The Life and Adventures of Rear-Admiral John Paul Jones, Commonly Called Paul Jones. John S. C. Abbott

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СКАЧАТЬ and directed his course almost due north, for Land’s End, the extreme southern cape of the island of Great Britain. The distance across, at this point, is about one hundred and fifty miles.

      About thirty miles off the southern coast of England, in a southwest direction, there is a group of islands called the Scilly Islands. Captain Jones ran his vessel between them and Cape Clear, within full view of the shores of England, and where the flash of his guns could be seen and the thunders of his cannon distinctly heard on those shores. Opposing winds and a rough sea so impeded his progress that he did not gain sight of England’s coast until the 14th. Then he descried a merchant-brig. He bore down upon her and captured her. The brig was freighted with flax, and was bound from Ireland to Ostend, in Belgium. As the freight was of no value, and Captain Jones did not wish to encumber himself with prisoners, the crew were sent ashore in the boats and the brig was scuttled and sunk.

      These tidings must have created a strange sensation, as they spread like wildfire throughout England. It must have roused the whole British navy, to wreak vengeance upon the intrepid voyager. He then entered St. George’s Channel, which separates Southern England from Ireland. When almost within sight of the spires of Dublin he encountered, on the 17th of August, a large London ship. He captured her. Her cargo consisted of a variety of valuable merchandise. The crew were sent ashore. The prize he manned and sent back to Brest.

      Thus far dense clouds had darkened their way, and rough winds had ploughed the seas, but now the weather changed. The skies became fair and the wind favorable. He sailed rapidly along into the Irish Sea, and passed by the Isle of Man, intending to make a descent at Whitehaven, with whose harbor and surroundings he from childhood had been familiar. About ten o’clock in the evening of the 17th, he was off the harbor, with a boat’s crew of picked men ready to enter and set fire to the shipping. But the wind, which had been blowing strong during the afternoon, by eleven o’clock increased to a gale, blowing directly on shore, and raising such a heavy sea that the boats could not leave the ships. During the night the storm so increased, threatening to drive the vessel upon the rocks, that it became necessary to crowd all sail, and put out to sea so as to clear the land.

      The next morning the storm abated, and the Ranger was near Glestine Bay, just off the southern coast of Scotland. A revenue wherry hove in sight. It was the custom of the revenue boat to board all merchant vessels in search of contraband goods. As the Ranger concealed, as much as possible, all warlike appearance, Captain Jones hoped that the wherry, which was one of the swiftest of sailers, would come alongside, so that he might effect her capture. But it seems that the tidings of the Ranger had reached the ears of the officers of the governmental boat. After examining the vessel carefully with their glasses, they crowded on all sail, to escape. The Ranger pursued, opening upon the affrighted boat a severe cannonade. The balls bounded over the waves, and the explosions reverberated amid the cliffs of Scotland, but the wherry escaped.

      The next morning, April 19th, when near the extreme southern cape of Scotland, called the Mull of Galloway, he overtook one of the merchant schooners of the enemy, from which he took what he wanted, sent the crew ashore, and sunk the vessel. By a just retribution he was thus chastising England for the crimes she was committing on the American coast. Hudibras writes:

      “No man e’er felt the halter draw

      With good opinion of the law.”

      England was astonished and enraged in finding the laws of naval warfare which she had enacted, and had so long practised with impunity upon all other nations all around the globe, now brought home to herself. She called Paul Jones all manner of hard names. He was a beggar, a thief, a traitor, a highway robber, a pirate. He was thus denounced for doing that, in the English and Irish Channel, which England’s fleet was doing all along the coast of America. And yet it was heroic in Jones thus to brave all the terrors of the British navy, while it was ignoble and mean for that proud navy to plunder and burn the few unprotected vessels of the feeble colonies struggling for existence in the New World.

      England had long made her banqueting-halls resound with the song,

      “Britannia needs no bulwarks

      To frown along the steep;

      Her march is on the mountain wave,

      Her home is on the deep.”

      It was the noble mission of Paul Jones to teach Britannia that the arm of the avenger could reach her even in her own Channel, and in her own harbors. Thus England was compelled to drink of the poisoned cup which she was forcing to the lips of others.

      Upon the western coast of Scotland, about fifty miles north of the Mull of Galloway, there was a capacious harbor called Lochryan, or Lake Ryan. Captain Jones learned from his captives that there was there a fleet of ten or twelve English merchant vessels, and also the tender of a man-of-war, which had on board a large number of impressed seamen, who were to be forced into the British navy. It was not improbable that many of these were American citizens, who had been seized in our merchant or fishing vessels, and who would thus be compelled to work the guns of Great Britain against their own countrymen. “I thought this an enterprise,” writes Paul Jones, “worthy of my attention.”

      Indeed it was. He spread his sails for Lochryan. The wind was fair, so that he could run into the bay, speedily apply the torch, kindle the whole fleet into flame, and then run out before a sufficient force could be collected to prevent his escape. But just as he reached the entrance of the bay, and everything was in readiness for the successful prosecution of his enterprise, the wind changed, and blew with great fierceness directly into the bay. Thus, though he could easily effect his entrance, he could not sail out from the bay until the wind changed. He might therefore be caught in a trap. He was thus constrained to abandon the project.

      About sixty miles north of Lochryan is the Frith of Clyde, whose river is the most important stream in the west of Scotland. Captain Jones seeing upon his lee bow a cutter, or small sloop-rigged vessel, belonging as a tender to a man-of-war, steering for the Clyde, gave chase. But when he reached the remarkable rock of Ailsa, finding that the cutter was outsailing him, he abandoned the chase. In the evening he fell in with a merchant sloop, which he sunk.

      The next day, which was the 21st, he entered the Bay of Carrickfergus, on the eastern coast of Ireland. At the western extremity of the bay lies the city of Belfast, which occupies the first rank among the commercial marts of Ireland. The fortified town of Carrickfergus is situated upon the northern shore. A British ship of war, the Drake, mounting twenty guns, was at anchor in the bay. Thoroughly armed and manned, she was a formidable antagonist for the Ranger to attack. As vessels of all sizes were continually coming and going in this great thoroughfare, and as the Ranger carefully avoided all warlike appearance, no suspicion of her formidable character was excited on board the Drake. Jones therefore cast anchor, preparing to make his attack in the night. I will give the result in his own words:

      “My plan was to overlay her cable, and to fall upon her bow, so as to have all her decks open and exposed to our musketry. At the same time it was our intention to have secured the enemy by grapplings, so that, had they cut their cables, they would not thereby have attained an advantage. The wind was high, and unfortunately the anchor was not let go so soon as the order was given; so that the Ranger was brought to upon the enemy’s quarter, at the distance of half a cable’s length.

      “We had made no warlike appearance. Of course, we had given no alarm. This determined me to cut immediately, which might appear as if the cable had parted. At the same time it enabled me, after making a tack out of the Loch, to return with the same advantage which I had at first. I was, however, prevented from returning, as I with difficulty weathered the light-house on the leeside, and as the gale increased. The weather now became so very stormy and severe, and the sea ran so high, that I was obliged to take shelter under the south shore of Scotland.”

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