"I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight!": THE SAGA OF JOHN PAUL JONES

Sea Classics, Aug 2006 by Cuddy, Don

Part One

England may have been mistress of the seas, but the sea itself was the mistress of John Paul, and he would have done battle for her on a plank with a broomstick mast and probably would have won!

The cabin door was shoved aside and a hulking, bare-chested seaman leered at the captain of the Betsy. The captain frowned when he recognized the intruder. "It is customary to ask permission to enter the captain's cabin," he said sharply.

The Liverpool wharf-rat's hands rose to his hips in a gesture of defiance. "By yer leave, Cap'n Paul," he snarled, "this h'ain't no proper Royal Navy flagship, y'know!" His bare feet shuffled across the planked deck.

John Paul's knuckles whitened as he gripped the desk cluttered with cargo manifests. "The next time you enter without permission," he warned, "I shall have you flogged. Report to the mate and consider yourself under open arrest."

"Haw!" the seaman jeered. "The mate sent me, Cap'n! We wants our wages and we ain't going to take no more excuses."

John Paul's Scottish chin tilted contemptuously. "When cargo is sold, wages will be given - not before. You will be paid off for this insolence."

The seaman gloated. "Like Mungo Maxwell was paid off, Cap'n? You won't get none o' the Betsys crew to take the 'tails to me."

John Paul rose rigidly. "It is mutiny if my orders are not obeyed."

"Mutiny be damned, we wants our wages. You and yer fancy..."

"Leave this cabin at once."

"Not 'til we gets our wages."

Captain Paul reached for his sword and belt. "Then I shall excuse you myself!" he snapped, as he buckled on the sword.

"Up yer tuppy!" the seaman snarled. He dodged and fled through the door with Capt. Paul in pursuit. His quarry ran nimbly up the ladder to the quarterdeck, seized a marlinspike from the rail and charged the hatchway. The captain ducked the first vicious swipe but stumbled on the combing. As he drew his sword from the scabbard and thrust it out in front of him, striving to regain his balance, the seaman charged, swinging the spike. A shriek rose in the man's throat as his momentum skewered him on the steel. He was dead before it sounded.

Captain Paul braced himself as the spitted seaman sagged against the guard and slipped to the quarterdeck. The blade was bloody to the hilt. Drops of blood splashed from its point upon the quarterdeck.

Three crewmen and the mate gazed at the corpse in hushed fascination. "You saw it?" John Paul asked. "He attacked me and, in defending myself, I lost my balance and ran him through."

The witnesses glanced nervously at the mate. He spoke deliberately. "We only saw you come on deck and cut him down. Poor devil did nothing 'cept be murdered."

Fourteen years earlier, in 1759, twelve-year-old John Paul, Jr., was learning the ways of the sea by sailing fishing ketches on Solway Firth on the southwest coast of Scotland in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright.

He was a vigorous, introspective lad, fond of poetry, Naval history and sailing across Solway Firth to the grubby English port of Whitehaven. On one such venture, his seamanship attracted the attention of John Younger, a Whitehaven merchant, who offered the likely lad a berth on the brigantine Friendship. It was not unusual for a lad of twelve to be apprenticed, so the arrangement was made and the sea had another boy to make into a man. At 21, John Paul got his first command, a brigantine shuttling from England to the West Indies. His responsibilities weighed heavily on the youthful captain and, in his efforts to win the respect of a rough, salty crew, he played the part of a martinet somewhat too enthusiastically. While taking on cargo in the port of Tobago in the Windward Isles, he had the aging ship's carpenter, Mungo Maxwell, flogged for some petty insubordination. The carpenter went ashore and promptly filed a complaint with the Vice-Admiralty court. It was promptly dismissed.

But two weeks later, when the unfortunate man died of fever, the rest of the crew, stirred by the high-handed discipline of their young master, grumbled that the carpenter's death was a direct consequence of the beating he had received. Nothing ever came of the charge, but it did have the effect of coloring the reputation of John Paul in Tobago.

Now, five years later, as he stared at the dead mutineer at his feet and saw the hostility in the faces around him, the implication was clear to young Capt. Paul. If a second charge of murder was filed with the authorities at Tobago, his future in the British maritime service would be bleak indeed.

With his sword held ready, he retreated to his cabin and secured the door. An hour later, a cabin boy carried his luggage dockside and young Capt. Paul left the Betsy for the last time.

His first act was to go to a friend, a former surrogate of Tobago, and tell his version of the accident. Later that night, after making some official inquiries around the city, the friend gave John Paul some sober advice. "Without a doubt your actions will stand up in court. The danger is, will the case ever reach court? I can tell you that mutinous crew of yours is spreading some ugly rumors about you along the waterfront. Even now, there is a certain element agitating for vengeance. Remember, this is a sailor's town. The sympathy is all with the dead man. I wouldn't depend on the authorities to protect you.'