Four American Naval Heroes Part 2

He gave his name as John Paul Jones. Just why he did this, we do not know. Perhaps he did not wish his friends in Scotland to know that he had taken up arms against his native country.

Perhaps he thought that, should he ever be captured by the English, it would go harder with him if they should know his English name. We cannot tell. Hereafter we shall call him Paul Jones, as this is the name by which he was known during the rest of his life.

Congress accepted his offer and he was made first lieutenant on the _Alfred_, a flag-ship.

V.--THE CRUISE OF THE ALFRED.

The young lieutenant was now twenty-nine years old. His health was excellent and he could endure great fatigue. His figure was light, graceful, and active. His face was stern and his manner was soldierly.

He was a fine seaman and familiar with armed vessels.

He knew that the men placed above him in the navy had had less experience than he. But he took the position given him without complaint.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PINE TREE FLAG.]

When the commander of the _Alfred_ came on board, Paul Jones hoisted the American flag. This was the first time a flag of our own had ever been raised.

We do not know just what this flag was like, but some of the earliest naval flags bore the picture of a pine tree; others had a rattlesnake stretched across the stripes, and the words, "Don't tread on me." Our present flag was not adopted until two years later.

On the 17th of February, 1776, the first American squadron sailed for the Bahama Islands.

On the way, two British sloops were captured. The English sailors told the Americans that on the island of New Providence were forts, which contained a large amount of military supplies. They said that these forts could easily be taken.

The soldiers on a vessel are called marines. A plan was made to hide the American marines in the British sloops. In that way it was thought they could go safely into the harbor of New Providence. Then they could land and take possession of the forts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RATTLESNAKE FLAG.]

This plan would have been successful, but for one foolish mistake. The squadron sailed so close to the harbor during the night that in the morning all the ships could be seen from the sh.o.r.e. The war vessels should have remained out of sight until the marines had been safely landed from the sloops. The alarm was spread, and the sloops were not allowed to cross the bar.

The commander of the squadron then planned to land on the opposite side of the island and take the forts from the rear, but Paul Jones told him he could not do this. There was no place to anchor the squadron, and no road to the forts.

However, he had learned from the pilots of a good landing not far from the harbor. When he told the commander of this, he was only rebuked for confiding in pilots.

So Paul Jones undertook, alone, to conduct the _Alfred_ to the landing he had found. He succeeded in doing this and the whole squadron afterwards followed.

The English soldiers abandoned the forts, and the squadron sailed away the same day, carrying a hundred cannon and other military stores.

VI.--CAPTAIN PAUL JONES.

A short time after this, the American squadron tried to capture a British ship called the _Glasgow_, but the attempt was not successful.

Because of this failure, one of the captains was dismissed from the navy, and the command of his vessel was given to Lieutenant Jones. This vessel was named the _Providence_.

With it and the _Alfred_, which he also commanded, Captain Jones captured sixteen prizes in six weeks. Among them were cargoes of coal and dry goods.

Best of all, he captured an English vessel bound for Canada, full of warm clothing for the British soldiers. This was a prize that proved of great value to General Washington's poorly clothed army.

In those days there were selfish people just as now. In January, 1777, a jealous commodore succeeded in depriving Paul Jones of his position as captain. He was now without ship or rank. When he appealed to Congress he was put off with promises from time to time. It was not until May that his pet.i.tions were heard.

There were three new ships being built for the navy at Boston. Congress gave him permission to choose one of these and have it fitted out as he wished.

While waiting in Boston for these ships to be finished, Paul Jones wrote many wise suggestions about the management of the navy. Congress at first paid but little attention to these suggestions, but was afterwards glad to act upon them.

These were some of the things he said:

"1. Every officer should be examined before he receives his commission.

"2. The ranks in a navy should correspond to those in an army.

"3. As England has the best navy in the world, we should copy hers."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.]

Before the ship he had chosen was completed, he was ordered to wait no longer in Boston, but to take the _Ranger_, an old vessel, and sail at once for France. Through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin, the American Minister to France, the French king had acknowledged the independence of the colonies, and was ready to aid the Americans in the war.

Paul Jones was to carry a letter from Congress to the American commissioners in Paris.

This letter told the commissioners to buy a new fast-sailing frigate for Captain Jones, and to have it fitted up as he desired. They were then to advise him as to what he should do with it.

VII.--THE CRUISE OF THE RANGER.

When the _Ranger_ sailed out of Boston harbor, the stars and stripes of the American republic waved from the mast head.

Paul Jones was the first naval officer to raise this flag. You remember that two years before, on the _Alfred_, he had first hoisted the pine tree emblem.

When Jones with his ship entered Quiberon Bay, in France, the French admiral there saluted the American flag. This was the first time that a foreign country had recognized America as an independent nation.

Paul Jones anch.o.r.ed the _Ranger_ at Brest and went to Paris to deliver his letter, and lay his plans before the commissioners. He told them two important things:

First, that our navy was too small to win in open battle with the fleets of the English.

Second, that the way to keep the English vessels from burning, destroying, and carrying away property on the American coasts, was to send vessels to the English coasts to annoy the English in the same way.

The commissioners thought that these plans should be carried out at once; and since a new frigate could not be purchased for some time, they refitted the _Ranger_ for his use.

On April 10, 1778, Paul Jones set out on what proved to be a memorable cruise.

You remember that when he first went to sea, as a boy, he sailed from Whitehaven. This town is on the English coast, just across the Solway Firth from John Paul's old home.

He knew there were large shipping yards there, and he determined to set fire to them. He planned to reach the harbor in the night, and burn the ships while the people were asleep.

Because of the wind and tides, it was nearly midnight when he arrived.

He found three hundred vessels of different kinds lying in the harbor.

His men were put into two small boats, and each boat was ordered to set fire to half the ships.

It was nearly daylight when they rowed away from the _Ranger_. Nothing could be heard but the splashing of their oars. Their flickering torches showed to them the old sleeping town, with the many white ships along the sh.o.r.e.