that the American naval power would have gradually disappeared." These remarks were unquestionably dictated as much by the spirit of national vanity, claiming Jones as a native born British subject, as by a natural partiality of the writer for his hero. Jones had brave men for his compeers, as jealous of honour and of rank as himself, better taught from the advantages of birth, not unskilled in their profession, and who soon became instructed by ambition and experience. The American naval force must have been as certainly created to a necessary extent, as the independence of the colonies, at no distant period, was inevitable. But it was among the extraordinary circumstances, in which the immediate designs of Providence seem developed to the religious mind, that a man of such a temper, and with such peculiar advantages, was sent to aid America on an element in which she was feeble, and her foe, in her fond conceit, omnipotent; a man, who was able, with a force seemingly contemptible, to strike terror along the coast of the fastanchored isle, notwithstanding her thousands of wooden walls, and to give to the American flag in foreign seas, a reputation which it has never lost.

In the beginning of the year 1775, as will appear from one of his letters, his immediate pecuniary resources, from the causes he mentions, had almost entirely failed him, and for the two years following, he lived, as he expresses it, "upon fifty pounds." Mere necessity, however, could not have determined his election of an occupation, when he accepted a commission from the Continental Congress. A man who had begun life with nothing but "health and his good spirits" for his patrimony, who, while a mere boy, had known how to obtain profitable employments of much responsibility, and who was now in the incipient prime of mental and bodily vigour, could have been at no loss in investing the capital of his abilities, his credit, and his " fifty pounds," in many speculations, which must, to ordinary minds at this epoch, have seemed far more promising than the cause of the colonists. But his heart was with them, and all his sympathies, and even prejudices, were in unison

with theirs. Since the age of thirteen, when he first saw it, as he himself declares, America had been the country of his fond election. In it, he had laid the scene of his romance of retirement; and he had now no other home save the ocean. His interest, so far as the strong appetite for renown, to be won by danger, was concerned, was also best served by embarking in the revolutionary cause; for what promotion could he have ob tained, without money or friends, in the navy of Great Britain? But so far as mere servile and sordid considerations were in question, the world of adventure offered to him a wide market, in which much safer and cheaper bargains might be made, by one who had acquired so much skill in the traffic. It was principle, and not necessity nor accident, which, in connexion with the love of glory, induced him to embark in the cause of liberty.

This point has been dwelt on more at large, because the last English compiler of his memoirs, with very good intentions, speaks of it in an equivocal manner, in his analysis of Paul's motives. He also enters into an unnecessary apology for his consenting to bear arms against the mother country. The following remarks, made by him, are, however, worthy of being quoted here:

"Though in the heat of a struggle, which, from its very nature, was, like the feuds of the nearest relatives, singularly rancorous and bitter, Jones was branded as a traitor and a felon, and after his most brilliant action, his capture of the Serapis, formally denounced by the British ambassador at the Hague as a rebel and a pirate according to the laws of war,* it must be remembered that he bore this stigma in common with the best and greatest of his contemporaries-with Franklin and Washington; which last had actually borne arms in the service of the king of England. The memory of Paul Jones now needs little

* Memorial of Sir Joseph Yorke to the States-General, dated the Hague, 8th October, 1779.

vindication for this important step. After the peace he enjoyed the esteem and private friendship of Englishmen who might have forgiven the most imbittered political hostility, but never could have overlooked a taint on personal honour. Of this number was the Earl of Wemyss, who after the peace endeavoured to promote the views of Jones on various occasions. He himself, however, discovers a lurking consciousness of having incurred, if not of meriting, suspicion on this delicate ground. This is chiefly displayed by his eloquent though rather frequent assertions of purity of motive, superiority to objects of sordid interest, and disinterested zeal for the cause, now of America, now of human nature, as was best adapted to the supposed inclinations of his correspondents. In ordinary circumstances, much of this might have appeared uncalled for; but the situation of Jones was in many respects peculiar both as a nativeborn Briton, and as a man of obscure origin, jealous-and pardonably so of his independence and dignity of character. Somewhat of the heroic vaunting which marks other parts of his correspondence appears incident to the enthusiastic temperament of many great naval commanders. How would Nelson's tone of confident prediction, and boasts of prowess, have sounded from the lips of an inferior man? In any other than himself, the customary language of Drake would have been reckoned that of an insolent braggart."

The English editor is right in referring to the obscurity of Paul's origin, and the consequent nature of his early education, as one cause of the quaintness and inartificial "heroic vaunting" of style, which often strikes us in his letters. The example he produces of other great men, who occasionally exhibited the same bad taste, are illustrious and pertinent. But as to any squeamishness which Paul may have felt or expressed, on the score of his being born on the soil, as well as under the allegiance of Great Britain, we find no evidence in his correspondence which is not directly against the suggestion. He fought for his adopted country, the land of his friendships and affection; and his fame should not be tarnished without cause, by

supposing that any compunctious visitings disturbed him in his career, other than those natural to the best and bravest men who have served in the cause of human freedom. Writing to Baron Vander Capellan, some years after the conflict began, he says, in a spirit of bitterness, provoked by his being stigmatized as a pirate, rebel, &c. in the British prints:

"I was indeed born in Britain; but I do not inherit the degenerate spirit of that fallen nation, which I at once lament and despise. It is far beneath me to reply to their hireling invectives. They are strangers to the inward approbation that greatly animates and rewards the man who draws his sword only in support of the dignity of freedom. America has been the country of my fond election from the age of thirteen, when I first saw it. I had the honour to hoist with my own hands the flag of freedom, the first time it was displayed on the Delaware; and I have attended it with veneration ever since, on the ocean."

At the time when Paul settled, (or more properly, supposed he meant to settle,) in Virginia, it would seem that he assumed the additional surname of Jones. Previous to this date, his letters are signed John Paul. We are left to conjecture the reason of this arbitrary change. His relations were never able to assign one; there is no allusion to the circumstance in the manuscripts which he left, and tradition is silent on the subject. It was, however, a caprice by no means singular in a sea-faring man. It is mentioned in the biographical sketch written for the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, by Dr. Duncan, of Scotland, that the custom of taking the father's Christian name as a patronymic, was not prevalent in the immediate vicinity of Paul's birthplace. But it was common in Wales, the Isle of Man, and other parts, with which he was as familiarly acquainted. It does not seem to be, in the language of logicians, "drawing a long inference," to suppose, that in adopting a country where he meant to establish his household gods, and be the father of his own line, he chose to assume a new name, which he had such warrant for doing, and which should be his own,

and that of his descendants. His retaining that by which he had been always known, proves that he did not consider it to have been sullied. It is only because calumny and invention have been busy with the topic, that it seems proper to suggest a plausible explanation for this change.

It is not within the province of this narrative to sketch the early history of the American navy, or its operations during the revolutionary war, except where Jones was connected with them.

Of these he is his own historian. With the view of cutting off the supplies sent in store ships to Boston, then in possession of the British, and in a state of blockade,of obtaining powder and the munitions of war, which were not to be had in the colonies,—and of retaliating for depredations committed by British emissaries along the coast, the General Court of Massachusetts on the 13th November, 1775, passed an act authorizing letters of marque and reprisal to be issued against ships infesting the sea-coast of America, and elected courts to try and condemn such as should be captured. General Washington, as Commander in Chief, gave commissions to a number of vessels, to intercept the supplies intended for Boston. Privateers swarmed in the Bay of Boston, and off the neighbouring seacoast. Instances of gallant and ingenious enterprises were numerous, and the names of those by whom they were conducted will be entitled to a place in our national history. On the 13th of December, 1775, the Continental Congress adopted a report of the Committee appointed to devise ways and means for fitting out a naval armament; in which it was recommended that thirteen frigates should be got ready for sea; five to be of thirty-two guns, five of twenty-eight, and three of twenty-four. They also commissioned a small fleet collected in the Delaware to cruise against the enemy, and passed the following * resolution:

"In Congress, 22nd Dec. 1775. “Resolved, that the following naval officers be appointed :