Not Your Father's Founders (14 page)
Read Not Your Father's Founders Online
Authors: Arthur G. Sharp
Kirkbean, Scotland
July 6, 1747âJuly 18, 1792
A Long Voyage Home
Jones was one of the most daringâand ill-temperedâcommanders in the Continental Navy. He came to America under suspicious circumstances, which are not always included in his biographies. That did not affect his navy career or his reputation for bravery, though. Jones would not give up in a naval engagement, which inspired his sailors to be tough and determined. He is best known for his victory over the British warship
Serapis
off the coast of England. Jones took the fight to the British navyâand dared them to stop him.
Jones was born John Paul. He added the Jones sometime in the mid-1770s, possibly due to an incident in Tobago in 1773 in which he killed a member of his crew aboard the
Betsy
. The sailor started a mutiny. Jones let his temper get the best of him. He confronted the mutineer with a sword to force him into obedience. According to Jones, the man attacked him with a piece of wood, so he killed him in self-defense. A few days later, Jones fled Tobago, traveled to America, changed his name, and “reinvented” himself. That was his story, and he stuck to it.
John Paul Jones began his sailing career at the age of twelve, when he sailed to America aboard a merchant vessel named
Friendship
. Its destination was Rappahannock, Virginia, where Jones's older brother, William, lived. John Paul lived with William for a while when he was not at sea learning his trade.
Jones got his first chance to command a ship by luck. He was traveling aboard a ship, ironically named
John
, as a passenger. Both the captain and the first mate died at sea of yellow fever. Jones assumed command of the
John
and brought it safely into port. The company rewarded him by appointing him as captain of the ship. At age twenty, he had his first command.
Jones stayed at sea for a few more years with different employers. In 1773, he learned that his brother had died and left him his estate. He returned to Virginia to live.
Two years later he offered his services to the Continental Navy, writing a letter on April 25, 1775, to Joseph Hewes, Robert Morris, and Thomas Jefferson asking for a commission in the navy. Four months later, he was asked to outfit the navy's first ship,
Alfred
.
On December 7, 1775, Congress appointed him as the first first lieutenant in the Continental Navy. He was assigned to
Alfred
, commanded by Stephen Hopkins's brother, Esek. The navy offered him his own ship to command, either
Providence
or
Fly
. Jones turned down the offer and sailed aboard the
Alfred
because he believed he could learn more about seamanship and fleet maneuvers by serving as a first lieutenant on a warship under the tutelage of an experienced commander than he could by commanding his own ship.
Jones's first voyage went well. The
Alfred
sailed with an American fleet to New Providence, Nassau, where the crew captured military supplies and gunpowder. En route back to the United States, they captured two British ships and engaged an enemy warship,
Cabot
, which escaped.
Quotations to Live (and Die) By!
“I
WISH TO HAVE NO CONNECTION WITH ANY SHIP THAT DOES NOT SAIL FAST FOR I INTEND TO GO IN HARM'S WAY.”
âJ
OHN
P
AUL
J
ONES
After a few routine assignments in the first half of 1776, he received a commission as captain. He quickly demonstrated why Congress and the navy had faith in him.
On September 1, 1776, while commanding
Providence
, Jones skirmished with two British warships. None of the ships were damaged. Between September 3 and September 8, he captured sixteen enemy merchant vessels off the northeast coast of America. He burned eight of them and sent the rest to port as prizes. He also destroyed a Nova Scotia fishery and wreaked havoc with shipping in the area. His string of successes, however small, deprived the British of ships, sailors, and supplies.
Quotations to Live (and Die) By!
“A
N HONORABLE
P
EACE IS AND ALWAYS WAS MY FIRST WISH
! I
CAN TAKE NO DELIGHT IN THE EFFUSION OF HUMAN
B
LOOD; BUT, IF THIS
W
AR SHOULD CONTINUE
, I
WISH TO HAVE THE MOST ACTIVE PART IN IT.”
âJ
OHN
P
AUL
J
ONES
Jones was making a name for himself, at home, and among his British enemies.
In January 1777, Commodore Hopkins replaced Jones as commander of
Providence
. Not too long after, Jones assumed command of
Ranger
, and resumed making life miserable for British shipping into 1778.
Jones received a unique honor on February 14, 1778. Admiral La Motte Piquet, commanding a French squadron, gave Jones, captain of
Independence
, a thirteen-gun salute and received a nine-gun salute in return. It was the first time a foreign power ever rendered a salute to the American flag.
Sailing in foreign waters brought out the best in Jones. On April 22, 1778, he sailed into Whitehaven, on the coast of England, where he spiked guns and burned ships. The next day he visited St. Mary's Isle, intending to capture the Earl of Selkirk. The earl was not at home, so Jones contented himself with liberating 160 pounds of silver. The British could not let him go on taunting them. But it was not until September 23 that they made a serious attempt to put him and his antiquated ship,
Bonhomme Richard
, out of commission.
On June 3, 1778, an embarrassed Jones told Benjamin Franklin that he was broke. He had spent £1,500 of his own money, but had not received any wages to offset his expenditure. Finally, on July 25, 1781, Congress approved his accounts and referred him to the Treasury Board for payment.
In one of the most famous battles in naval history, Jones captured and commandeered the British warship
Serapis
, which was escorting a British convoy carrying naval supplies to England. The
Serapis
was much larger than the
Bonhomme Richard
and outgunned it considerably. Jones used his expert seamanship skills to close in on the
Serapis
, tie the ships together, and negate the larger ship's firepower advantage. Eventually, Jones's crew prevailed, although he lost his ship. The
Bonhomme Richard
was damaged so badly it was no longer seaworthy. It sank between 10 and 11
A.M.
on September 25, 1778. The victorious Jones and his crew sailed off aboard the
Serapis
âand into the annals of naval warfare history.
The battle ended Jones's fighting career with the U.S. navy. From that point on he was kept busy handling political and administrative affairs in Paris and receiving awards for his bravery and daring.
On July 21, 1778, the King of France received Jones at Versailles and presented him with a gold sword in recognition of his accomplishments on the behalf of independence.
Jones bounced around Europe for a couple years, and negotiated for prize money from Denmark. Then, the Russians asked him to join their navy.
He hoisted his flag as a rear admiral in the Russian navy aboard
Wolodimir
on May 26, 1788.
In mid-1788, Jones fought against the Turks and performed as brilliantly as he had for the American navy in the Revolutionary War. He left the Russian navy in mid-1789, planning to return to the United States to purchase a farm. It was 127 years before he made the trip.
Jones died in Paris on July 18, 1792, and was buried in a local cemetery. When it came time to exhume his remains and return him to the United States, no one could find his grave.
On July 14, 1848, the secretary of the U.S. Navy, William A. Graham, learned that the Protestant cemetery in the rear of the Hotel Dieu in Paris where Jones was supposed to have been buried had been sold. All the bones were removed to a different location.
Finally, on February 22, 1905, General Horace Porter, U.S. ambassador to France, announced that Jones's remains had been located. President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched a ship to bring John Paul Jones home. He was reburied at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, at a ceremony in April 1906.
It had been a long trip, but the naval hero of the Revolutionary War was finally home.
Scarborough, Massachusetts
March 24, 1755âApril 29, 1827
Silent Partner
If anyone sat down in the mid-1700s and drew up a list of top ten prospects for the Founding Fathers' roster, Rufus King might not have been considered among them. Yet, he completed law school, participated in the Revolutionary War, served in the Massachusetts legislature, the Confederation Congress and the U.S. Senate, and attended the federal Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. And, in a political maneuver that history books don't cover, he established the precedent of moving from one state to another to earn election to the U.S. Senate. All that from a man whose father had fought for the British army in the French and Indian War and remained a Tory until he died! Rufus was as principled as his fatherâbut on the opposite side.
Rufus King graduated from Harvard in 1777 and began studying law under Theophilus Parsons, the man who convinced Samuel Adams and John Hancock to vote for ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
King took a break from his law studies to participate as a militiaman in the inconclusive Battle of Rhode Island on August 29, 1778. King served as an aide-de-camp to General John Sullivan in the skirmish, which was an unsuccessful American attempt to drive the British out of Newport, Rhode Island, which they had occupied since 1776. The British did not leave the city until October 1779, and even then they departed voluntarily.
After the battle ended, King returned to Boston, finished his law studies, and became a member of the state's bar. His star began to rise.
The Battle of Rhode Island was the first incident in the Revolutionary War in which French forces took part.
In 1783, King was elected to the Massachusetts General Court for the first of three terms. He also served in the Confederation Congress from 1784 to 1787, where he was the youngest member.
One of King's finest moments in the Congress occurred in 1784, when he supported a five-percent impost it asked from the states to fund its existence. The states did not have any desire to pay it, and Congress's efforts to collect the levy fell on deaf ears. King took their failure to fulfill their obligations as a personal affront. He was frustrated at every turn, but he worked hard to get all the states to grant the requested money. His efforts were a turning point in waking state governments to the fact that the federal government could not function without the states' contributionsâfinancial and otherwise.
King worked hard for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, first as a delegate to the federal convention in Philadelphia in 1787, then as a Massachusetts representative in its ratification proceedings. He was not always sure the people of the United States really cared one way or the other if the Constitution was ratified, but he worked tirelessly anyway.
King was not entirely altruistic. He hoped that Massachusetts would appoint him to the U.S. Senate. It did notâbut New York did.
After Massachusetts elected Tristam Dalton as its first U.S. Senator, King, who had hoped to win the seat, invented a time-honored tactic. King moved to another state that would elect him. In 1789, New York named him and Philip Schuyler as its first two U.S. Senators.
Quotations to Live (and Die) By!
“I
MYSELF HAVE BEEN AN
A
DVOCATE FOR A
G
OVERNMENT FREE AS AIR; MY
O
PINIONS HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED UPON THE BELIEF, THAT MY COUNTRY MEN WERE VIRTUOUS, ENLIGHTENED, AND GOVERNED BY A SENSE OF
R
IGHT
& W
RONG
. I HAVE EVER FEARED THAT IF OUR REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENTS WERE SUBVERTED, IT WOULD BE BY THE INFLUENCE OF COMMER[C]E AND THE PROGRESS OF L
UXURY.”
âR
UFUS
K
ING
King served one full term in the U.S. Senate and was reelected in 1795, but President George Washington appointed him as the United States' ambassador to Britain in 1796. He remained in that post until 1803, when he asked President Thomas Jefferson to bring him home.
King ran unsuccessfully as the Federalist Party's candidate for vice president in 1804 and 1808. He took a break from politics until 1813, when he was elected again to the U.S. Senate. He completed a six-year term, although he interrupted it to run for governor of New York and president of the United States in 1816. He lost both elections.
In the presidential election, James Monroe won 68.2 percent of the popular vote and 183 electoral votes, compared to King's 30.9 percent and 34 respectively. King had the honor of being the last presidential candidate to be nominated by the Federalist Party.
Undaunted, King returned to the U.S. Senate and won another reelection in 1820. He spent his final term in the Senate campaigning against slavery, which was becoming a hot issue.
After he left the Senate in 1825, King undertook a voyage to England at President John Quincy Adams's request to become the United States' ambassador to England. King completed a year in England, but his seventy years of activity were beginning to wear him down and he returned home, dying shortly thereafter. His distinguished record in public service showed that perhaps he should have been on that “Top Ten Prospects” list after all.