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John Paul Jones A founder of the U.S. Navy
John Paul was born at Arbigland, Kirkbean, Kirkcudbright, Scotland, 6 July 1747. Apprenticed to a merchant at age 13, he went to sea in the brig Friendship to learn the art of seamanship. At 21, he received his first command, the brig John. After several successful years as a merchant skipper in the West Indies trade, John Paul emigrated to the British colonies in North America and there added "Jones" to his name. At the outbreak of the American Revolution, Jones was in Virginia. He cast his lot with the rebels, and on 7 December 1775, he was commissioned first lieutenant in the Continental Navy, serving aboard Esek Hopkins' flagship Alfred. As First Lieutenant in Alfred, he was the first to hoist the Grand Union flag on a Continental warship. On 1 November 1777, he commanded the Ranger, sailing for France. Sailing into Quiberon Bay, France, 14 February 1778, Jones and Admiral La Motte Piquet changed gun salutes the first time that the Stars and Stripes, the flag of the new nation, was officially recognized by a foreign government. Early in 1779, the French King gave Jones an ancient East Indiaman Duc de Duras, which Jones refitted, repaired, and renamed Bon Homme Richard as a compliment to his patron Benjamin Franklin. Commanding four other ships and two French privateers, he sailed 14 August 1779 to raid English shipping.
On 23 September 1779, his ship engaged the HMS Serapis in the North Sea off Famborough Head, England. Richard was blasted in the initial broadside the two ships exchanged, losing much of her firepower and many of her gunners. Captain Richard Pearson, commanding Serapis, called out to Jones, asking if he surrendered. Jones' reply: "I have not yet begun to fight!" It was a bloody battle with the two ship literally locked in combat. Sharpshooting Marines and seamen in Richard's tops raked Serapis with gunfire, clearing the weather decks. Jones and his crew tenaciously fought on , even though their ship was sinking beneath them. Finally, Capt. Pearson tore down his colors and Serapis surrendered. Bon Homme Richard sunk the next day and Jones was forced to transfer to Serapis. After the American Revolution, Jones served as a Rear Admiral in the service of Empress Catherine of Russia, but returned to Paris in 1790. He died in Paris at the age of 45 on 18 July 1792. He was buried in St. Louis Cemetery, which belonged to the French royal family. Four years later, France's revolutionary government sold the property and the cemetery was forgotten. In 1845, Col. John H. Sherburne began a campaign to return Jones' remains to the United States. He wrote Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft and requested the body be brought home aboard a ship of the Mediterranean Squadron. Six years later, preliminary arrangements were made, but the plans fell through when several of Jones' Scottish relatives objected. Had they not, another problem would have arisen. Jones was in an unmarked grave and no one knew exactly where that was. American Ambassador Horace Porter began a systematic search for it in 1899. The burial place and Jones' body was discovered in April 1905. President Theodore Roosevelt sent four cruisers to bring it back to the U.S., and these ships were escorted up the Chesapeake Bay by seven battleships. On 26 January 1913, the remains of John Paul Jones were laid to rest in the crypt of the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Md. Today, a Marine honor guard stands duty whenever the crypt is open to the public. Public visiting hours are from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mondays through Saturdays, and from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays. Portrait by A.S. Conrad; battle scene by James Hamilton (1819-1878)
John Paul Jones - Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers by James Fenimore Cooper, 1846.
Timeline John Paul Jones who helped establish the traditions of courage and professionalism that the United States Navy proudly maintains today. In life and battle he exemplified a hero's determination and upheld America's ideals of liberty and independence from tyranny. The man whom Thomas Jefferson later described as "the principal hope of America's future efforts on the ocean" was born on 6 July 1747 in the gardener's cottage of the Arbigland Estate, Kirkbean, Scotland.
1760 Apprenticed to a merchant at age 13, John Paul went to sea in the brig Friendship to learn the art of seamanship. He first voyaged between Whitehaven, England, and Barbados with cargoes of consumer goods or sugar. At twenty-one he received his first command on the brig John.
1773 On the Caribbean island of Tobago, where his ship Betsy ended her outward voyage, Jones decided to invest money in return cargo rather than pay his crew for their shore leave. One sailor, known as "the ringleader," attempted to go ashore without leave. Jones drew his sword on the man to enforce his orders, but the man set on his captain with a bludgeon. In response to the attack Jones ran him through with his sword. Jones immediately went ashore to give himself up, but the death of the ringleader had so stirred up local sentiment that John Paul's friends prevailed upon him to escape to Virginia at once.
1775 In December 1775 Jones received his lieutenant's commission from the Continental Congress for its navy. On 3 December 1775, as first lieutenant of Alfred, he hoisted the Grand Union flag for the first time on a Continental warship. The flag's Union Jack in the upper left canton and thirteen red and white stripes represented a united resistance to tyranny but loyalty to the English King.
1776 In February 1776 John Paul Jones participated in the attack on Nassau, New Providence Island. Jones was appointed to command Providence on 10 May 1776; his commission as Captain in the Continental Navy was dated 8 August 1776. The 12- gun sloop departed for the Delaware Capes on 21 August. Within a week she had captured the whaling brigantine Britannia. Near Bermuda, she fell in with a convoy escorted by the 28-gun frigate Solebay. In a thrilling chase lasting ten hours, Jones saved Providence from the larger warship by an act of superior seamanship. By 22 September he had captured three British merchant vessels. While anchored he burnt an English fishing schooner, sank another, and made prize of a third. Jones would later declare that his best crew had been on board Providence; he had received sound financial rewards from the prizes, making this venture the most enjoyable of his career.
1777 In November 1777, John Paul Jones sailed for France in Ranger, carrying word of Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga. Admiral La Motte-Picquet returned Jones' salute at Quiberon Bay on 14 February 1778, the first time the Stars and Stripes were recognized by a foreign power. Ranger later captured the British sloop of war Drake off the coast of Ireland on 24 April and pillaged the British coast.
1779 The French king loaned Jones the Bonhomme Richard, which Jones had renamed after Poor Richard's Almanac, in honor of Benjamin Franklin. On 14 August 1779, in command of four other ships and two French privateers, Jones continued his raids on English shipping. In his most famous engagement, 23 September 1779, Jones engaged the British frigate Serapis off Flamborough Head, Yorkshire. Serapis was a superior ship compared to Richard. She was faster, more nimble and carried a far greater number of eighteen pounders. The two ships fired simultaneously. At the first or second salvo, two of Jones' eighteen pounders burst, killing many gunners and ruining the entire battery as well as blowing up the deck above. After exchanging two or three broadsides, and attempting to rake the Serapis' bow and stern, the commodore estimated that he must board and grapple, a gun-to-gun duel seeming futile. Serapis' Captain Pearson repulsed the boarders, and attempted to cross Richard's bow to rake her. During this stage of the bloody and desperate battle, Pearson, seeing the shambles on board Bonhomme Richard, asked if the American ship had struck. Jones' immortal reply, "I have not yet begun to fight," served as a rallying cry to the crew. The two ships grappled and Jones relied on his marines to clear the enemy's deck of men. To Jones' disgust, Alliance, under the Frenchman Pierre Landais, fired three broadsides into Richard. Landais later stated that he wanted to help Serapis sink Richard, then capture the British frigate. Even though his ship had begun to sink, Jones determined he would not strike his colors. He used his remaining guns to weaken Serapis' main mast. It began to tremble, Pearson lost his nerve and decided to strike his colors. When the battered Bonhomme Richard sank on 25 September, Jones was forced to transfer to Serapis. For his victory, Congress passed a resolution thanking Jones, and Louis XVI presented him with a sword.
1779 One of Jones' midshipman on board the Bonhomme Richard was Beaumont Groube. He acquired fame as the "Lieutenant Grub" of chapbooks (comics), supposedly shot by Jones for striking the colors during battle, an action which would have signified the Richard's surrender.
1783-1790 After the Revolutionary War, Commodore John Paul Jones was active in negotiating prize money claims in Paris. In 1788 he entered the service of the Empress Catherine the Great of Russia as a rear admiral. He hoped that command of a battle fleet in Russia would qualify him for higher command if and when the United States built a permanent Navy. Although he successfully commanded the Black Sea Squadron in the Dnieper River, court intrigues forced Jones to leave Russia.
1790-92 John Paul Jones returned to Paris in 1790 where he died 18 July 1792. Today, the most recognizable name of a naval officer of the American Revolutionary War is that of John Paul Jones. Historic sites associated with his story attract tourists from around the world. Jones was born John Paul on July 6, 1747, in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. At 12 he entered the British merchant marine and went to sea for the first time as a cabin boy. Jones became first mate on a slaver brigantine in 1766 but soon left that trade in disgust. He was appointed master in 1769. As master of a merchant vessel, he killed the leader of his mutinous crew in self-defense at Tobago in the West Indies in 1773.To avoid trial, Jones fled to Virginia and was considered a fugitive by the British. He concealed his identity by adding the surname Jones. At the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, Jones went to Philadelphia and entered the Continental Navy. In December he was commissioned a lieutenant on the first American flagship, Alfred. Jones was quickly promoted to captain in 1776 and given command of the sloop Providence. While on his first cruise aboard the Providence, he destroyed British fisheries in Nova Scotia and captured sixteen prize British ships. In command of Ranger in 1777 and 1778, he operated in British home waters and made audacious raids on Englands shore.In recognition of his exploits, he was placed in command of five French and American vessels. Aboard his flagship, the Bonhomme Richard, Jones led his small squadron in the capture of seven merchantmen off of the Scottish coast. On September 23, 1779, Jones fought one of the bloodiest engagements in naval history. Jones struggled with the 44-gun Royal Navy frigate Serapis, and although his own vessel was burning and sinking, Jones would not accept the British demand for surrender, replying, I have not yet begun to fight. More than three hours later, Serapis surrendered and Jones took command. According to some historians, Jones remained appealing as much for his actions as for his personality. British chapbooks, an early form of dime novels, pictured him as a ruthless marauding pirate akin to Blackbeard. His attacks on British ships were often sudden and sometimes bloody. The vision of a swarthy scalawag persisted even to the writings of Rudyard Kipling a century later. In person, however, Jones was another man. Thomas Jefferson and others referred to him as little Jones and he may have been 55. Unlike other merchant seamen, he was well dressed, carried a sword, and conducted himself with practiced decorum.. Add to that a Scottish brogue, and light Celtic features. He was never an easy man to get along with, intense about his honor and his duties, a harsh military master. But he was surprisingly sociable. He was a prolific poem and letter writer, spoke some French, and, though he never married, was involved in many romances. Above all, no one questioned his daring. In Britain, his naval actions against the mother country certainly led to his presentation as a pirate. In 1788, Russian Empress Catherine the Great appointed Jones rear admiral in the Russian Navy, in which he saw action in the Liman campaign in the Black Sea. He left the Russian service in 1789 and moved to Paris. He was appointed U.S. Consul to Algiers but died before the commission arrived. His body was buried in Paris, but in 1905, after a lengthy search, his remarkably preserved corpse was discovered and removed from a gravesite in Paris and transported to the United States. Through the intervention of President Theodore Roosevelt, Jones remains were re-interred in an ornate tomb at the Naval Academy Chapel at Annapolis, Maryland in 1913 when the tomb was completed. John Paul Jones b. Kirkbean, Kirkcudbright, Scotland, 6 July 1747
d. Paris, France, 18 July 1792
Tuesday, 16 October 1787
Resolved Unanimously That a medal of gold be struck and presented to the Chevalier John Paul Jones in commemoration of the valour and brilliant services of that Officer in the command of a squadron of french and American ships under the flag and commission of the United States off the coast of Great Britain in the late war; And that the Honorable Mr. Jefferson Minister plenipotentiary of the United States at the Court of Versailles have the same executed with the proper devices.
Resolved That a letter be written to his Most Christian Majesty informing him that the United States in Congress Assembled have bestowed upon the Chevalier John Paul Jones this medal as well in consideration of the distinguished marks of approbation which his Majesty has been pleased to confer upon that Officer as from a sense of his merit; And that as it is his earnest desire to acquire greater knowledge in his profession, it would be acceptable to Congress that his Majesty would be pleased to permit him to embark with his fleets of evolution; convinced that he can no where else so well acquire that knowledge which may hereafter render him more extensively useful. Journals of the Continental Congress, v. 33 p. 687
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