Generosity to Captured Fishermen.—Insubordination of Lieutenant Simpson.—Embarrassments of Captain Jones.—Hopes and Disappointments.—Proofs of Unselfish Patriotism.—Letter to the King of France.—Anecdote of Poor Richard.

The letter of Paul Jones to the Countess of Selkirk was published widely throughout England, and attracted much attention. Dr. Franklin wrote to Captain Jones from Paris:

“It was a gallant letter, and must give her ladyship a high opinion of your generosity and nobleness of mind.”

The plate fell into the hands of the prize agents. After much difficulty and considerable delay, Captain Jones succeeded in purchasing it, though at a price above its real value. He then returned it to Lord Selkirk, himself defraying all the expenses of transportation. Lord Selkirk, in acknowledging its receipt, from London, under date of August, 1789, wrote:

“Notwithstanding all the precautions you took for the easy and uninterrupted conveyance of the plate, yet it met with considerable delays, first at Calais, next at Dover, then at London. However, it at last arrived at Dumfries. I intended to have put an article in the newspapers about your having returned it. But before I was informed of its being arrived, some of your friends, I suppose, had put it into the Dumfries newspaper, whence it was immediately copied into the Edinburgh papers, and thence into the London ones. Since that time I have mentioned it to many people of fashion.

“And on all occasions, both now and formerly, I have done you the justice to tell that you made an offer of returning the plate very soon after your return to Brest; and although you yourself was not at my house, but remained at the shore with your boat, that you had your officers and men in such extraordinary good discipline, that your having given them the strictest orders to behave well, to do no injury of any kind, to make no search, but only to bring off what plate was given them; that in reality they did exactly as ordered, and that not one man offered to stir from his post on the outside of the house, nor entered the doors, nor said an uncivil word; that the two officers staid not a quarter of an hour in the parlor and in the butler’s pantry, while the butler got the plate together, behaved politely, and asked for nothing but the plate, and instantly marched their men off, in regular order, and that both officers and men behaved in all respects so well that it would have done credit to the best disciplined troops whatever.”

The style of Captain Jones’s letter has been found fault with. But in literary excellence it is certainly above that of the English lord. One of the London papers said of him:

“Paul Jones is about thirty-six years of age, of a middling stature, well proportioned, with an agreeable countenance. His conversation shows him to be a man of talents, and that he has a liberal education. His letters, in foreign gazettes, show that he can fight with the pen as well as with the sword.”

In the letter which Captain Jones sent to Lord Selkirk upon the return of the plate, he wrote:

“The long delay that has happened to the restoration of your plate, has given me much concern, and I now feel a proportionate pleasure in fulfilling what was my first intention. My motive for landing at your estate in Scotland was to take you, as a hostage for the lives and liberties of a number of the citizens of America, who had been taken in war on the ocean and committed to British prisons, under an act of Parliament, as traitors, pirates, and felons. You observed to Mr. Alexander that my idea was a mistaken one, because you were not, as I had supposed, in favor with the British ministry, who knew that you favored the cause of liberty. On that account, I am glad that you were absent from your estate when I landed there, as I bore no personal enmity, but the contrary, toward you. I afterward had the happiness to redeem my fellow-citizens from Britain, by means far more glorious than through the medium of any single hostage.

“As I have endeavored to serve the cause of liberty, through every stage of the American Revolution, and have sacrificed to it my private ease, a part of my fortune, and some of my blood, I could have no selfish motive in permitting my people to demand and carry off your plate. My sole inducement was to turn their attention and stop their rage from breaking out and retaliating on your house and effects the too wanton burnings and desolation that had been committed against their relations and fellow-citizens in America, by the British; of which, I assure you, you would have felt the severe consequences, had I not fallen on an expedient to prevent it, and hurried my people away before they had time for further reflection.”

We must now return from this episode to the continuance of Captain Jones’s cruise. In his letter to Lady Selkirk, he alludes to a naval battle with the ship Drake. After the descent upon Mary’s Island, Captain Jones again stood across the Channel from the Scottish to the Irish shore. On the morning of the 24th, he arrived off the Bay of Carrickfergus, and would again have entered, to make an attack upon the Drake, had he not seen that that ship was spreading her sails to come out. The wind was very light and the progress of the British ship slow. The captain of the Drake had heard of the ravages of the Ranger, for the appalling tidings had spread far and wide, and he was coming out in search of her. Seeing this vessel in the distance, a boat was sent out from the Drake to reconnoitre. Captain Jones kept the ship’s stern directly toward the approaching boat, and so succeeded in disguising his true character that though the boat’s crew carefully scrutinized him with a spy-glass, they were completely deceived, and, hailing the vessel, came alongside. As soon as the officer stepped upon the quarter-deck, he found, to his great surprise, himself a prisoner and his boat captured.

Captain Jones learned, from his captives, that the night before an express had reached the Drake, with tidings of the destruction of the shipping at Whitehaven; and the Drake had immediately increased its crew by a large number of volunteers, and was now pressing forward in pursuit of the Ranger. Alarm fires were also seen on the eminences on both sides of the Channel, their columns of smoke rising high into the air. It was evident that the achievements of the bold little Ranger had created a great commotion, rousing all England to a sense of danger, for no one knew upon what point her next blows might fall.

The wind was light and the tide unfavorable, so that the Drake worked out of the bay slowly. Captain Jones awaited her arrival, laying to with courses up, and main-topsail to the mast. At length, the Drake, having reached the mid-channel, came within hailing distance, and ran up the flag of England. At the same instant the Stars and Stripes were unfurled at the topmast of the Ranger. Still an officer on the quarter-deck of the Drake shouted out:

“What ship is that?”

The reply was immediately returned:

“It is the American Continental ship Ranger. We are waiting for you. The sun is but little more than an hour from setting. It is therefore time to begin.”

The Drake was astern of the Ranger. Jones ordered the helm up, and as his vessel rounded to, discharged a full broadside into the thronged decks of the Drake. The iron storm crashed through timbers and bones and quivering nerves with terrible destruction. But the spirit of war can never arrest its energies to compassionate its victims. The guns of the Drake were loaded and shotted, and the gunners stood, with lighted torches, at their posts. Instantly the fire was returned, while the dead were left in their blood, and the wounded were hurried to the cockpit, to writhe beneath the cuttings of the surgeon’s knife.

Thus, for an hour and four minutes, the dreadful conflict continued. The thunders of the exploding guns, booming over the waves, echoed along the shores of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The British Government dreamed not that its feeble colonies could do anything more than present a brief and totally unavailing resistance behind frail ramparts, suddenly thrown up, three thousand miles away, on the other side of the Atlantic. And yet here were those colonies putting forth energies which were burning ships in England’s home harbors, and bombarding her frigates in her own Channel.

At the close of an hour and four minutes of as obstinate a naval battle as could be fought, the Drake dropped her flag and cried for quarter. Her fore and main-topsail yards were both cut away, and hung down on the cap. The top-gallant yard and mizzen gaff were also torn from their fastenings and were dangling against the mast. The first flag had been shot away. They had raised a second. That also had fallen before the incessant storm of iron hail, and was draggling in the water. Her masts and yards were all more or less shattered, while the main-mast was so seriously wounded as to be in danger of falling. The jib was shot away, and, held by the cordage, was floating on the waves. The hull was pierced in many places, shivered and splintered by the balls.

Upon entering the captured ship an appalling spectacle met the eye. A hundred and ninety men had crowded it, in the full assurance of victory. Of these, forty-two were either killed or wounded. A musket-ball had pierced the brain of the captain, and he lay weltering in blood, silent in death. The first lieutenant had also been struck by a mortal wound, and was in death’s convulsions.

It is very remarkable that on board the Ranger there was but one man killed and six wounded. The night succeeding this terrible storm of human violence was severe and the ocean tranquil. As all hands were busy in refitting the shattered vessels, an English merchant brig came along, bound for Norway. It was captured without difficulty. As English men-of-war were crowding St. George’s Channel, Captain Jones decided to pass through the North Channel with his two prizes, and return to Brest by the west coast of Ireland.

When Captain Jones first made his appearance off Carrickfergus Bay, he captured a fishing-boat to make inquiries respecting the shipping within the bay. As secrecy was essential to his plan of operation, it was necessary to detain those fishermen with their boat. Otherwise they would communicate intelligence of his movements, and abundant preparations would be made to repel him. It was no longer necessary to detain them. Captain Jones writes:

“It was now time to release the honest fishermen, whom I took up here on the 21st. And, as the poor fellows had lost their boat, she having sunk in the late stormy weather, I was happy in having it in my power to give them the necessary sum to purchase everything new which they had lost. I gave them also a good boat, to transport themselves ashore; and sent with them two infirm men, on whom I bestowed the last guinea in my possession, to defray their travelling expenses to their proper home in Dublin. They took with them one of the Drake’s sails, which would sufficiently explain what had happened to the volunteers. The grateful fishermen were in raptures; and expressed their joy in their huzzas as they passed the Ranger’s quarter.”

This was indeed extraordinary magnanimity when we contrast it with the conduct of England, bombarding and burning our defenceless villages, immuring our most illustrious men in the dungeons of hulks, worse than the oubliettes of the Bastile, and robbing poor fishermen of everything, burning their boats, and often impressing them into her navy, and compelling them to serve the guns against their own countrymen.

Contrary winds so impeded the progress of Captain Jones that it was not until the 5th of May that he had skirted the western coast of Ireland, and reached Ushant, a French island a few miles distant from the extreme northwestern coast of France. The Ranger was accompanied by the two vessels she had taken, having the torn and battered Drake in tow. A ship hove in sight to the leeward, steering for the Channel. Captain Jones cast off the Drake, by cutting the hawser, and gave chase to the stranger. His swift-sailing vessel overtook the chase in little more than an hour, and hailing her, found that she was a Swede. He therefore immediately hauled by the wind and returned to the southward to rejoin the Drake, which was then scarcely perceptible in the distant horizon.

The evolutions of the Drake surprised him. She seemed to be trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and the Ranger. Several large ships appeared steering into the Channel. But Jones was prevented from pursuing them in consequence of the extraordinary evolutions of the Drake. He made signals. They were totally disregarded. It was not until the next day he succeeded in overtaking the runaway Drake. Her commanding officer, Lieutenant Simpson, was immediately placed under arrest for disobedience of orders.

It would seem that the lieutenant left America with the impression, and doubtless a correct one, that, upon arriving in France, Captain Jones was to be transferred to another and much finer ship, while he was to be left in command of the Drake. He consequently seemed to feel that the Drake and her crew belonged to him, and the temporary captain was rather a passenger whom he was conveying to his destination. He therefore assumed airs, and was guilty of petty acts of insubordination, which were very annoying to Captain Jones, who was a strict disciplinarian.

Moreover, Lieutenant Simpson allowed his republican principles to carry him so far as to advocate a republican form of government even upon the decks of a war-ship. He declared to the sailors, that they, being free and enlightened American citizens, were entitled to decide, by the voice of the majority, respecting all questions of importance on ship-board; that the captain was to be their agent to perform their will. Simpson was daily growing more discontented with the position he occupied, and was probably intending to run away with the Drake, one of the best finished of England’s war-ships, to repair her in some French harbor, and to sail forth on a cruise upon his own responsibility, perhaps as a French privateersman.

But for this insubordination on the part of Lieutenant Simpson, Captain Jones would doubtless have taken several other important prizes. The Ranger, with her two prizes, returned to the harbor of Brest, and cast anchor there on the 9th of May, having been absent but one month. In the mean time the French squadron, under Count d’Estaing, had been made ready for sea. The news of the brilliant achievements of Paul Jones electrified France and appalled England. The alarm infused along the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland amounted almost to a panic. Lookout vessels were constantly cruising along the shores. The militia were called out. New fortifications were constructed. The whole population of the seacoast was kept in a state of constant alarm.

But Captain Jones was now in great pecuniary embarrassment. The Colonial Government was so poor that it could not honor his drafts. He was not only unable to refit his ship, but was in want of the means of providing the daily food for his crew. When he left America he had advanced, from his own means, seven thousand dollars for the public service. He had, in a foreign land, two hundred prisoners of war to be provided for, a number of his own sick and wounded, and his ship to be repaired, shattered by a terrible engagement, and destitute of provisions and stores. And he was not allowed to dispose of his prizes until he received further orders from the home Government.

After a vast amount of mental suffering he succeeded, by his personal credit with distinguished French noblemen, Count d’Orvilliers and the Duke de Chartres, in raising money to meet his immediate and most pressing wants, and in refitting both the Ranger and the Drake for sea. The British seamen who were prisoners, if released, would be immediately forced on board the British men-of-war to man their guns. It was also necessary to retain them to effect exchanges for our own captive countrymen, whom the British were treating with such great barbarity. In his letters to the Government he urged the imperious necessity of supplying the seamen with the little necessaries and comforts of life. He also, while entreating that the English prisoners should be treated with kindness, and all their needful wants supplied, urged that they should by no means be released without an exchange. He now, during several months, passed through a series of trials, mortifications, and disappointments, a detail of which would but weary the reader. In carefully examining his voluminous correspondence, during this season of trial, when his whole soul was glowing with the desire for active service, and when the inactivity to which he was doomed was, to him, almost insupportable, I cannot find a single expression unworthy of his noble character, as a self-denying patriot, a gallant officer, and a humane gentleman.

Humanity required that England should feel the horrors of war which she was so mercilessly inflicting upon her infant colonies. In no other way could she be induced to sheathe the sword. He proposed to the Commissioners in Paris another expedition, of three fast-sailing frigates, to destroy three hundred vessels in the harbor at Whitehaven, to burn the town, and to destroy the important coal-works there.

As time would be requisite to prepare for so important an expedition, he proposed that a smaller force should immediately be fitted out, to harass the northern coasts of Great Britain, and to lay contributions upon the important towns. On the 10th of July, 1778, Dr. Franklin wrote him, saying:

“In consequence of the high opinion which the Minister of Marine has of your conduct and bravery, it is now settled that you are to have the frigate from Holland, which will be furnished with as many good French seamen as you may require. As you may like to have a number of Americans, and your own crew are homesick, it is proposed to give you as many as you can engage, out of two hundred prisoners which the ministry of Britain have, at length, agreed to give in exchange for those you have in your hands. They propose to make the exchange at Calais, where they are to bring the Americans. The project of giving you the command of this ship pleases me the more, as it is a probable opening to the higher preferment you so justly merit.”

The conduct of Lieutenant Simpson had been exasperating in the highest degree, and yet Captain Jones wrote to the Commissioners, on the 4th of July:

“Lieutenant Simpson has certainly behaved amiss. Yet I can forgive as well as resent. Upon his making a proper concession, I will, with your approbation, not only forgive the past, but leave him the command of the Ranger.”

In anticipation of a speedy command, Captain Jones was anxious to secure the services of a chaplain. In a communication to a friend whom he desired to assistassist him in obtaining such an officer, he wrote:

“I should wish the chaplain to be a man of reading and of letters, who understands, speaks, and writes the French and English with elegance and propriety. For political reasons it would be well if he were a clergyman of the Protestant profession, whose sanctity of manners, and happy, natural principles would diffuse unanimity and cheerfulness through the ship. Such a man would be worthy of the highest confidence.”

On the 10th of August, Captain Jones repaired to Brest, expecting to be put in command of the splendid ship which had been promised. This ship belonged to the Government. To his bitter disappointment he found that it had been assigned to another man. Lieutenant Simpson sailed to America in the Ranger. The Drake was a shattered prize as yet unsold. Captain Jones was left in the humiliating position of an adventurer out of employment. He wrote to the Prince of Nassau, with the approval of Dr. Franklin, earnestly imploring a commission under the French flag. In his letter he wrote:

“Suffer me not, I beseech, you to continue longer in this shameful inactivity. Such dishonor is worse to me than a thousand deaths. I have already lost the golden season, the summer, which, in war, is of more value than all the rest of the year. I appear here as a person cast off and useless. When any one asks me what I purpose to do, I am unable to answer.”

Dr. Franklin transmitted this letter, and wrote to Captain Jones: “Your letter was sent to the Prince of Nassau. I am confident that something will be done for you, though I do not yet know what. I sympathize with you in what I know you must suffer from your present inactivity; but have patience.”

It was proposed that he should take command of a prize-ship taken from the English. Examining the ship, and finding that she sailed slow, and had but a feeble armament, he unqualifiedly rejected her. Writing to M. Chaumont, a wealthy French gentleman, who had great influence with the Government, he said:

“I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast. For I intend to go in harm’s way. You know, I believe, that this is not every one’s intention. Therefore buy a frigate that sails fast and that is sufficiently large to carry twenty-six or twenty-eight guns, not less than twelve-pounders, on one deck. I would rather be shot ashore than sent to sea in such things as the armed prizes I have described.”

An offer was made by a wealthy merchant of Nantes, M. Montieu, to place Captain Jones in a first-class ship, thoroughly armed, to proceed on a privateering expedition. He replied:

“Were I in pursuit of profit, I should accept the offer without hesitation. But I am under such obligations to Congress that I cannot think myself my own master. And as a servant of the imperial republic of America, honored with the public approbation of my past services, I cannot, from my own authority or inclination, serve either myself or my best friends in any private line whatsoever, unless where the honor and interest of America is the premier object.”

War was now openly declared between France and England. The colonies could not furnish Captain Jones with a suitable frigate, and there were many French naval officers eager to take command of such ships as the king could furnish. Consequently the prospects of Captain Jones, notwithstanding his high reputation for both bravery and ability, were very dark. In this emergence, and consumed with the desire for active service, he wrote a letter to the king. In this letter, after a very truthful and very modest narrative of his past experience, he says:

“Thus have I been chained down to shameful inactivity for five months. I have lost the best season of the year, and such opportunities of serving my country and acquiring honor as I cannot again expect during this war. And, to my infinite mortification, having no command, I am considered everywhere as an officer cast off, and in disgrace for secret reasons.

“Having written to Congress to reserve no command for me in America, my sensibility is the more affected by this unworthy situation in the sight of your majesty’s fleet. Although I wish not to become my own panegyrist, I must beg your majesty’s permission to observe that I am not an adventurer in search of fortune, of which, thank God, I have a sufficiency.

“When the American banners were first displayed, I drew my sword in support of the violated dignity and rights of human nature. And both honor and duty prompt me steadfastly to continue the righteous pursuit, and to sacrifice to it not only my private enjoyments, but even life, if necessary. I must acknowledge that the generous praise which I have received from Congress and others, exceeds the merit of my past services, and therefore I the more ardently wish for future opportunities of testifying my gratitude by my activity.

“As your majesty, by espousing the cause of America, has become the protector of the rights of human nature, I am persuaded that you will not disregard my situation, nor suffer me to remain any longer in this insupportable disgrace.”

This letter was enclosed in one to the Duchess of Chartres, with whom he was personally acquainted, and from whom he had received kind attentions. He besought her to present the letter to his majesty the king; which she did.

One day, chance threw into Captain Jones’s hands an old almanac, containing Poor Richard’s Maxims, by Doctor Franklin. In that curious medley of wit and wisdom, poor Richard is represented as saying:

“If you wish to have any business done faithfully and expeditiously, go and do it yourself. Otherwise, send some one.”

The maxim impressed Jones deeply. He pondered it, and decided that he had acted very unwisely in writing so many letters, instead of going directly to court, and making personal solicitations. Immediately he set out for Versailles, in whose gorgeous palace the royal family and court were then residing. Such was the potency of his presence that in a few days, on the 4th of February, 1779, he received from M. De Sartine, the French Minister of Marine, the following exhilarating letter:

No one can describe the satisfaction with which Captain Jones read this communication. Feeling that his success was due to the good advice which he had received from Poor Richard, he asked leave to give his ship that name, or as translated into French, the name of Bon Homme Richard. Captain Jones, in his grateful reply to the Minister of Marine, writes:

“I take the earliest opportunity to offer you my sincere and grateful thanks, for so singular and honorable a mark of your confidence and approbation. Your having permitted me to alter the name of the ship, has given me a pleasing opportunity of paying a well-merited compliment to a great and good man, to whom I am under obligations, and who honors me with his friendship.”