it was mr. adams who opposed you. the best place i could make was that of lieutenant. mr. adams wouldn’t hear of you as a captain; and since, with general washington, virginia and the southern colonies have been given control of the army, his claim of the navy for massachusetts and the northern colonies finds general consent. commodore hopkins and four of the five captains, beginning with mr. adams’ protégé dudley saltonstall, go to new england. the most that i could make mr. adams agree to, was that you should be set at the head of the list of lieutenants.”
“i am sorry, sir, that mr. adams holds a poor opinion of me.” this with a sigh. “it was my dream to be a captain, and have a ship of my own. however, i am here to serve the cause, rather than promote the personal fortunes of paul jones. let the list go as it is; the future doubtless will bring all things straight. i am free to say, however, that from the selections made by mr. adams, as you repeat them, i think he has provided for more courts-martial than victories.” the two gentlemen in talk are mr. hewes, member of the colonial congress from north carolina, and planter paul jones. mr. hewes is old and worn and sick, and only his granite resolution keeps him at the seat of government.
“mr. hancock,” continues mr. hewes, “is also from massachusetts, and as chairman of our committee he gave mr. adams what aid he could. there’s one honor you may have, however; i arranged for that. the issuance of the commissions is with mr. hancock, and if you’ll accompany me to the hall you will be given yours at once. that will make you the first, if not the highest, naval officer of the colonies to be commissioned.”
“on what ship am i to serve?”
“the alfred, captain saltonstall.”
raw and bleak sweep the december winds through the bare streets, as the two go on their way to the hall, where congress holds its sittings. fortunately, as lieutenant paul jones phrases it, the wind is “aft,” and so mr. hewes, despite his weakness, makes better weather of it than one would look for.
“i’ll have a carriage home,” says he, panting a little, as the stiff breeze steals his breath away.
“i can’t,” breaks forth lieutenant paul jones, after an interval of silence—“i can’t for the life of me make out how i incurred the enmity of mr. adams. i’ve never set foot in boston, never clapped my eyes on him before i came to this city last july.”
mr. hewes smiles. “you sacrificed interest to epigram,” says he. lieutenant paul jones glares in wonder. “let me explain,” goes on mr. hewes, answering the look. “do you recall meeting mr. adams at colonel carroll’s house out near schuylkill falls?”
“that was last october.”
“precisely! mr. adams’ memory is quite equal to last october. the more, if the event remembered were a dig to his vanity.”
“a dig to his vanity!” repeats lieutenant paul jones in astonishment. “i cannot now recall that i so much as spoke a word to the old polar bear.”
“it wasn’t a word spoken to him, but one spoken of him. this is it: mr. adams told an anecdote in french to little betty faulkner. later you must needs be witty, and whisper to miss betty a satirical word anent mr. adams’ french.”
“why, then,” interjects lieutenant paul jones, with a whimsical grin, “i’ll tell you what i said. ‘it is fortunate,’ i observed to miss betty, ‘that mr. adams’ sentiments are not so english as is his french. if they were, he would far and away be the greatest tory in the world.’”
“just so!” chuckles mr. hewes. “and, doubtless, all very true. none the less, my young friend, your brightness cost you a captaincy. the mot was too good to keep, and little betty started it on a journey that landed it, at a fourth telling, slap in the outraged ear of mr. adams himself. make you a captain? he would as soon think of making you rich.”
the pair trudged on in silence, mr. hewes turning about in his mind sundry matters of colonial policy, while lieutenant paul jones solaces himself by recalling how it is the even year to a day since that norfolk ball, when he smote upon the scandalous nose of lieutenant parker.
“now that i’m a lieutenant like himself,” runs the warlike cogitations of lieutenant paul jones, “i’d prodigiously enjoy meeting the scoundrel afloat. i might teach his dullness a better opinion of us.”
lieutenant paul jones for months has been hard at work; one day in conference with the marine committee, leading them by the light of his ship-knowledge; the next busy with adz and oakum and calking iron, repairing and renewing the tottering hulks which the agents of the colonies have collected as the nucleus of the baby navy. over this very ship the alfred, on which he is to sail lieutenant, he has toiled as though it were intended as a present for his bride. he confidently counted on being made its captain; now to sail as a subordinate, when he looked to have command, is a bitter disappointment. sail he will, however, and that without murmur; for he is too much the patriot to hang back, too strong a heart to sulk. besides, he has the optimism of the born war dog.
“given open war,” thinks he, “what more should one ask than a cutlass, and the chance to use it? once we’re aboard an enemy, it shall go hard, but i carve a captaincy out of the situation.”
congress is not in session upon this particular day, and mr. hewes leads lieutenant paul jones straight to chairman hancock of the marine committee. that eminent patriot is in his committee room. he is big, florid, proud, and, like all the massachusetts men since concord and lexington, a bit puffed up. no presentation is needed; mr. hancock and lieutenant paul jones have been acquainted for months. the big merchant-statesman beams pleasantly on the new lieutenant. then he draws mr. hewes into a far window.
“i can’t see what’s got into adams,” says mr. hancock, lowering his voice to a whisper. “he burst in here a moment ago, and declared that he meant to move, at the next session, a reconsideration of the appointment of our young friend.”
“and now where pinches the shoe?”
“he says that paul jones isn’t two years out of england; that his sympathies must needs lean toward king george.”
“it will be news if the patriotism of mr. adams himself stands as near the perpendicular as does that of paul jones!”
“and next he urges that our friend is a man of no family.”
“now, did one ever hear such aristocratic bosh! the more, since our cause is the cause of human rights, and our shout ‘democracy!’ i shall take occasion, when next i have the honor to meet mr. adams”—here the eyes of the old north carolinian begin to sparkle—“to mention this subject of families, and remind him that it might worry the herald’s college excessively, if that seminary of pedigrees were called upon to back-track his own.”
“no, no, my dear sir!” and the merchant-statesman, full of lofty mollifications, makes a soothing gesture with his hands. “for all our sakes, say nothing to mr. adams! you recall what doctor franklin remarked of him: ‘he is always honest, sometimes great, but often mad.’ let us suppose him merely mad; and so forgive him. we may do it the more easily, since i told him that, even if his objections were valid, he was miles too late, the question of that lieutenancy having been already passed upon and settled. let us forget adams, and give paul jones his commission.”
as lieutenant paul jones receives his commission from mr. hancock, the latter remarks with a smile:
“you have the first commission issued, lieutenant jones. if the simile were permissible concerning anything that refers to the sea, i should say now that, in making you a lieutenant, we lay the corner stone of the american navy.”
0101
lieutenant paul jones bows his thanks, but speaks never a word. this silence arises from the deep emotions that hold him in their strong grip, not from churlishness.
“and now,” observes mr. hewes, who is thinking only of heaping extra honor on his young friend, “since we have a fully commissioned officer to perform the ceremony, suppose we make memorable the day by going down to the alfred and ‘breaking out’ its pennant. thus, almost with the breath in which we commission our first officer, we will have also commissioned our first regular ship of war.”
“would it not be better,” interposes mr. hancock, thinking on the possible angers of mr. adams, “to wait for the coming from boston of captain saltonstall?”
mr. hewes thinks it would not. since mr. hewes’ manner in thus thinking is just a trifle iron-bound, not to say acrid, mr. hancock decides that, after all, there may be more peril in waiting for captain saltonstall than in going forward with lieutenant jones. whereupon, mr. hewes, mr. hancock and lieutenant jones depart for the alfred, which lies at the foot of chestnut street. in the main hall of congress the three pick up colonel carroll, mad anthony wayne. mr. jefferson, mr. livingston, and mr. morris. these gentlemen, regarding the event as the formal birth of the new navy, decide to accompany the others in the r?le of witnesses.
the flag is ready in the lockers of the alfred—a pine tree, a rattlesnake, with the words “don’t tread on me.” lieutenant paul jones, as he shakes out the bunting, surveys the device with no favoring eye.
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“i was ever,” observes lieutenant paul jones, looking at mr. hewes but speaking to all—“i was ever curious to know by whose queer fancy that device was adopted. it is beyond me to fathom how a venomous serpent could be regarded as the emblem of a brave and honest people fighting to be free.”
after delivering this opinion, which is tacitly agreed to by the others, the flag is bent on the halyards, and “broken out.” also, a ration of grog is issued to the crew—so far as the alfred is blessed with a crew—by way of fixing the momentous occasion in the forecastle mind. the crew cheers; but whether the cheers are for the grog, or lieutenant paul jones who orders it, or the rattlesnake pine tree ensign that causes the order, no one may say.
following the “breaking out,” the grog and the cheers, mr. hewes, mr. hancock and their fellow-statesmen, retire—the day being over cold—to the land, while lieutenant paul jones, now and until the coming of captain saltonstall in command of the alfred, remains aboard to take up his duty as a regularly commissioned officer in the regular navy of the colonies.
