Profiles in Courage: John Paul Jones
In 1905, Gen. Horace Porter, the U.S. Ambassador to France, was on a quest. This mission required an old map of Paris, the help of an anthropologist, thorough research of the history of France's capital city, and most importantly, sounding probes.
Porter was led through the city until he reached what was once St. Louis Cemetery. Using the sounding probes, he and his team looked underground for lead coffins. They found five and, once unearthed, they opened three of them. The third contained what Porter was searching for: the remains of Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones.
Jones began his career in Scotland, where he learned the ways of merchant ships and slowly worked his way up in the ranks. He assumed his first command in 1786 after the captain and first mate of his brig died of Yellow Fever. In his time as a Captain, he fought off two mutinies, killing one of the mutineers with a sword and fleeing to Virginia to avoid a trial in an Admiral's Court.
He immediately fell in love with his new home, and the soon-to-be United States was better off for it. Not much is known about the first few years he spent in the colonies, but what is known is that he volunteered for service in the nascent Continental Navy in 1775. He was the first to raise the U.S. flag, the Grand Union Flag, over a U.S. Navy ship.
Jones assumed command of a sloop, USS Providence, while the first 13 home-built ships of the U.S. Navy were under construction. Aboard the Providence, he ferried troops and supplies around the colonies and captured 16 enemy ships.
In 1777, he assumed command of the newly-constructed USS Ranger. The Ranger set sail for France with the vague orders of assisting American interests wherever possible. He remained in France until 1778 when the French joined the War of Independence on the American side. As the Ranger departed France, the flagship of French Captain Count Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte fired the first official salute to an American vessel.
But John Paul Jones wasn't heading back to fight the British in North America. He was about to take the fight to British waters - and he was going to strike a blow for American independence on Britain's home soil.
Jones and the Ranger raided English shipping in the Irish Sea for months before he and his crew decided to hit Great Britain at home. Just after midnight on April 23, 1778, two boats carrying Jones and 15 men landed on the shores of Whitehaven, England. The attackers were going to set the town, and the merchant fleet docked there ablaze.
The Americans spiked the guns that made up the town's defenses and set about lighting the fires, but their lanterns had run out of fuel, making the fires hard to ignite. The men went to a local pub to acquire more but stayed for a drink, which delayed the attack. By the time they actually began lighting the fires, the townspeople were alerted to the Americans' presence, and they were forced to retreat.
Once again aboard the Ranger, Jones and his crew set out to capture the Royal Navy sloop HMS Drake, which had taken British sailors aboard - sailors meant to be used to capture the Ranger. Jones made haste toward the Drake and captured it after an hour-long battle. The capture of the Drake was one of the Navy's most important victories at sea during the Revolutionary War, but John Paul Jones was yet to have his most important moment.
Jones was given command of the USS Bonhomme Richard, as well as a squadron of five ships. He led the Americans into the Irish Sea as Royal Navy ships pursued them. The squadron was sailing into the North Sea as they encountered a British merchant fleet off the coast of Flamborough Head. There, two armed escorts, the HMS Serapis and an armed hired ship, the Countess of Scarborough, met Jones and his ships.
The Merchant fleet escaped, but the Bonhomme Richard met Serapis at Flamborough Head. Jone locked the two ships together, and his Marines cleared the enemy deck while shooting from the topsails.
As two other ships from Jones' squadron engaged and subdued the Countess of Scarborough, the crew of the Bonhomme Richard engaged the crew of Serapis. One of Jones' ships, the USS Alliance, fired two broadsides into the melee, damaging both ships. The Bonhomme Richard was on fire, and the Serapis could not free itself from the Americans.
Unable to withdraw and unable to fire at either ship, the captain of the Serapis realized he had been beaten and struck his colors, surrendering to the determined Jones and his crew. The Bonhomme Richard was allowed to sink, and Jones took command of the Serapis. He received a gold medal from the Continental Congress and the title of Chevalier from King Louis XVI in France.
Jones fell out of favor with Congress by the end of the war and was in need of employment. So he took command of ships in the Russian Navy during its 1787 war against the Ottoman Empire. In 1792, Jones was appointed U.S. Consul to Algiers, but before he could take the position, he was found dead at home in Paris. He was just 45 years old.
His body was interred in a royal plot at Paris' St. Louis Cemetery, but after the French Revolution, the royal plot was forgotten and the cemetery lost to history.
When Gen. Horace Porter began looking for the famous patriot in 1905, all he knew was that Jones' body had been preserved in alcohol and buried in a lead coffin in the cemetery. After finding his remains, Jones was repatriated to the United States aboard the USS Brooklyn, an armored cruiser.
Jones was reinterred at the United States Naval Academy presided over by then-President Theodore Roosevelt. Today, the body of America's first naval hero lies in a marble and bronze sarcophagus and the academy's chapel.