# The Story of John Paul Jones/Chapter 3

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CHAPTER III SAILOR AND PATRIOT
John’s big brother lived at Fredericksburg, in Virginia, less than a hundred miles from that other Frederic town, where good old Barbara Fretchie waved her American flag from her attic window a hundred years later as the Confederate troops marched by. So he made his way to his brother’s home, and announced that he was in port for a brief stay.
The gallant little sailor of thirteen years was received in the pleasant home, and spent most of ​his time there while be was on shore. It was a typical Virginia home—a planter’s estate—with wide, flat fields of fertile soil, filled with tall, graceful cornstalks bending to the breeze.
The honored guest had a room to himself, with a globe and a map to study with, and he spent his spare time in learning the geography of the world and the art of navigation. All about him, in the beautiful land of Virginia, the busy planters tilled their fields, and from the little crooked window of his room, he could see miles and miles of wheat and corn stretching away like a vast, billowy sea.
No one knew that the boy, up in the window, was preparing himself to help save these beautiful slopes and meadows, these happy homes, from the clutches of the English king. He did not know it himself. But in the fullness of time he came forth, as we shall see, ready to do his share in the great task.
Pretty soon, Mr. Younger, the merchant, ​failed, which was a very fortunate thing for Master John Paul, for it gave him a chance to climb a step higher. He was a very fortunate youngster, such as we seldom read of out of story books; for men were always failing, or dying, or giving up their commissions so as to give him a chance. Everything seemed to favor him as the years rolled by. Soon the young man became third mate on a slave ship of Whitehaven. Then the chief mate on another slave ship, called “The Two Friends,” died, and John Paul became chief mate on that craft. But the man who was later to fight for liberty, so bravely, could not bear to see his fellow beings in chains, so he gave up that occupation in disgust when he had seen a little of its horrors and cruelties. He was then nineteen years of age, and he took passage on a passenger vessel bound for his beloved and native Scotland. During the voyage both the captain and the first mate died, and John Paul took command, and brought the vessel safely over the ​broad Atlantic into port. When the owners of the vessel learned the circumstances, they at once made him captain, and sent him to the West Indies. So you see that John Paul was born under an unusually lucky star.
When he was twenty-four years old, he made another trip to Scotland, and some people say that he was engaged in smuggling in the Isle of Man. Nobody ever told him this to his face however and, when he heard about the old rumor later in life he denied it.
He had now come to be twenty-six years old and he went back to Virginia, where his good brother had lately died, intending to settle down comfortably on the large estate, and be a country gentleman, and live out the rest of his days in peace and ease. For two years, he stayed on the old place, living a serene and placid life among his cattle herds and horses, and it was then that he took the name of Jones, perhaps because it was a plain and quiet name, and suitable to the ​calm and quiet life he was leading. A good many people have given guesses on this subject, and this is offered as a brand new guess.
He lived in the good old way that Americans lived in those good old days, the days we hear of in song and story, but which have faded away as our beloved country has grown larger and richer; the good old-fashioned days that are no more.
While this rover of the seas was thus passing his days in the retirement of his fine country home, great events were taking place in the Virginia colony, and in the other colonies along the shore. All about him were beginning to be seen preparations for a mighty struggle. Up in the grand old commonwealth of Massachusetts, brave men were speaking out brave thoughts that rang through the land, and stirred the good people as they had never been stirred before. Samuel Adams, the sturdy old Quaker, was being called a rebel. And the British commander held a warrant for the arrest of John Hancock, which he ​couldn’t serve because he couldn’t find him. In every little quiet home, men were waiting with their muskets ready for the call to arms, and in a hundred villages the sturdy minute-men drilled on the public greens and waited. Gen. Gage, with his proud British regulars, was in Boston, waiting for the spirit of rebellion to rise a little higher and give him an excuse to shoot upon the brave and honest pioneers.
Then it was that Patrick Henry called out, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Then it was that the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and Virginia sent her illustrious son, Thomas Jefferson, to speak for her, and say that she would do her part. Then it was that royal governors were losing their royal nerve, and trembling in their royal shoes. Then it was that George Washington stood at his mother’s armchair, and bending over her bade her good-bye, and went forth to take command. Then it was that John Paul Jones came forth from his retreat​—he who understood the sea, the young ship’s master—and offered himself to the oppressed and struggling colonies, and to the glorious cause.
On Dec. 22, 1775, he was appointed a Lieutenant in the Colonial Navy. A fleet of thirteen gallant little vessels was equipped, and on one of these, the flagship “Alfred,” our hero opened his thrilling career as a fighter on the high seas.
We must now forget the little boy who was born among the Scotch hills, and who sailed on the good bark “Friendship,” for it is a naval hero whom we have to follow through conflict and danger and bloodshed, into victory and fame. It was on this vessel that the young patriot sailor first raised the American flag, in honor of the commander-in-chief who came on board, and as it floated in the sky above them, a rousing cheer was sent up for the emblem of the new-born land. It was the first time the national banner had been given to the breeze, and it floated in the free air until the end was known—until Cornwallis had ​surrendered—until the thirteen colonies were an independent nation. Paul Jones was then twenty-nine years old. His figure was light and graceful, his movements quick, and his brown face wore a melancholy and thoughtful look. He was small, like Napoleon, with clear, keen, fearless eyes, and tradition says that there was a strange fascination about him which none who knew him could resist or overcome.
Besides this, I have no doubt at all that he could dance a horn-pipe, and that the deck planks of the good ship “Alfred” very frequently felt the inspiring touches of his airy steps and twirls. For a horn-pipe is a thing which every jolly tar knows how to do, and as there is no such thing in history as a tar who was not jolly, we may be assured that the boisterous seamen of the “Friendship” had instructed young John in that graceful maritime accomplishment, many years before.