Commodore Paul Jones. Cyrus Townsend Brady
Maxwell subsequently entered on a Barcelona packet, and in a voyage of the latter ship from Tobago to Antigua died of a fever. Out of this was built up a calumny to the effect that Maxwell had been so badly punished by Paul that he died from his injuries. When Paul was in the Russian service years afterward the slander was enhanced by the statement that Maxwell was his nephew. There was nothing whatever in the charge.
After his retirement from the command of the John he engaged in local trading with the Isle of Man. It has been charged that he was a smuggler during this period; but he specifically and vehemently denied the allegation, and it is certain that the first entry of goods shipped from England to the Isle of Man, after it was annexed to the crown, stands in his name on the custom-house books of the town of Douglas. Soon after this he commanded a ship, the Betsy, of London, in the West India trade, in which he engaged in mercantile speculations on his own account at Tobago and Grenada, until the year 1773, when he went to Virginia again to take charge of the affairs of his brother William, who had died intestate, leaving neither wife nor children.
Very little is known of his life from this period until his entry into the public service of the United States. From remarks in his journal and correspondence, it is evident, in spite of his brother's property, to which he was heir, and some other property and money which he had amassed by trading, which was invested in the island of Tobago, West Indies, that he continued for some time in very straitened circumstances. He speaks of having lived for nearly two years on the small sum of fifty pounds. It is probable that his poverty was due to his inability to realize upon his brother's estate, and the difficulty of getting a return of his West Indian investments, on account of the unsettled political conditions, though they were of considerable value. During this period, however, he took that step which has been a puzzle to so many of his biographers, and which he never explained in any of his correspondence that remains. He came to America under the name of John Paul; he reappeared after this period of obscurity under the name of John Paul Jones.
It is claimed by the descendants of the Jones family of North Carolina that while in Fredericksburg the young mariner made the acquaintance of the celebrated Willie (pronounced Wylie) Jones, one of the leading attorneys and politicians of North Carolina. Jones and his brother Allen were people of great prominence and influence in that province. It was Jones' influence, by the way, which in later years postponed the ratification of the proposed Constitution of the United States by North Carolina. Willie Jones seems to have attended to the legal side of Paul's claims to his deceased brother's estate, and a warm friendship sprang up between the two young men, so dissimilar in birth and breeding, which, it is alleged, ended in an invitation to young Paul to visit Jones and his brother on their plantations.
The lonely, friendless little Scotsman gratefully accepted the invitation--the society of gentle people always delighted him; he ever loved to mingle with great folk throughout his life--and passed a long period at "The Grove," in Northampton County, the residence of Willie, and at "Mount Gallant," in Halifax County, the home of Allen. While there, he was thrown much in the society of the wife of Willie Jones, a lady noted and remembered for her graces of mind and person, and who, by the way, made the famous answer to Tarleton's sneer--wholly unfounded, of course--at the gallant Colonel William A. Washington for his supposed illiteracy. Morgan and Washington had defeated Tarleton decisively at the Cowpens, and in the course of the action Washington and Tarleton had met in personal encounter. Washington had severely wounded Tarleton in the hand. The Englishman had only escaped capture by prompt flight and the speed of his horse. "Washington," said the sneering partisan to Mrs. Jones, "why, I hear he can't even write his name!" "No?" said the lady quietly and interrogatively, letting her eyes fall on a livid scar across Tarleton's hand, "Well, he can make his mark, at any rate."
The Jones brothers were men of culture and refinement. They were Eton boys, and had completed their education by travel and observation in Europe. That they should have become so attached to the young sailor as to have made him their guest for long periods, and cherished the highest regard for him subsequently, is an evidence of the character and quality of the man. Probably for the first time in his life Paul was introduced to the society of refined and cultivated people. A new horizon opened before him, and he breathed, as it were, another atmosphere. Life for him assumed a different complexion. Always an interesting personality, with his habits of thought, assiduous study, coupled with the responsibilities of command, he needed but a little contact with gentle people and polite society to add to his character those graces of manner which are the final crown of the gentleman, and which the best of his contemporaries have borne testimony he did not lack. The impression made upon him by the privilege of this association was of the deepest, and he gave to his new friends, and to Mrs. Jones especially, a warm-hearted affection and devotion amounting to veneration.
It is not improbable, also, that in the society in which he found himself--and it must be remembered that North Carolina was no less fervidly patriotic, no less desirous of independence, than Massachusetts: it was at Mecklenburg that the first declaration took place--the intense love of personal liberty and independence in his character which had made him abandon the slave trade was further developed, and that during this period he finally determined to become a resident of the new land; a resolution that made him cast his lot with the other colonists when the inevitable rupture came about.
It is stated that in view of this determination on his part to begin life anew in this country, and as a mark of the affection and gratitude he entertained for the family of his benefactors, he assumed the name of Jones. It was a habit in some secluded parts of Scotland and in Wales to take the father's Christian name as a surname also, and this may have been in his mind at the time. He did not assume the name of Jones, however, out of any disregard for his family or from any desire to disguise himself from them, for, although he last saw them in 1771, he ever continued in correspondence with them, and found means, whatever his circumstances, to make them frequent remittances of money during his busy life. To them he left all his property at his death. It is certain, therefore, that for no reason for which he had cause to be ashamed did he affix the name of Jones to his birth name, and it may be stated that whatever name he took he honored. Henceforth in this volume he will be known by the name which he made so famous.[2]
One other incident of this period is noteworthy. During his visit to North Carolina he was introduced by the Jones brothers to Joseph Hewes, of Edenton, one of the delegates from North Carolina to the first and second Provincial Congresses, and a signer of the great Declaration of Independence. In Congress Hewes was a prominent member of the Committee on Naval Affairs, upon which devolved the work of beginning and carrying on the navy of the Revolution. When the war broke out Paul Jones was still living in Virginia. But when steps were taken to organize a navy for the revolted colonies, attracted by the opportunities presented in that field of service in which he was a master, and glad of the chance for maintaining a cause so congenial to his habit of life and thought, he formally tendered his services to his adopted country. The influence of Willie Jones and Hewes was secured, and on the 7th of December, 1775, Jones was appointed a lieutenant in the new Continental navy.
Additional note on the assumption of the name of Jones.
Mr. Augustus C. Buell, in his exhaustive and valuable study of Paul Jones, published since this book was written, states that the name was assumed by him in testamentary succession to his brother, who had added the name of Jones at the instance of a wealthy planter named William Jones, who had adopted him. Mr. Buell's authority rests on tradition and the statements made by Mr. Louden, a great-grandnephew of the commodore (since dead), and of the sometime owner of the Jones plantation. On the other hand, in addition to the letters quoted in the Appendix, I have received many others from different sources, tending to confirm the version given by me. Among them is one from a Fredericksburg antiquarian, who claims that William Paul never bore the name of Jones in Fredericksburg. General Cadwallader Jones (who died in 1899, aged eighty-six), in a privately published biography, also states explicitly that he heard the story from Mrs. Willie Jones herself. Mr. Buell, in a recent letter to me, calls attention to the fact--and it is significant--that absolutely no reference to the North Carolina claim appears in any extant letter of the commodore, and claims that Hewes and Jones were acquainted before John Paul settled in America. As the official records have all been destroyed, the matter of the name will probably never be absolutely determined.