John Paul Jones: The Father of America’s Navy

today's video is sponsored by dashlane you guys can get 50 off the cost of a dashlane premium plan more on them in just a bit every once in a while a story comes along that seems too good to be true that can't be real you think that has to be made up but yet incredibly sometimes it isn't such is the case with john paul jones america's first naval hero this swashbuckling character from the last years of the age of sale looks like he walked right off the page in an adventure novel and he certainly had his share of adventures born in scotland sailing under the flag of the united states fated by french royalty and kissing the hand of the empress of russia he wasn't the kind of man you'd want as your boss demanding temperamental light on praise and heavy on criticism even his closest confidant privately thought he was self-centered and boring but in command of a ship especially in the heart of battle his skill was unmatched the british dismissed him as a pirate but they were also immensely afraid of what he might do to them his victories over the british royal navy the most powerful the world had ever seen was so spectacular people were still talking about them centuries after they happened so much so that his example is still followed by the modern iteration of the united states army in the southwestern corner of scotland situated along the solway firth that forms part of its historic border with england lies county galloway one of the many plum sea side estates that lined the coast of galloway was arbi lands owned by a man named william craig craig's well-respected gardener a man named john paul lived in a comfortable cottage not far from the main house a barbecueland and is there that john and his wife jean welcomed their fourth child also named john paul into the world on july 6 1747. john paul jr as he was known then certainly had a pleasant childhood at our big land as he had nothing but foreign memories of the place in his later life but his ambitions were set higher than that of a gardener like many boys his age he craved adventure and a few things were more adventurous in those days than a career at sea the lack of affluent connections kept him from a commission in the royal navy to that institution's later regret so instead he signed on with the merchant marines in 1761 aged 13 the common age to start an apprenticeship in those days after a number of years cruising back and forth across the atlantic in trading vessels in 1768 john found himself stuck in kingston jamaica without a job he'd quit his last job in disgust upon arrival and it isn't hard to see why sailing on board a slave ship was an unpleasant business even if a man didn't find the practices of slavery and abominable trade as john paul later confessed he did left with attaway to get home he accepted the offer of a free passage back to scotland on board the tiny brig john and it's here where fortune first smiled upon our hero on the trip home both the master and the first mate of the ship died of illness and the ship was thrown into a panic because nobody else on board knew how to navigate an important yet complex skill for a sailor to learn in the 18th century nobody that was except for their passenger john paul who took over command and skillfully guided the vessel back home the briggs owners were so grateful that they gave him the job of commanding the ship permanently at the tender age of 21 the young man was on his way the young captain's first brush with trouble came in 1770 at the end of his second voyage in command of john paul at the ship's carpenter mungo maxwell flogged with a whip for an offense committed on board maxwell complained to authorities in tobago that the captain was unnecessarily cruel in his punishment which was dismissed but that wasn't the end of the story while traveling home on board another ship maxwell became ill and died when maxwell's father heard what had happened he decided that his son's death had been caused by the flogging despite no evidence that the two incidents were related when paul returned to scotland he was arrested and imprisoned to await trial on murder charges fortunately though he was able to make bell a few days later and received permission from the court to travel to tobago to acquire affidavits attesting to his innocence in the matter which was quietly dropped later for lack of evidence but the story that he had once flogged a man to death would follow him for the rest of his career captain paul moved on to bigger and better things specifically command of the larger ship betsy with which he did a brisk business over the course of the next two years building himself a small fortune in the process a few more years of this could have seen paul save up enough money to retire from the lonesome and dangerous business of seafaring to live the life he really wanted that of a gentleman farmer not unlike william craig of arab england when he grew up but a deadly incident aboard his ship changed the entire trajectory of his life while dr tobago in october 1773 the crew of the betsy asked the captain for partial payment of their wages so they could spend it on shore probably in the mana sailors on shores are want to do on alcohol and women of ill repute but the captain short on cash wanting to preserve what he had to invest in the return cargo refused insisting that they would all be paid the full amount once the ship returned to london this sent the crew into a rage and a brawl broke out between one of the sailors and captain paul that ended when the captain ran the man through with his sword killing him paul would always claim the killing had been done in self-defense but that man whose name has been lost to history was popular with the local island populace and that not fear of judicial punishment was what compelled him to flee tobago leaving his ship his money and almost all of his worldly possessions behind one wonders if there might be more to this story since the only definitive account we have at the incident comes from a letter the captain wrote years later but we will most likely never know what really happened in any case our hero ended up in america living inside his dead brother's house in friedrichsburg virginia already he had decided to change his name going by jon jones for a time while he laid low and waited for the tobago incident to blow over at some point he evidently decided to simply use both his original surname and his new one at the same time and for the rest of his life he was known as john paul jones alright we'll get back to today's video in a second but first here's a word from today's sponsor dashlane perhaps you notice that like me you spend a lot of time on the internet maybe you're on youtube google and you know all of the streaming services stuff like that look i don't know about you but it's hard for me to remember all the passwords to all of those things perhaps you can relate dashlane gives you more time and better 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dashlane and now let's get back to today's video [Music] jones's flight to america came just as the dispute between the 13 colonies and the mother country had been growing increasingly ugly both sides continued to up the ante until violence erupted in massachusetts in april 1775. the continental congress were not formally declaring themselves independent just yet still sought to defend themselves from britain's aggression by creating a continental army commanded by george washington and a corresponding continental navy commanded by a rhode island sailor named essec hopkins the new navy needed experienced sailors to serve his officers and john paul jones just happened to be a very experienced sailor in desperate need of a new job it was a match made in heaven in august 1775 jones traveled to philadelphia to seek a naval commission it took him a few months but he got one in december being appointed as a first lieutenant and given a temporary ship command the continental navy was in trouble from the very beginning for a number of reasons its opponent the british royal navy was without question the world's best and most powerful with her chief rivals in france spain and the netherlands all lagging far behind for over a century the crowd had invested heavily in her wooden walls to protect the island's country from invasion and to oversee the vast trade network that stretched across the world and made london the richest city in europe by contrast the americans had to start totally from scratch since it wasn't like the british kept spare warship sitting around for them to take and they were perpetually short of everything sales cannons gun powder and especially manpower in addition to the continental navy congress and the individual colonies gave letters of bark to private ships to serve as privateers on their behalf this practice a form of legalized piracy authorized privateers to capture enemy shipping and keep the proceeds which provided the dual benefit of hurting the enemy's commercial interest at minimal government expense the problem was for a sailor service on a privateer was much preferable to duty on a naval vessel discipline was more lacks it was generally safer and it paid much better as a result the continental navy would struggle to recruit sailors for the duration of the revolutionary war jones spent 1776 engaged in various naval adventures following a stint as first lieutenant aboard a converted merchant ship alfred where he participated in a surprise raid on nassau in the bahamas he was given command of the slu providence and ordered to conduct similar business in newfoundland home to british fishing vessels this was a very profitable venture for both jones and his group the practice of capturing enemy ships as prizes sending them to friendly ports and selling the ship and cargo for prize money was a very lucrative business in the age of sale successful captains made far more money from prizes than from monthly pay and so did everyone else on board after this he made another cruise as commander of alfred taking more prizes and doing more damage to british shipping while slipping out of the hands of various royal navy vessels that tried to stop him in these cruises he showed his superior seamanship but also his inability to get along with other people commodore hopkins received so many complaints from men who served unto jones about his conduct that he wrote to congress saying that it was going to be difficult to convince anyone to serve under him again this wasn't just driven by jones incredible temper but also by regionalism on the part of the americans in a world where everyone knew all their neighbors and didn't trust anyone from the next county over to do riot by them jones was a foreigner a stranger in america who nobody knew the solution according to john hancock president of the congress was to send jones to france where benjamin franklin was conducting a treaty of alliance with king louis xvi the french had promised to support the americans by providing war material including ships and the thought was to send captain jones to command one of those but how to get him there jones was offered command of a newly completed sloop ranger that was being fitted out in portsmouth new hampshire after much trouble getting her ready for sea ranger finally left port in november 1777. just over a month later captain jones was in paris what would become his favorite place on earth he took to french culture immediately the fine food and wine the elegance and majesty of the court of versailles and of course the many sexual intrigues of french noble women he also took to 70 year old ben franklin leader of the american delegation to france and already the most talked about man in europe they had much in common franklin also appreciated the finer points of parisian society and all the delights carnal and otherwise that came wisdom franklin jones tried to get a suitable new ship for him out of the french but nothing came of it perhaps in order to get their new allies attention an example was needed of what the new american navy was capable of and jones had the perfect idea we will never know what john paul jones's capabilities were as a strategic planner of naval operations since he was never in command of a large battle fleet at any point in his career but the plan he put forward suggests that had he been given the chance he would have excelled at it jones knew that his country's navy would never be able to go gun to gun with the royal navy they couldn't defend their own coastline from blockade they would have to rely on their french allies for that but what the americans could do was attack places that weren't well defended and forced them to stretch their resources the more ships that were detached to defend the west indies for instance the fewer that could be used to harass american ports captain jones proposed something even more audacious to raid the british coastline itself to tweak the nose of the lion he would make the british public howl so loudly that the royal navy would have to send an entire fleet to chase after him with no better ship in the offing jones returned to ranger which wasn't particularly happy to see him her crew wanted to go home and if they couldn't do that they wanted to hunt merchant vessels to chase prize money like privateers they certainly didn't want to follow after mad jones and his crazy schemes that was exactly what they had to do when ranger got underway in april 1778. he boldly sailed into the irish sea the very heart of enemy territory ranger tailed around with impunity for a few days not drawing attention to herself while jones waited on an opportunity when no ships appeared that he could take jones decided to try something even more bold he would raid the english seaboard of whitehaven on the solway firth he was intimately familiar with the ports since it was where he'd first sailed out of back when he'd first joined the merchant marines and he knew it was home to a large fishing plate on the night of april 22nd 1778 jones led a raiding party of 40 men ashore where they spiked the cannons of the fort and set fire to as many of the ships as they could in the harb before being chased off by a mob of townspeople who fired wildly at them as they rode back to the ranger the fires were soon extinguished and the actual damage done was minimal but it was the first time a hostile force had landed on british shores in over a hundred years and it sent its citizenry into panic jones was not done yet the next day he sailed to mary's al on the other side of the first attempting to kidnap the earl of selkirk in order to exchange him for american naval prisoners being held in british jails as pirates upon discovering the earl was not home his men carried off the household silver plate as booty the day after that the americans spotted hms drake a 20-gun sloop and allowed her to come within pistol range before opening fire after a fight that lasted for an hour drake surrendered after a captain and first mate were both killed jones sailed back to france after that prize in tow easily evading the royal navy ships dispatched to intercept him and leaving chaos in his wake [Music] if the british thought that jones first cruise into their waters was bad they hadn't seen anything yet in august 1779 jones prepared to sorty again after a year of preparations having sent ranger back to the united states jones was given a new ship by the french bert chipman converted into a 40-gun warship the ship was christened bonhoen richard in honor of benjamin franklin using the french translation of his pen name poor richard four other ships made up commodore jones's raiding squadron who planned to repeat his performance from a year before on a grander scale his mission was supposed to be a distraction from a planned invasion of southeast england by the french army and navy which ended up never getting underway as disease devastated the sailors packed on the warships but jones didn't let this deter him he sailed up the western coast of ireland and scotland taking prizes as he went before heading into the north sea and sailing down the eastern coast of scotland in september his squadron appeared in the firth of fourth intending to hold the town of laith to ransom leith was the principal port of the city of edinburgh which despite being the historic capital and largest city in scotland was woefully under-defended scotland not being permitted a militia since a failed rebellion against king george in 1745. only a contrary wind prevented jones from either collecting a rich ransom or laying waste to the town with heated cannonballs that would set it afar on september 23 1779 jones squadron was south of the city of scarborough sailing around a spit of land known as flambera head this is when the lookout spotted something a large merchant convoy of 40 ships was coming in from the baltic if jones could capture even a few of these floating treasure chests he and his men would be rich beyond all imagination but the merchantmen were being guarded by two royal navy vessels which would have to be dealt with first the leadership of the convoy was hms serapis a newly built frigate of 50 guns her captain richard pearson positioned her so she was between the convoy and the enemy squadron making it obvious that he intended to fight it was like a red flag in front of a bull for john paul jones one of the most celebrated battles in u.s navy history was about to take place it was dark by the time the combatants had closed on each other a nearly full moon rising over relatively calm seas jones and bonhomme richard faced off against serapis while his support vessels took on the other warship the 20 gun counters of scarborough the battle started off badly for the americans one of richard's cannons exploded killing many sailors and doing a great deal of damage the gun deck not trusting his remaining cannons jones realized his only chance of victory was to grapple alongside the serapis and board her the british meanwhile poured broadside after broadside into the bonhomme richard killing more men both ships engaged in a series of frantic maneuvers to gain an advantage colliding with each other several times during one of these clinches the british captain asked if jones had struck his colours which would indicate he wished to surrender jones replied heatedly i have not yet begun to fight and he hadn't the two ships collided again this time getting stuck exactly what jones wanted the americans fired muskets and threw hand grenades onto the deck of serapis soon causing the british decks to run red with blood it was an uncommonly violent struggle for naval combat of the period and it lasted a long time over three hours at one point a rumor went around recharged that jones was dead and a junior officer went looking for the ship's colours not realizing that they'd been shot away in the fighting jones was not dead merely exhausted and he pulled out a pistol apparently ready to shoot the offending officer who dared to contemplate surrendering his ship he thought better of it though merely throwing the gun of the man instead knocking him down at one point one of the other american ships alliance came alongside the struggle and looking to help fired her cannons in the direction of serapis unfortunately the broadsides did as much damage to bonhomme richard as it did to the british it led to later speculation that alliance's captain who hated jones had deliberately fired in his commander's vessel to try and kill him and therefore take the glory for himself finally a terrific explosion tore through the lower decks of serapis killing and wounding many sailors a lucky grenade tars had landed in a pile of unscrewed gunpowder bags igniting them that effectively ended the fight as captain pearson soon called for quarters jones had captured therapists but it had cost him his own ship bonom richard had so many holes blown in her that water was coming in faster than it could be pumped out the next day the order was given to abandoned ship and jones sadly watched as the brave ship slipped beneath the waves the merchant fleet on the other hand made it to port safely with only the two royal navy ships lost [Music] the capture of serapis was the high point of john paul jones's career though he was honored by both the french and american government jealous intrigue from fellow navy captains prevented him from being promoted to the rank of rear admiral he was also left without a ship to command as most of the continental navy had been destroyed or captured and what wasn't was sold off or scrapped after the war ended in 1783. maintaining it was simply too expensive for the fledging republic's finances to bear jones would eventually become an admiral in the imperial russian navy of catherine the great she was hiring foreign naval officers to serve in our war against the ottoman empire and not many of them especially not the british ones were eager to serve alongside jones the pirate jones himself made things worse with his abrasive personality and soon a campaign was underway to ruin his reputation he was accused of rape by a girl in some petersburg probably a prostitute frequented by jones who was put up to it by his political enemies though he was eventually cleared of the charge the scandal proved the end of his russian naval career doane spent the last years of his life in paris now greatly changed by the convulsions of the french republic it was a sad existence living in an apartment alone with almost no friends and few people to keep him company consummate sailor had many mistresses throughout his life but never married and if he had any bastard children out there that he acknowledged it has escaped the notice of historians the truth was nobody wanted to talk to jones anymore because they found him boring for all his talents the man had a truly colossal ego and all it seemed he ever wanted to talk about was himself he select contacts in america most importantly secretary of state thomas jefferson and if his health hadn't failed him he might have been able to come back into the spotlight but alas it was not to be on july the 18th 1792 jones died of kidney inflammation at the age of 45. he was buried in a protestant cemetery outside the city his grave built over after the cemetery closed during the reign of napoleon that might have been the end of the story but in 1905 the u.s ambassador to france horace porter sponsored a project to find jones's remains the pressure officials had taken the precaution to bury jones in a lead coffin in case the united states ever wanted to repatriate his remains over a century later when the coffin was on earth the body was so well preserved pathologists were able to perform an autopsy on it then jones was buried across the atlantic on board the uss brooklyn to annapolis maryland annapolis is home to the u.s naval academy and president theodore roosevelt famous advocate for u.s naval power believed there was no better place for the country's first naval hero to be laid to rest after all in the hundred years since jones death the u.s navy had become one of the mightiest in the world and the exploits of john paul jones were celebrated in navy law in a way that they weren't when he was alive in 1913 jonpal jones was formally interred in an elaborate marble and bronze tomb underneath the academy chapel surrounded by his laurels and mementos of his battles the inscription on the floor of his crypt reads he gave our navy its earliest traditions heroism and victory a fitting epitaph for the man often referred to as the father of the united states navy [Music] now just before you leave today maybe looking for something else to watch why not check out my new channel called wara graphics want to know all of the details about some of history's most famous battles and wars come join me on war of graphics from sherman's march to the sea to operation barbarossa it's got people fighting each other or occasionally animals we will cover it there is a link below

Channel: Biographics

Views: 176,103

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler

Id: dHJCG8VvNUk

Length: 22min 8sec (1328 seconds)

Published: Thu May 26 2022