Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea Part 33

"Captain Paul," asked the Judge, "are you, in conscience, satisfied that you used no more force than was necessary to preserve discipline on your s.h.i.+p?"

"May it please the most Honorable Court, Sir," answered the doughty seaman, "it became imperative to strike the mutinous sailor, Maxwell.

Whenever it becomes necessary for a commanding officer to hit a seaman, it is also necessary to strike with a weapon. I may say that the necessity to strike carries with it the necessity to kill, or to completely disable the mutineer. I had two brace of loaded pistols in my belt, and could easily have shot him. I struck with a belaying pin in preference, because I hoped that I might subdue him without killing him. But the result proved otherwise. I trust that the Honorable Court and the jury will take due account of the fact that, though amply provided with pistols throwing ounce b.a.l.l.s, necessarily fatal weapons, I used a belaying pin, which, though dangerous, is not necessarily a fatal weapon."

The judge smiled and Captain Paul was acquitted.

The famous Lord Nelson once said: "A naval officer, unlike a military commander, can have no fixed plans. He must always be ready for _the_ chance. It may come to-morrow, or next week, or next year, or never; but he must be _always ready_!" Nunquam non Paratus. (Never unprepared.)

Paul Jones kept a copy of this maxim in his head. He was always in training; always on the _qui vive_; always prepared. And--because he was always prepared--he accomplished what would seem to be the impossible.

Shortly placed in command of a sloop-of-war, the _Alfred_ (one of the four vessels which const.i.tuted the American Navy), Lieutenant Jones a.s.sisted in an expedition against Fort Na.s.sau, New Providence Island, in the Bahamas, which was a complete and absolute failure. On the way home, and when pa.s.sing the end of Long Island, his boat was chased by the twenty-gun sloop-of-war _Glasgow_. The long shot kicked up a lot of spray around the fleet American vessel, but it was of no use. Jones got away and sailed into Newport Harbor, Rhode Island, with sails full of holes and stern-posts peppered with lead. But he was created a Captain; placed in command of the _Providence_--sloop-of-war, fourteen guns and one hundred and seven men--and soon harried the seas in search of fighting and adventure. With him were two faithful negro boys--Cato and Scipio--who followed him through the many vicissitudes of the Revolutionary War.

The seas traversed by the _Providence_ were full of English cruisers--superior in size to the saucy American--but inferior in alertness and resources of her commander and her crew. She captured sixteen vessels--of which eight were sent to port and eight were destroyed at sea. Twice she was chased by British frigates, and, on one of these occasions, narrowly escaped capture.

As the little sloop was running into one of the many harbors of the coast, a fast-sailing frigate bore down upon her from the starboard quarter.

_Whang!_

Her bow-guns spoke and said "Heave to!"

But Captain Jones had heard this call before, and kept on upon his course.

"She's got me," said he. "But, as the breeze is fresh I may run away.

Stand ready, Boys, and let go your tackle immediate, when I give the command!"

The helm was now put hard-up and the _Providence_ crept into the wind.

Closer and closer came the brig--now her bow-guns sputtered--and a shot ricochetted near the lean prow of the _Providence_. But the sloop kept on.

Suddenly--just as the brig drew alongside--Paul Jones swung his rudder over, wore around in the wind, and ran dead to leeward.

"Watch her sniffle!" cried the gallant Captain, as the brig _chug-chugged_ on the dancing waves, and, endeavoring to box short about, came up into the wind. But fortune favored the American skipper. Just then a squall struck the Englishman; she lost steering way; and hung upon the waves like a huge rubber ball, while her Captain said things that cannot be printed.

When in this condition, Jones ran his boat within half gun-shot, gave her a dose of iron from one of his stern-guns, and--before the frigate could get squared away--was pounding off before the wind, which was the sloop's best point of sailing.

"Well," said the crafty John Paul, his face wreathed in smiles. "If the frigate had simply followed my manoeuver of wearing around under easy helm and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g her sails as the wind bore, I could not have distanced her much in the alteration of the course, and she must have come off the wind very nearly with me, and before I could get out of range.

"I do not take to myself too great credit for getting away. I did the best that I could, but there was more luck than sense to it. A good or bad puff of wind foils all kinds of skill one way or the other--and this time when I saw the little squall cat's-pawing to windward--I thought that I would ware s.h.i.+p and see if the Britisher wouldn't get taken aback. The old saying that 'Discretion is the better part of valor' may, I think, be changed to 'Impudence is--or may be, sometimes--the better part of discretion.'"

Two kinds of news greeted the slippery sailor when he arrived in port.

One was a letter from Thomas Jefferson, enclosing his commission as Captain in the Continental Navy, by Act of Congress. The other--an epistle from his agents in Virginia, informing him that, during the month of July previous, his plantation had been utterly ravaged by an expedition of British and Tories (Virginians who sided with England in the war) under Lord Dunmore. His buildings had all been burned; his wharf demolished; his livestock killed; and every one of his able-bodied slaves of both s.e.xes had been carried off to Jamaica to be sold. The enemy had also destroyed his growing crops; cut down his fruit trees; in short, nothing was left of his once prosperous and valuable plantation but the bare ground.

"This is part of the fortunes of war," said Jones. "I accept the extreme animosity displayed by Lord Dunmore as a compliment to the sincerity of my attachment to the cause of liberty."

Bold words, well spoken by a bold man!

"But," continued the able sailor, "I most sadly deplore the fate of my poor negroes. The plantation was to them a home, not a place of bondage. Their existence was a species of grown-up childhood, not slavery. Now they are torn away and carried off to die under the pestilence and lash of Jamaica cane-fields; and the price of their poor bodies will swell the pockets of English slave-traders. For this cruelty to those innocent, harmless people, I hope sometime, somehow, to find an opportunity to exact a reckoning."

Again bold sentiments,--and the reckoning, too, was forthcoming.

"I have no fortune left but my sword, and no prospect except that of getting alongside of the enemy," wrote the impoverished sea-captain to a Mr. Hewes.

This prospect also was to soon have ample fulfilment.

Ordered to take command of the _Alfred_, Captain Jones made a short cruise eastward, in 1776, accompanied by the staunch little _Providence_. The journey lasted only thirty-three days, but, during that time, seven s.h.i.+ps of the enemy fell into the clutches of the two American vessels.

"Aha!" cried Captain Jones, as he rubbed his hands. "This looks more propitious for our cause. We have taken the _Mellish_ and the _Biddeford_. Let us break into them and see how much of the King's treasure has been secured."

And it was indeed good treasure!

The _Mellish_ was found to contain ten thousand complete uniforms, including cloaks, boots, socks and woollen s.h.i.+rts, for the winter supply of General Howe's army; seven thousand pairs of blankets; one thousand four hundred tents; six hundred saddles and complete cavalry equipments; one million seven hundred thousand rounds of fixed ammunition (musket cartridges); a large quant.i.ty of medical stores; forty cases of surgical instruments; and forty-six soldiers who were recruits sent out to join the various British regiments then serving in the Colonies.

The larger prize--the _Biddeford_--carried one thousand seven hundred fur overcoats for the use of the Canadian troops; eleven thousand pairs of blankets, intended partly for the British troops in Canada, and partly for the Indians then in British pay along the northern frontier; one thousand small-bore guns of the type then known as the "Indian-trade smooth-bore," with hatchets, knives, and boxes of flint in proportion, to arm the redskins. There were eight light six-pounder field guns and complete harness and other equipage for the two four-gun batteries of horse-artillery. Also some wines and table supplies for Sir Guy Carleton and a case of fine Galway duelling pistols for a British officer then serving in Canada.

"These I will appropriate as mine own portion," cried Captain Jones.

"And also a share of the wines, for I must have something to drink the health of mine enemy in." And--so saying--he chuckled gleefully. It had been a rich haul.

But the Captain was not happy. His pet project was to cruise in European waters, and he wanted to get near the British coast with a s.h.i.+p--or better--a squadron of some force.

"Cruises along the American coast," said he, "will annoy the enemy and result in capture of small s.h.i.+ps and consorts from time to time. But who--forsooth--will hear of this in Europe? We will add nothing to our prestige as a new nation if we win victories upon this side of the ocean."

All who heard him were much impressed by the vehement earnestness of his arguments.

"You have had so much success, Mr. Jones," said they, "that we feel you will have still greater good fortune in future years."

And Jones said to himself: "Oh, if I only could get the chance!"

It soon came, for on June the 14th, 1777, the Continental Congress pa.s.sed the following resolution:

"_Resolved:_ That Captain John Paul Jones be appointed to command the s.h.i.+p _Ranger_" (a brand-new sloop-of-war which had just been launched at Portsmouth, N. H.).

This boat was designed to carry a battery of twenty long six-pounders and was planned expressly for speed. She was one hundred and sixteen feet long, twenty-eight feet in breadth, and her bottom was covered with copper: the first American s.h.i.+p to be thus protected. Captain Jones put fourteen long nine-pounders in her and only four six-pounders, but even then she was top-heavy.

In spite of the fact that it was not quite safe to carry full sail, if clearing to windward, close-hauled in squally weather; when running free--before the wind--she could course through the water like a jack-rabbit. In outward appearance she was a perfect beauty, and, as she was rather low in the water for her length, and her masts raked two or three degrees more than any other s.h.i.+p of the day, she was--on the whole--the sauciest craft afloat. Jones was delighted.

"I have the best crew I have ever seen," said he. "I believe it is the best in the world. They are nearly all native Americans, and the proportion of able seamen to the total is much beyond the average. I'm going to make one or two short runs off the coast--a day or two at a time--to shake down the sails and find the best trim of the s.h.i.+p. Then away to the sh.o.r.es of England and France!"

He waited impatiently for orders to proceed across the blue Atlantic.

On October the 18th, 1777, a courier raced frantically into Portsmouth, crying,

"Burgoyne has surrendered! Burgoyne has surrendered!" And Jones'

impatience to be off increased ten-fold.

There were no details of the American victory, for the courier had reached the sleepy New England town from the field of Stillwater, in about thirty hours, and it was one hundred and forty-seven miles--as the crow flies--or, about one hundred and seventy-five by the shortest road. He had stopped only long enough to saddle a fresh horse and s.h.i.+ft his saddle, eating his meals in the stirrups, and never thinking of rest until he had shouted his tidings for three full days. The patriot country was wild with enthusiasm.

"I will spread the news in France in thirty days," said Jones, when his dispatches were placed in his hands, about midnight of October the thirty-first. And, running by the whirling eddies of "Pull-and-be-d.a.m.ned" Point, he soon had the _Ranger_ clear of the low-lying Isle of Shoals: the sea cross and choppy, but the good s.h.i.+p bowling along before a fresh gale of wind.

"I had sailed with many Captains," writes Elijah Hall, second Lieutenant of the staunch, little vessel, "but I never had seen a s.h.i.+p crowded as Captain Jones drove the _Ranger_. The wind held northeasterly and fresh 'til we cleared Sable Island and began to draw on to the Banks. Then it came northeast and east-northeast with many snow squalls, and thick of nights."