Paul Jones Himself
Paul Jones was slight, being only five feet and a half high. A stoop in his shoulders diminished still more his stature. But he was firmly knit, and capable of enduring great fatigue.
He had dark eyes and a thoughtful, pensive look when not engaged in conversation; but his countenance lighted up in moments of excitement, and in battle became terribly determined. His lips closed like a vice, while his brow contracted with the rigidity of iron. The tones of his voice were then haughty in the extreme, and his words had an emphasis in them, which those who heard never forgot.
He seemed unconscious of fear, and moved amid the storm of battle, and trod the deck of his shattered and wrecked vessel, like one who rules his own destiny. He would cruise without fear in a single sloop, right before the harbours of England, and sail amid ships double the size of his own.
But with all his fierceness in the hour of battle, he had as kind a heart as ever beat.
To see him in a hot engagement, covered with the smoke of cannon, himself working the guns, while the timbers around him were constantly ripping with the enemy’s shot; or watch him on the deck of his dismasted vessel, over which the hurricane swept and the sea rolled, one would think him destitute of emotion. But his reports of these scenes afterwards, resembled the descriptions of an excited spectator. He was an old Roman soldier in danger, but a poet in his after accounts of it.
Jones had great defects of character; but most of them sprang from his want of early education. He was not a mere adventurer—owing his elevation to headlong daring—he was a hard student as well as a hard fighter, and had a strong intellect as well as strong arm. He wrote with astonishing fluency considering the neglect of his early education. He even wrote eloquently at times, and always with force. His verses were as good as the general run of poetry of that kind.
Paul Jones was an irregular character, but his good qualities predominated over his bad ones. And as the man who first hoisted the American Flag at sea, and received the first salute ever offered it by a foreign Nation, and the first who carried it victoriously through the fight on the waves, he deserves our highest praise and most grateful remembrance.
With such a Commander to lead the American Navy, and stand before it as the model of a brave man, no wonder our Navy has covered itself with glory.
J. T. Headley (Condensed)