For Memorial Day, the tale of an American warrior who wouldn't quit--
“An American Hero and the Art of the Comeback”
History is replete with examples of movements and leaders who’ve been written off, only to storm back to great triumphs.
Abraham Lincoln lost a vote to be vice president, lost a US Senate race, lost a race to be a congressman, even lost an election for state assemblyman. But he came back and won those two other elections…
Ronald Reagan narrowly lost the Republican nomination for president in 1976, to Gerald Ford. And, as everyone knows, he was then too old to make another bid for the White House. And today, everyone remembers Reagan more than Jerry Ford.
In 1938, Winston Churchill was 64 years old, a washed-up politician, a lonely voice crying in the wilderness about the threats to his nation. In 1951, after being perhaps the pivotal figure in winning the largest war ever fought, he again became British Prime Minister, at age 76.
So anyone who’s suffered a bruising defeat is wise to look at the examples in history, of those who suffered terrible losses, time and time again, but who wouldn’t quit, and who over time came out victorious.
Let’s look at just one such example in our own nation’s history.
You probably have never heard of him. A fellow by the name of John Paul. No, not the late Pope. But a humble Scotchman, the son of a gardener born, in 1747, near the Scottish shore. As a boy, he stared across the sea, at America, dreaming of limitless possibilities.
He started out at sea, at the age of thirteen, from the English port of Whitehaven, working as a shipman’s apprentice. By age 19 he was second mate and, when the captain and first mate died from yellow fever, took command and brought his ship safely home all the way from Jamaica to Scotland.
He sailed on the “triangle trade,” of sugar, slaves, and rum, between Britain, the Caribbean, and Africa. But he hated the slave trade, and gave up a stack of profits to move on to less savage forms of sea-borne commerce.
He ran into big trouble on his next voyages. The ships of the time—a time of the real-life Munity on the Bounty--were notorious for revolts among the crews, and for harsh discipline from their commanders. In 1770 John Paul flogged a crewman for misbehavior, and the crewman died. John Paul was himself jailed for “unnecessarily cruel” punishment over the incident, then released. Three years later, in Tobago, his crew mutinied, and to put it down he killed one of his men with his cutlass. Charges of misconduct were brought against him, and to escape the brig he fled to America, leaving behind all his money.
He traveled to the home of his older brother who had settled just down the road from here, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. To an America that was just starting its revolt against Britain, was just starting to form a Navy, and which was in dire need of experienced mariners, this man was a godsend.
Influential figures like Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee, and John Adams of Massachusetts, helped him get his posting, as First Lieutenant of the converted frigate the Alfred. In February 1776, the Alfred became the first American warship to unfurl an American flag.
The Continental Congress was outfitting merchant ships as warships, and John Paul, Jones--as he now called himself--took command of one called the Providence. In one voyage, his single ship captured sixteen British ships.
One of his victories had a large and unexpected consequence. In 1776 he captured a British ship bearing a consignment of winter uniforms for the British commander in Canada, Gen. Burgoyne. “Gentleman Johnny”, as he was known, was especially peeved to have stylish garments of the season taken out his hands. The clothing was put to good use, and worn by the men of Washington’s army.
An army that, by the late fall of 1776, was beaten, and without any hope of victory. An army whose men put on those very same warm winter clothes before they crossed the Delaware on the frigid Christmas Eve night of 1776, en route to their shocking comeback victories at Princeton and Trenton.
Jones next sailed across to Europe, and stayed for a time in France. There he became close friends with America’s first, and perhaps greatest, diplomat, Ben Franklin. Franklin was in Paris on an impossible mission. To persuade the French, who were nearly bankrupt from the French and Indian Wars against the Americans, to bankrupt themselves by taking the side of the Americans in this new war. Against all odds, and with the help of John Adams and later Thomas Jefferson—the greatest diplomatic team, surely, ever assembled—Franklin succeeded.
And John Paul Jones succeeded in persuading the French on a smart naval strategy—to boldly put their fleet between Britain and the American coasts, cutting the British army off from its bases in Canada and Britain. In time this aggressive, “in harm’s way” approach ensured victory for the Americans at Yorktown. (By the way, the term “in harm’s way,” now indelibly linked with the U.S. Navy, was coined by Jones.)
The Raid on Whitehaven
In 1778, Capt. Jones shocked the British Empire by taking the war to its own home soil, by launching a sea-borne raid on the English port city of Whitehaven. The raid was daring, and drew on the naval strategy of England’s greatest sailor up to that time, Sir Francis Drake.
Back in the 1580s, Drake had delayed the planned invasion of England by the Spanish Armada with a preemptive strike. He sailed into the Spanish harbor of Cadiz, where part of the Armada was assembling, and sent boats lit on fire into the Spanish fleet, setting many ships ablaze. John Paul Jones tried to do something similar at Whitehaven, to a flotilla of 300 English ships laying there at anchor.
Unfortunately, as often happened with John Paul Jones, many things went wrong, as he led a raiding party of 30 men and two boats toward the English harbor side town. The winds shifted against them, and the tide shifted too, slowing their approach. The lanterns they brought to light the fires ran out of fuel. Then some of the sailors Jones sent onshore to gather fuel from a tavern stayed to drink at the bar!
Just one British ship was burned, and no prisoners were taken. But five days later John Paul Jones encountered a British man of war, called, ironically, the HMS Drake. After a fierce battle, he captured it. The British were shaken to their core by the brazen Whitehaven and HMS Drake attacks. They were forced to divert men and ships away from America to defend their own coasts.
Jones’s greatest triumph, at first seemingly a great defeat, came in 1779. He was commanding a converted, 40-gun French merchant ship, a gift to America from a French merchant. Jones rechristened the ship the Bon Homme Richard, a loose translation of “Poor Richard”, as in Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, the ship being named after Jones’ friend Ben Franklin. He and his five-ship fleet caused panic off of England’s coast. To restore order, the powerful British warship the Serapis sailed to meet Jones and the Bon Homme Richard.
John Paul Jones’s luck was mostly bad throughout the ensuing battle. The captain of the second-largest ship in his fleet refused to obey Jones’s orders. The captain of an accompanying privateer fled from the scene.
For two hours the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis exchanged broadsides. The Bon Homme Richard got the worst of it. In the confusion, one of the ships in Jones’s fleet also mistakenly raked over Jones’ ship--several times. The British commander, seeing the damage to Jones’ ship, called out for him to surrender. According to Jones’ lieutenant, the American captain famously replied: “I have not yet begun to fight!”
Badly outgunned, he decided his only chance was to close on the Serapis, and turn the fight into a close-in brawl. He succeeded in ramming the British ship. But the Bon Homme Richard was on fire, and sinking, and its flag was shot away. This made the British captain think the ship had struck its colors, and he shouted out to Jones if he was finally ready to give up. Jones shouted back another defiant cry: "I may sink, but I'll be damned if I strike my colors!"
Then the tide turned some. The British tried to board the ship, but were repulsed. The U.S. Marine marksmen in the rigging and the deck guns took a toll on the British. And for once Jones got lucky. A Marine up in the sails tossed a gr***de onto the deck of the Serapis, which dropped into the ship’s hold, and exploded next to its supply of gunpowder. The British ship was badly damaged, and now its commander decided to surrender. But the Bon Homme Richard was about to sink, so John Paul Jones transferred his command to the Serapis.
He had won his nation’s first great naval victory on the high seas, just as his own ship was about to sink. Now, that’s a comeback to admire!
Jones took the Serapis and another captured British ship into a harbor in Holland. He gained world-wide renown for his feat.
At this point, Jones’ sometimes vain and selfish personality came to the fore. After the battle, he court-martialed his second-in-command, who was later released. According to John Adams, who looked into the matter, Jones wanted his lieutenant out of the way so he could bask in all the glory for his victory over the Serapis.
After his stirring triumph, came bitter disappointment in his career. He was supposed to be appointed captain of the nation’s most powerful capital ship, the 74-gun USS America. But to reward our ally France, congress gave the ship to the French navy instead.
With the end of the American Revolution, Jones again met defeat. He urged congress to continue funding the U.S. Navy as a deterrent to war, but congress declined, and the Navy was disbanded, only to be later resurrected at great expense by President Adams.
With no U.S. Navy to serve under, he traveled to Russia in 1788, and became an admiral in the Russian fleet, fighting with distinction against the Turkish Empire along the Black Sea. But two Russian princes, jealous of his success, conspired against him, and framed him with charges he’d r***d a young woman. Jones proved to Tsarina Catherine the Great’s court that the charges were false, and was awarded a medal for his military service. But he soon left Russia angry and bitter at his mistreatment.
John Paul Jones lost, then won, in death as well as in life. He settled in France, where he died, in 1792, at age 45, from kidney disease. A few friends and servants buried him at the wonderfully named, “St. Louis Cemetery for Alien Protestants.” During the French Revolution the graveyard was abandoned--it became a place where gamblers placed bets on fights between animals. However a French admirer had arranged for Jones’ body to be preserved in alcohol, and within a lead coffin: "in the event that should the United States decide to claim his remains, they might more easily be identified."
A century later, the United States decided to do right by its great naval hero. Starting in 1899, Ambassador to France Horace Porter tracked down Jones’ remains. This was one year after the Spanish-American War, of 1898, where the U.S. Navy, for the first time a world power, had won an overwhelming victory against the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. A newly confident America was eager to celebrate the triumphs of its first naval commanders.
Ambassador Porter spent six years looking for Jones. He used sounding probes to find the lead coffin. An autopsy confirmed the preserved body as that of Jones.
In spring 1906, seven U.S. Navy battleships escorted the cruiser the USS Brooklyn, carrying Jones’ coffin, back to the United States, and to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. Today, the father of the United States Navy lies in state, in a magnificent bronze and marble sarcophagus at the Naval Academy chapel. If you’ve never seen the tomb, just a 35-mile drive from here, you should. Its grandeur reminds the visitor of Napoleon’s Tomb in Paris.
In his life, and death, John Paul Jones had to persevere against countless obstacles and setbacks. But in the end he won out, giving hope to countless Americans in his day, and providing inspiration today.
Copyright © 2021 by Edward P. Moser
Ed’s book A to Z of America:
https://www.amazon.com/Patriots-America-Things-American-Should/dp/1596525495
Ed’s latest book, the White House’s Unruly Neighborhood:
https://www.amazon.com/White-Houses-Unruly-Neighborhood-Lafayette/dp/1476674868/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1555118270&sr=1-1-catcorr
