From the Monthly Review.

THE LIFE OF PAUL JONES, from Original Documents in the Possession of John Henry Sherburne, Esq., Register of the Navy of the United States. 8vo. pp. 320. London. Murray. 1825.

THE author of this curious little piece of naval biography, has, upon the whole, performed the task which he assigned to himself, in a temperate, though not in a very impartial, manner. He has not at all times steered evenly between the two extremes, which are in general equally remote from the truth, and which either hold up the hero as a demigod, or execrate him as a fiend. There was a time when Englishmen were disposed to bestow the latter appellation alone on Paul Jones; whilst in America and on the Continent he was idolized. He has long since passed away to another scene of existence; his actions and his letters have remained behind him: by these alone he is now to be judged; and the time has arrived, when a fair and dispassionate estimate may be made of his character.

The biographer does not affect to deny, that by law Paul Jones was a pirate: but this would be a narrow and captious view of the subject, when it is considered that he had intimately connected himself with the fortunes of the American states, from the commencement of their struggle for independence. At the same time, it cannot be disputed that the whole of his naval life was that of a chartered buccaneer, rather than of a legitimate scaman. The desultory and adventurous enterprise of the corsair was much more congenial to his dispositions than regular service. Placed in subordination to systematic rules, he was restless and intractable; licensed to rove at his pleasure over the ocean, he was an active, vigilant, enterprising officer, full of resources, remarkably cool and courageous in combat, and in victory generous to a degree bordering on romance.

He was born at Arbegland, in Scotland, in 1747. His father, John Paul, was a gardener, and young Paul, who did not add the name of Jones, until he took up his residence in America, received at the parochial school a few of the rudiments of education, which he afterwards turned to the greatest advantage. Indeed one of the most surprising traits in the character of this extraordinary person is, that amidst the dangers and vicissitudes of his early VOL. VIII.

life, he acquired a style of writing by no means feeble or inelegant, and this apparently without any further assistance than what was given him at the school of Kirkbean. At the age of twelve he was, at his own earnest request, apprenticed to a merchant in the American trade. It appears that after the expiration of his period of service, during which he made several voyages to various parts of the New World and the Old, he was for some time unsuccessfully engaged in commerce; and he was living in obscurity and embarrassment in Virginia, when the American congress determined to avenge by reprisal the maritime aggressions of Great Britain. Jones, at this period, was about twenty-eight years of age. Discontented by his disappointments, he was among the earliest advocates of American freedom; and he watched with deep interest the political agitation of the colonies, "which seemed now about to subside into submission, and now to burst into independence." He offered his services to the Congress, and in December, 1775, he was appointed by that body a first lieutenant of the American navy. The early efforts of this infant force were unsuccessful, and therefore it was unpopular. The establishment of a navy is in any country a work of time and great dif ficulty; in America, it was particularly so, guarded as she was along her coast by British men of war. Jones was soon after appointed to command the Providence, and in 1776 he was actively engaged in annoying the British trade. Upon his return home, at the end of the year, he was appointed to the command of a small squadron, and soon after he received his commission as captain from the United States. During this short period of his service, he took every opportunity of pointing out to Congress the defects of their navy, and suggested many improvements, distinguished by sound practical wisdom, most of which were adopted by that body.

In 1777 American commissioners resided in Paris. The government of France, actuated by ancient enmity against Great Britain, and desirous of taking every opportunity, however iniquitous, of reducing her power, lent, from the beginning of the contest, a willing ear to the overtures which were made to it by the colonies for assistance. "An anxiety," justly observes the author, "as to the nature of the means by which their political ascendency was to be obtained, has never been the character

A

istic of the illustrious house of Bourbon; and I will not stop here to contrast the disgraceful eagerness with which the descendant of St. Louis sanctified the rebellion of the English colonies, with the prudent generosity with which the court of London watched the gleam of the last war-blade on the Cordillera of the Andes." It is unnecessary here to observe on the terrible retribution by which that royal house, and the country over which it ruled, subsequently expiated this act of national injustice. The Bourbons have still to answer for another great enormity, their late invasion of Spain: sooner or later they must repent them of this deed, if we may rely on the experience of history.

It had been intended by the Congress to send Jones to the commissioners resident at Paris, with an order to invest him "with the command of a fine ship," but in consequence of a plan of operations for attacking the coast of England, which he communicated to the secret committee, a national flag was agreed upon, and he was appointed to command the ship Ranger for that purpose. The boldness of such a measure was particularly remarkable, at a period when the shores of America were covered with hostile armies, and her little navy was wholly inadequate to her domestic defence. Jones was the first man who hoisted the independent standard under the reprisal resolution; he was the first also who hoisted the Union flag; and on his arrival at Brest, he had the honour of the first salute which that flag received from a foreign power.

In April, 1778, Jones sailed from Brest, with the intention of making a descent at Whitehaven, which was then one of the most important harbours in Great Britain, and generally contained four hundred sail, some of which were of a considerable size. The weather preventing the Ranger from approaching the shore as nearly as Jones could wish, he left the ship with two boats and thirty-one men, who volunteered to accompany him; and, without disturbing a single sentinel, he succeeded in spiking up all the cannon on the first and the southern forts, which were a quarter of a mile distant from each other. In the mean time, he had despatched his lieutenant, Wallingford, with a party to set fire to the shipping on the north side of the harbour; and on his return to the Ranger, he looked out anxiously for the expected blaze: it did not appear: Jones hastened to the spot; and he found the party in confusion, their light having burnt out at the moment when they were about to apply it. His own division, which he intended should burn the vessels on the southern side of the harbour, were in a similar predicament,-their candles had also been extinct.

"The day was breaking apace, and the failure of the expedition seemed complete. Any other commander but Jones would, in this predicament, have thought himself fortunate in making his retreat good; but Jones would not retreat. He had the boldness to send a man to a house detached from the town to ask for a light; the request was successful, and fire was kindled in the steerage of a large ship, which was surrounded by at least one hundred and fifty others, chiefly from two to four hundred

tons burthen. There was not time to fire any more than one place, and Jones's care was to prevent that one from being easily extinguished. After some search a barrel of tar was found, and poured into the flames, which now burnt up from all the hatchways. "The inhabitants," says Jones in his letter to the American commissioners, "began to appear in thousands, and individuals ran hastily towards us; I stood between them and the ship on fire, with a pistol in my hand, and ordered them to retire, which they did with precipitation. The flames had already caught the rigging, and began to ascend the mainmast; the sun was a full hour's march above the horizon, and as sleep no longer ruled the world, it was time to retire; we re-embarked without opposition. After all my people had embarked. I stood upon the pier for a considerable time, yet no persons advanced; I saw all the eminences around the town covered with the enraged inhabitants.

At

"When we had rowed to a considerable distance from the shore, the English began to run in vast numbers to their forts. Their disappointment may be easily imagined, when they found at least thirty cannon, the instruments of their vengeance, rendered useless. length, however, they began to fire; having, as I apprehend, either brought down ship-guns, or used one or two cannon which lay on the beach at the foot of the walls, dismantled, and which had not been spiked. They fired with no direction; and the shot falling short of the boats, instead of doing any damage, afforded us some diversion, which my people could not help showing by firing their pistols, &c. in return of the salute. Had it been possible to have landed a few hours sooner, my success would have been complete; not a single ship out of more than 200 could possibly have escaped, and all the world would not have been able to have saved the town."

The audacity of the Scotch buccaneer excited a good deal of alarm, not only at Whitehaven but all over the kingdom, and measures of precaution were soon adopted wherever they were found to be necessary.

His

One of the objects upon which Jones was most intent, was that of striking a blow,' in favour of the American prisoners of war. plan, which partook of the genuine spirit of the corsair, was to surprise some nobleman, and to detain him in his custody until the condition of those prisoners was ameliorated. Such, at least, was the pretence on which he acted, when, on the very day that he left Whitehaven, he suddenly landed at noon on St. Mary's Isle, and proceeded, with a boat's crew, to the seat of the Earl of Selkirk. the way, he learnt that the Earl had lately left the Isle for London: but this intelligence did not prevent the crew from going on to the mansion, where they obtained from Lady Selkirk the family plate.

On

The next morning Jones was meditating an entrance into the port of Carrickfergus, when he found that he was pursued by the Drake, which had gone in quest of him, in consequence of an express from Whitehaven. After some manœuvring on both sides, they engaged. The Drake, which was only a 20 gun ship, and every way inferior to the Ranger, soon lost her