Fife and Scotland - the offbeat perspective

John Paul Jones (the name 'Jones' was added later) was born on July 6th 1747 at the Arbigland Estate near Kirkcudbright in South West Scotland and where his father was employed as a gardener. His older brother had married and settled in Fredericksburg in Virginia, USA and perhaps gave impetus to the younger man to seek a maritime apprenticeship aboard a ship sailing out of Whitehaven in Cumberland, North West England while just thirteen years of age.

By 1766, he had sailed on many ships and latterly as Third or First Mate on vessels carrying slaves from Africa to the New World. In that year, he seems to have been disgusted and disillusioned with the slave trade and made his own back to Scotland from Jamaica.

During his next voyage in 1768 and aboard the brig John, John Paul was thrust into a command role when both the Captain and Mate died from yellow fever. He brought the ship back safely to port and where the grateful Scottish owners chose him as the new master of the ship and awarded him ten per cent of the cargo. He made two further voyages to the West Indies before his reputation was suddenly brought into question. In 1770, John Paul flogged a sailor to an extent described as 'unnecessarily cruel' and where the sailor died a short time afterwards.

He left Scotland and took up command of a London registered vessel called Betsy and making runs to Tobago. Eighteen months after accepting this command, he killed a mutineer called Blackton in a dispute over wages though he later claimed it was an act of self defence. He fled to Fredericksburg in Virginia where his brother had recently died and leaving his estate without heir or relatives. From then onward, he added the name of Jones and allegedly in honour of Willie Jones of Halifax, North Carolina, and where his interests became distinctly more pro-American.

Soon afterwards, he headed to Philadelphia to sign up as a member of the newly established 'Continental Navy' and became the first man to be appointed 1st Lieutenant in what would later become the US Navy. In this role and serving aboard the USS Alfred, he helped raise the 'Grand Union Flag' in February 1776 and shortly before the newly formed fleet raided Nassau in the Bahamas.

His first independent command was the Providence and where, during a six week voyage, Jones inflicted serious damage on British interests around Nova Scotia and captured sixteen vessels. He later tried to free American prisoners who had been press-ganged into coal mining work in Nova Scotia and while commanding the USS Alfred in November 1776 but was unsuccessful largely on account of bad weather. His capture of the British ship Mellish denied eagerly needed supplies and winter clothing to British troops operating in Canada.

Despite this, it seems Jones seems to have had problems dealing with those in authority and this reached a peak when he arrived in Boston on December 16, 1776 openly accusing Commodore Hopkins of hindering his career and scathing of the Commodore's plans. Possibly as a consequence of this, Jones was assigned a smaller command, that of the newly built USS Ranger on June 14, 1777, the same day when the 'Stars and Stripes' flag was adopted as the flag of the United States, and where Jones was ordered to sail to Europe.

It may be that senior officers of the US Navy felt that Jones was better operating on his own at great distance and where his services might be better served by taking the war of independence closer to British ports. Jones sailed for France on November 1st 1777 after assurance that he would command a new vessel being constructed in the Netherlands for the American Navy called L'Indien.

This proved more difficult than first thought because, although there was major pro-American support in the Netherlands, the official political position was that of neutrality. Powerful political pressure exerted by Britain led to the vessel being sold to France and ahead of the French declared alliance with the United States on 6th February 1778. A nine gun salute to the USS Ranger was fired by the French flagship eight days later and on 10th April 1778, the USS Ranger left Brest and headed for the western coastline of Britain and where it seems Jones planned to attack Whitehaven and where his maritime career had begun. Unfavourable winds dogged that ambition and the Ranger was blown closer to Ireland and where HMS Drake was moored close to Carrickfergus.

On the night of 20th April 1778, Jones led an unsuccessful attack against HMS Drake and where he blamed the sailor responsible for dropping the anchor too late so that the ships might come alongside in the darkness and permit maximum exchange of fire. Jones was forced to cut the anchor line and flee.

Days later and with the wind shifted in their favour, the Whitehaven plan was revived. Just after midnight on the 23rd April 1778, Jones led an assault on the harbour and intent on causing a fire storm to destroy all the wooden hull vessels in that harbour. This was probably in excess of two hundred ships at least and could have numbered close to four hundred at most By any standard, and if he had succeeded, this action would have been regarded as 'most serious' by the British and where the war in America had returned to their own shores and in a major way likely to shock even the most hardened supporters of the war.

As it was though, the voyage to shore in two boats of fifteen men were hampered by the ebb tide and shifting wind. Despite this, the town's big defensive guns were rigged to prevent them firing and where this proved important as events developed. Lighting fires in the harbour proved difficult and where the amount of combustible fuel they had carried ashore was deemed insufficient. In an attempt to resolve the shortage, Jones sent crew members to riffle a local public house and where the temptation to indulge led to serious delay before his landing party returned and where the first light of day was dawning. In these circumstances, there was no longer the option of multiple fires on different vessels so they concentrated upon the coal carrier Thompson in hope her fiery demise would spread to others. In their haste, they failed to see a crewman slip away in the darkness and where he was able to raise the 'fire alert' and alarm. In minutes, people rushed to the dock and saw the town's two fire engines put out the flames. Attempts to fire on the two retreating American boats were thwarted when the sabotage to the guns was discovered.

John Paul's subsequent attack on St Mary's Isle across the Solway Firth had been with the intent of capturing the Earl of Selkirk before offering him for ransom. It was bad timing as the Earl wasn't there and yet the crew insisted on pillage and plunder to which Jones reluctantly agreed. On return to France, Jones bought part of that plunder and returned it to the Earl in the aftermath of the war and where this first mission of the USS Ranger had been more like that of a privateer than that of an official military warship and largely attributed to the influence of his first officer, Lieutenant Thomas Simpson.

Jones steered back across the Irish Sea with the intent of making another attempt at HMS Drake still anchored close to Carrickfergus. Prior to the engagement, the USS Ranger captured the crew of a reconnaissance boat and learned from them that additional soldiers had been put aboard their quarry and with a view to grappling and boarding the Ranger. Jones was thus forewarned of the danger and made sure that it didn't happen. In a one hour long battle on the 24th April 1778, the Captain of HMS Drake was killed and the vessel surrendered. HMS Drake was given command to Lieutenant Simpson with orders to return the ship to Brest while the USS Ranger sought new targets.

Upon return to port, John Paul Jones filed charges for a court-martial against Simpson but these were largely dismissed mainly through the influence of John Adams, serving as a commissioner in France at that time. It seems Adams, in his memoirs, thought Jones hoped to monopolise the capture of the Drake where this rare success of the Continental Navy carried significant weight in the spirit of the revolution and demonstrated that the invincibility of the Royal Navy was an illusion.

In 1779, Jones took command of the 42-gun Bonhomme Richard a merchant ship rebuilt and given to America by the French shipping magnate, Jacques-Donatien Le Ray. On 14th August of that year, a large French and Spanish invasion fleet moved closer to England and where Jones was charged with creating a diversion by leading five ships towards Ireland. The fleet led by the Bonhomme Richard included the 36-gun Alliance, the 32-gun Pallas, the 12-gun Vengeance and the Le Cerf alongside two privateers, Monsieur and Granville. Within days of sailing from Groix, the Captain of the Monsieur argued with Jones and chose to sail a different route and departed from the group.

Royal Navy warships were sent towards Ireland but he surprised his would-be captors by sailing right around the North of Scotland then South into the North Sea and created major panic in the process in seaports as far South as the Humber Estuary. As before, it seems Jones encountered considerable resistance from some of his junior officers and experienced considerable resistance from Captain Pierre Landais, captain of the Alliance.

On 23rd September, 1779, the fleet encountered a large merchant convoy close to the coast of East Yorkshire at a place known as Flamborough Head and guarded by the 50-gun frigate HMS Serapis and the 20-gun hired escort Countess of Scarborough. Both vessels moved towards the attacking fleet in order to permit the merchant vessels to escape and where they met head-on shortly after seven o'clock in the evening.

The Alliance fired at the Countess from maximum distance while HMS Serapis engaged the Bonhomme Richard at close quarter and at a point when the wind strength was dying. According to survivor testimony, Jones made every effort to grapple and pull the vessels together while his marksmen located in the rigging scored significant hits upon the enemy deck.

Alliance sailed close by and fired a broadside and inflicted major damage to both vessels in the process.

In a separate and smaller engagement, the Countess of Scarborough engaged with the Pallas but surrendered when the more powerful Alliance approached and after sustaining major damage.

With the Bonhomme Richard sinking and burning, and with her ensign shot away, it seems an unknown voice of an officer cried out in the apparent belief that the captain was dead and called for surrender. In response, the British Captain offered clemency to which Jones then issued his most famous vocal challenge and variously described by witnesses.

Jones later remembered saying something like "I am determined to make you strike," but the words allegedly heard by crew-members and reported in newspapers a few days later were more like: "I may sink, but I'll be damned if I strike!" In modern times this has been translated to, “I have not yet begun to fight!” It happened during a stage where the crew of Serapis were close to boarding the Bonhomme Richard but then a grenade exploded on the lower gun deck of the Serapis and ignited a large amount of gunpowder.

The Alliance returned to the main battle and fired two broadsides before manipulating herself into a place where she could avoid reprisal from the guns of the Serapis. Once again, the damage to both vessels was roughly equal and where Pearson, Captain of the Serapis, was forced to recognise the futility of his position and surrendered.

Despite major effort lasting a day and half, the Bonhomme Richard could not be saved and was eventually abandoned and left to sink. Jones took command of the Serapis and sailed it to neutral Holland and where pro-American sympathies lay.

In response, King Louis of France presented Jones with a decoration of L'institution du Merite Militaire and a sword in the following year and honoured Jones with the title of 'Chevalier' which Jones accepted and desired usage of it. When the Continental Congress met in 1787, it decided that a medal struck of gold in commemoration of his "valour and brilliant services", was to be presented to "Chevalier John Paul Jones". It was to prove the highlight of his careerand where his exploits seemed quickly forgotten in America.

Various promises were made then broken and in search of a position, he served with the Russian Navy as Rear Admiral Pavel Dzhones fighting against the Ottoman Turks in the Black Sea and with considerable success. Despite this, he was not well regarded or liked in the Royal Court of St Petersburg and where malicious falsehoods and rumours were used to discredit him. He was recalled from active duty on the false pretext that he was to receive a new commission involving North Sea operations but no such position was ever offered to him. On 8th June 1788, Jones received the Order Of St Anne but he left the city soon afterwards and clearly embittered by his entire Russian experience. Although he later tried to re-enter Russian service, it never happened.

In May 1790, John Paul Jones was in Paris and largely forgotten by the new nation he had helped to forge. He lived in a state of semi-retirement and was destined never to command a ship again. Just weeks before he died of interstitial nephritis, a kidney affliction sometimes brought on by reaction to medicines or drugs, Jones was appointed as the US Consul with a mission to free American captives in Algeria; a mission he was unable to fulfil. He died in his third floor flat on July 18th 1792.

A small group of people carried a lead coffin about four miles (6km) and buried it in the Saint Louis Cemetery and which belonged to the French Royal Family at that time. The property was sold off four years later by the new revolutionary government and largely forgotten for many years afterwards. It became variously used as a garden, a place to dump dead animals and even a meeting place where gamblers bet on the outcome of animal fights.

In 1905, the US Ambassador to France, Horace Porter had been searching six years for the final resting place of John Paul Jones but hampered by faulty copies of Jones' burial record. With the aid of an old map of Paris, Porter's team, which included anthropologist Lois Capitan, identified the site of the former cemetery and where sounding probes were used to identify the presence of lead coffins. Five lead coffins were exhumed but the third, exhumed on April 7th 1905, drew most attention. Post mortem checks confirmed the cause of death and the face was compared to a bust by Jean-Antoine Houdon. This body was taken back to the United States aboard the USS Brooklyn and the coffin installed in Bancroft Hall of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland on April 24th 1906. The remains were finally re-interred in a magnificent bronze and marble sarcophagus in the Naval Academy Chapel on January 26th 1913.

Given the circumstances, lapse of time and limited medical knowledge of the period, there must always be some degree of doubt as to whether the body and bones of John Paul Jones ever left France and probably no scientific way to prove or deny it.

Credits:
Portrait painted circa 1781 by Charles Wilson Peale.
Engraving of the Battle of Flamborough Head by Ritchard Paton and published in 1780.
Text by Alandon.