and the perfection of the telescope, have betrayed to the eyes of the philosopher, unveiled to the sight of the idolator. There is a sublime and awful mystery, a sort of poetical swell, accompanying the recollection of great men of whom little is known, except that they were great by the concurring testimony of generations, that far outweighs the reputation of those of whom we know every thing. There is a littleness. about minuteness-there is so much that great men do exactly like other men-so much of trifle even in the details of important affairs-so vast a portion of every man's existence is filled up by nothingness-that when the whole of it is placed before our eyes, we are very apt to suppose that he who did so many common things like common people, was in reality but a common being. There are stopping places in the life of a great man, as on every great road, and if the space between is a dead flat, the traveller had better shut his eyes until he comes to the baiting spot, rather than strain his vision to catch something on one side or the other, worthy a place in his journal. Had it not been for Boswell, doctor Johnson would have been a great moralist, instead of a great bear, and we should have read his sublime precepts without the everlasting accompaniment of the growl, which that faithful follower has so minutely described.

Paul Jones, though neither a demigod, or bear, and not much of a moralist, that we know of, was yet a man of note in his time. He was honoured at the courts of princes, and we beg such of our readers as consider this as incontestible proof of merit, to bear it in mind. His name is familiar to the children of this country, and let me tell you, that this is no small proof of the root which a man's name has taken in the soil. The favourite books, and the favourite names of the young, are among those apt to live the longest-as the games of children pass down from age to age without ever being lost, and in truth without ever being varied. Be this as it may, we remember many years ago, to have seen in the small bookstores of the cities, stuck up at the windows, a little book

called An Account of the Life of Paul Jones, with a frontispiece placed against the inside of the glass, wherein he is represented on the deck of a ship, in the very act of shooting lieutenant Grubb through the head.

This picture impressed his name upon our minds when very young, and as we grew up his reputation assumed in our estimation a more authentic and definite character. But it lost in brilliancy what it gained in truth. It was then we became used to hear of him as a renegado, a freebooter, brave indeed, to desperation, but paying little regard to the rules of civilized warfare, and still less to the rights and feelings of humanity. In the British, and anglo-American magazines, and newspapers of those times, he appears in the character of a lawless pirate, whose courage and daring entitled him to no other fame, but what might be derived from an association with Blackbeard or the renowned captain Kyd, for whose buried treasures, some people still dig along our coasts. He is stigmatized as a fugitive from justice, as a traitor to his country, as the plunderer of his benefactor, and as a pernicious ungovernable monster, equally beyond the restraints of morality, of public opinion, and private duties.

On the other hand, we have read of his being a very dif ferent sort of a man, and the baron De Grimm, in his correspondence which has lately been published, mentions him as figuring at Paris among men of wit, and women of refinement, where the least grossness of manners would have excluded him, writing poetry, and making himself acceptable to the belles of that famous city.

Of a man so confessedly brave-so often mentioned-so variously represented and so little known-it seemed worth while to know more. But our principal inducement to inquire into his history and character, was a conviction that one had been misrepresented, and the other calumniated. One of the evils of modern warfare is, that it confounds all human character, destroys all distinctions of virtue and vice, and produces a regular system of calumniation, the effects of which re

main rankling in the bosom, long after the real evils of war are forgotten. In this disgraceful contest, all regard to truth is sacrificed-the distinction between the authorized, and unauthorized modes of hostility are lost sight of all that are opposed to us are bad, all that are friendly are good-the one is represented as wanting every virtue-the other as without a stain, and thus the man, who, on one side of a river is little less than a demon, is on the other little less than a divinity. All the ancient courtesy which dignified and adorned the days of chivalry, is lost in the bitterness of this war of words, and like the heroes of Homer, no two nations can now enter the lists without, at the same time, abusing each other like two irritated viragoes. If nations were to content themselves merely with blows, they would be much better friends afterwards. They would forget their bruises and wounds in time; but the abuse which is recorded of each other, is a source of eternal heart-burning, and long after the injuries of war are forgotten, the insults of the press are remembered for future vengeance.

Whatever may have been the defects in the character of Paul Jones, or whatever his demerits towards the country of his birth, from us he deserves at least such a justification as may be warranted by the truth. He served this country well in her hour of peril, and if, in so doing, he broke the ties which bound him to another, is it for us to become his accusers or to listen in silence to the accusation? No duty requires from an individual, or a nation, that they should be ungrateful; nor for our part do we know of any moral obligation, which forbids us to extenuate the faults, or vindicate the fame, of one who was our friend, when friends were valuable in proportion as they were rare. His motives were nothing to the people of the United States, and we will now proceed to the detail of his life and actions, so far as they have come to our knowledge.

John Paul Jones was a native of. Scotland, and was born the 23d of September, 1747, at Selkirk.* His father was a

"See Memoirs of an American Officer." The writer states that he derived this information from a written memorandum from an old book in captain

tenant of the earl of Selkirk, and it is said officiated as gardener to that nobleman. He never, according to his own acknowledgment, went to any regular school; an old maiden aunt who lived in the family taught him to read, and this was all the instruction he received till the age of nine years, when he left his home without taking leave of any living soul, and set forth, with the clothes he had on, and no money, to seek his fortune. The freaks of Fortune, notwithstanding she is railed at as cruelly capricious, are not always ill natured, and those who trust to her guidance with unlimited reliance, often find her an indulgent mother. There are two kinds of people who go forth, as the phrase is, to seek their fortunes: one in reckless desperation, the consequence of disappointments at home, caused by their own want of industry and prudencethe other from a sort of innate consciousness that they are not born to the situation in which accident has placed them, and that the sphere of action allotted to them by birth, is not the one in which nature intended they should figure. The former seldom better their situation, because the same want of prudence generally produces the same effect in every situation; but the latter, relying on their own vigour of mind, often rise to distinctions which seem placed forever beyond their reach by the accident of birth. Those, therefore, who go forth into the world the children of Fortune, are not always prompted by a mere idle impatience of the restraints of home, or the salutary restrictions of parental authority, but often by a secret selfconsciousness, which seems almost ever the accompaniment of superior genius.

Jones having thus at the age of nine years adopted Fortune for his stepmother, bent his way to Leith, where he engaged himself as cabin-boy in a ship engaged in the coal trade. In this situation he continued; at seventeen he was mate

Jones's possession, called "The Way to be Happy in a Miserable World," which was afterwards lost in the Bon Homme Richard. It is also conformable to Jones's verbal declarations.

of a ship, and a captain at nineteen. About five years afterwards, we find him in the command of a large merchantman trading between England and the West Indies. While master of this vessel an unfortunate occurrence took place, which led him to seek refuge in the united colonies, then struggling for independence. It seems that the carpenter had been in fault, and in the course of a punishment which Jones caused to be inflicted upon him, he jumped overboard, and was drowned. On his return to Hull, Jones was arrested and thrown into prison, from whence he made his escape to the United States, being apprehensive that his crew, among whom his severe discipline made him not much of a favourite, would give this af fair a turn that might endanger his life.

During the period which had elapsed between his quitting home, and arriving in America, he had been indefatigable in supplying the deficiencies of his early want of education, and had sedulously employed all his leisure hours in acquiring knowledge. His mind might therefore be said to have been considerably cultivated, and his manners were those of a gentleman. It is not known through whose influence he obtained it, but not long after he was appointed a midshipman, in the first squadron fitted out by congress, under commodore Hopkins, in which he sailed against New Providence. During this expedition, he gained the notice of some of his superior officers, and soon after his return received a commission, and the command of a sloop of war carrying twelve guns. In this vessel he made a successful cruise, capturing and sending in several prizes. Soon after this he received a commission from congress to command a new ship called the Ranger, mounting eighteen six-pounders, and carrying one hundred and fifty men. In this vessel he sailed directly for the coast of England, where he created great alarm, and among other exploits destroyed sixteen vessels in the port of Hull.

It was on this cruise that he caused an attempt to be made to seize the earl of Selkirk at his country seat, with an intention of carrying him to France. As this is one of the transac