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IN THE INDIA TRADE.

"I must beg you to supply my mother should she want anything, as I well know your readiness.

"I hope yourself and family enjoy health and happiness. I am, most sincerely,

"Sir, yours always,

"JOHN PAUL."

It has been alleged, that about this time young Paul was engaged in the contraband trade, then very generally practised among the self-named fair-dealers of the towns along both shores of the Solway. Without entering into the question of how far at that period the act of smuggling might otherwise affect a man's moral character or estimation in society, it is certain that Jones long afterwards decidedly and indignantly repelled this degrading charge, and that the first entry of goods from England to the Isle of Man, after that nest of smugglers and centre of the contraband trade had been annexed to the crown, stands in his name in the Custom-house books of Douglas.

Soon after this period Paul obtained command of the Betsy of London, a West India ship, and remained for a time in the islands engaged in commercial speculations, to which his subsequent letters refer. He appears to have left considerable funds in Tobago; and in 1773 we find him in Virginia arranging the affairs of his brother William, who had died intestate, and without leaving children. About this time he assumed the name of Jones.

The American Revolution, of the progress of which Paul Jones could not have been an indifferent spectator, found him living in deep retirement, unoccupied, and for the time in a state of great privation, occasioned by the dilatoriness or misconduct of his agents. At this time he had subsisted for twenty months on the sum of fifty pounds. It is to this period that Jones refers in his celebrated letter to the Count

ess of Selkirk, when he says, "Before this war began I had at the early time of life withdrawn from the sea-service, in favour of calm contemplation and poetic ease' I have sacrificed not only my favourite scheme of life, but the softer affections of the heart, and my prospects of domestic happiness, and am ready to sacrifice my life also with cheerfulness, if that forfeiture could restore peace and good-will among mankind."

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ENTERS THE AMERICAN SERVICE.

CHAPTER II.

UT Jones, whatever he might think, was not of the temperament to which the cultivation of maize and tobacco-which in America about that period must have comprehended "the rural life in all its joy and elegance"-could long remain the favourite scheme. He was now twenty-eight-the very prime of active existence-full of talent and enterprise, ardent and ambitious, and quite of the mind in which he seems to have held through life, that though it might be shame to be on any side but one, it was greater shame to lie idle when blows were going. Many causes combined to make him believe the cause of the colonies the right one-the cause of liberty, justice, and humanity. A man who from the age of twelve had been a wanderer on the deep, must have been as much at home in America as in Britain. Both countries must have appeared integral portions of the same state; and in its civil dissensions, circumstances determined the part he should take. Thus right or wrong as to the side he took, Jones stood clear in his motives to his own conscience. To him indeed the cause of America-the country, as he afterwards terms it, of his "fond election"-was the elevating source of his most brilliant actions. It is but fair to allow him to be the interpreter of his own motives:-of his deeds every man is at liberty to judge. Four years after he had volunteered in the cause of America, it is thus he addresses the Baron Vander

ENTERS THE AMERICAN SERVICE.

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Capellan, having, it must be owned, a favourite object to carry at Amsterdam :—

"I was indeed born in Britain; but I do not inherit the degenerate spirit of that fallen nation, which I at once lament and despise. It is far beneath me to reply to their hireling invectives. They are strangers to the inward approbation that greatly animates and rewards the man who draws his sword only in support of the dignity of freedom. America has been the country of my fond election from the age of thirteen, when I first saw it. I had the honour to hoist with my own hands the flag of freedom, the first time it was displayed, on the Delaware; and I have attended it with veneration ever since on the ocean."

Though in the heat of a struggle, which, from its very nature, was, like the feuds of the nearest relatives, singularly rancorous and bitter, Jones was branded as a traitor and a felon, and after his most brilliant action, the capture of the Serapis, formally denounced by the British ambassador at the Hague as a rebel and a pirate according to the laws of war,* it must be remembered that he bore this stigma in common with the best and greatest of his contemporaries-with Franklin and Washington; which last had actually borne arms in the service of the King of England. The memory of Paul Jones now needs little vindication for this important step. After the peace he enjoyed the esteem and private friendship of Englishmen who might have forgiven the most imbittered political hostility, but never could have overlooked a taint on personal honour. Of this number was the Earl of Wemyss, who after the peace endeavoured to promote the views of Jones on various occasions. He himself, however, discovers a lurking consciousness of having incurred, if not of meriting, suspicion on this delicate ground. This is chiefly displayed

* Memorial of Sir Joseph York to the States-General, dated the Hague, 8th October, 1779.

by his eloquent though rather frequent assertions of purity of motive, superiority to objects of sordid interest, and disinterested zeal for the cause, now of America, now of human nature, as was best adapted to the supposed inclinations of his correspondents. In ordinary circumstances much of this might have appeared uncalled for; but the situation of Jones was in many respects peculiar both as a native-born Briton, and as a man of obscure origin, jealous-and pardonably so -of his independence and dignity of character. Somewhat of the heroic vaunting which marks other parts of his correspondence appears incident to the enthusiastic temperament of many great naval commanders. How would Nelson's tone of confident prediction, and boasts of prowess, have sounded from the lips of an inferior man?—In any other than himself the customary language of Drake would have been reckoned that of an insolent braggart.

Besides the public spirit and love of liberty which in Jones were both warm and sincere, other motives of that mixed nature, by which every human being, how disinterested and devoted soever, must at times be influenced, were not wanting to enlist him on the side of the colonies. He was living at the most active period of life in penury and neglect. His friendships, his interests, his gratitude, all inclined him to the part of America. In a letter addressed to Mr. Stuart Mawey of Tobago, written immediately before he went to Europe in open hostility as an officer of the United States, a letter which does as much honour to the clearness of his head as to the integrity and filial kindness of his heart, these circumstances are distinctly explained.

"After an unprofitable suspense of twenty months, (having subsisted on fifty pounds only during that time,) when my hopes of relief were entirely cut off, and there remained no