On September 23rd of 1779, John Paul Jones flagship Bonhomme Richard sank in the icy waters off Flamborough Head, Yorkshire, England. She was broken and on fire after a long and bloody battle with HMS Serapis that resulted in the British ship striking to the upstart American and Jones taking Serapis as prize. Bonhomme Richard still lies, rather ingloriously given the results of the battle, in the silt at the bottom of the sea.
THE ANTICLIMAX
After being abroad for more than three years, Jones reached Philadelphia on 18 February 1781. Senior officers, namely Captains Thomas Read and James Nicholson, blocked a resolution of Congress to make Jones a rear admiral, but on 26 June Congress gave him command of the largest ship of the Continental navy, the America (seventy-six guns), which was then under construction at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. After more than a year’s frustration in constructing this vessel, Jones saw the America turned over to the French.
The best Jones was able to do thereafter was to get permission to sail aboard the flagship of the Marquis Vaudreuil, and he left with the French fleet from Boston for a four-month cruise in the West Indies. After the Continental navy was disbanded, Jones got authority to return to Europe as agent to collect prize money due the United States as the result of his operations during the war. His mission was successful, although payment was slow. Jones returned to the United States for the last time in the summer of 1787, and on 16 October Congress voted him the only gold medal awarded to an officer of the Continental navy.
Early the next year he accepted an offer from Catharine the Great to serve in the Russian navy against the Turks. On 29 May 1788 he raised his flag on a squadron in the Black Sea, but although he played a key role in naval operations that cleared the way for capture of the Turkish fortress at Ochkov, his position in the Russian service was undermined by a jealous French adventurer, Prince Nassau-Siegen. After he rejected Prince Potemkin’s offer of command of the Sevastopol fleet, Jones was forced into idleness and returned to St. Petersburg. There he fell victim to a malicious rumor that he had violated a young girl. In September 1789 he left St. Petersburg with nothing but bitterness and the Order of St. Anne to show for his Russian experience.
Although only a few months past his forty-fifth birthday at this time, Jones’s health was bad. He spent his last two years in Paris. Though no longer a popular hero, he had comfortable accommodations and the respect of leaders of the French Revolution. When he died, on 18 July 1792, the French National Assembly took charge of his funeral. Jones did not live long enough to know that, shortly before his death, President GeorgeWashington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson has signed commissions appointing him as a diplomatic agent to treat with the ruler (bey) of Algiers for the release of captive Americans.
In 1845 a movement was started to bring Jones’s body back to the United States, but his relatives in Scotland blocked it a few years later. In 1899 General Horace Porter, Ambassador in Paris, started a systematic search for his burial site in the old St. Louis cemetery for foreign Protestants (which had been covered by houses). After six years effort, Porter wired back the news that the body of Jones had been found. In 1905 the remains were escorted to America by a naval squadron, and in 1913 they were placed in a $75,000 tomb in the crypt of the naval academy at Annapolis.
IMPLICATIONS OF A HERO’S LIFE
Superficially, John Paul Jones was a Scottish adventurer, an ex-slaver turned pirate (in the eyes of the British) who used the American Revolution as an opportunity to get a job. He himself said that ‘‘I have drawn my Sword in the present generous Struggle for the right of Men; yet I am not in Arms as an American, nor am I in pursuit of Riches . . . I profess myself a Citizen of the World.’’ There is no reason to doubt him more than others of his era, such as Patrick Henry, who expressed similar sentiments. Like many of his contemporaries, he undoubtedly sought fame and glory as well.
Having accepted a commission in the Continental navy, Jones performed his duties with complete political loyalty to the American cause, despite personal disappointments and lack of opportunity to give his remarkable leadership abilities a full test. Nineteenth century Americans saw him as a self-made man, a brave commander who remained cool when battle raged, and the greatest naval hero of the American Revolution. At the turn of the twentieth century, biographers began to emphasize the plans that Jones proposed for the young navy, along with his efforts to increase his professional knowledge, both of which are seen as characteristics of the modern, professional naval officer corps.
The American navy that hails this bachelor as its father would call him a ‘‘mustang,’’ and would be happy to have more of his type around in wartime. Archetype of the combat leader, Jones did not look the part, He was short (under 5 feet 7 inches), thin, and homely. Midshipman Nathaniel Fanning, Jones’s secretary, described him as being ‘‘rather round shouldered, with a visage fierce and warlike, and wore the appearance of great application to study, which he was fond of.’’ The naval hero is the subject of one of sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon’s finest busts (1780). If this work and Jones’s combat record did not assure him of immortality, one of the sayings attributed to him most assuredly has. His stirring remark, ‘‘I’ve just begun to fight’’ is mentioned in only one participant’s account of the Bonhomme Richard–Serapis action, but it characterizes the man’s combat record. In the words of the inscription on his tomb, ‘‘He gave our navy its earliest traditions of heroism and victory.’’
BIBLIOGRAPHY Bradford, James C., ed. The Papers of John Paul Jones. Microfilm. Alexandria, Va.: Chadwyck-Healey, 1986. De Koven, Anna F. Life and Letters of John Paul Jones. 2 vols. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1913. Fanning, Nathaniel. Fanning’s Narrative. New York: De Vinne Press, 1912. Lorenz, Lincoln. John Paul Jones, Fighter for Freedom and Glory. Annapolis, Md.: United States Naval Institute Press, 1943. Morison, S. E. John Paul Jones: A Sailor’s Biography. Annapolis, Md.: United States Naval Institute Press, 1989. Thomas, Evan. John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003.
