Marine Committee, and was very useful in many
ways. He urged strongly the necessity of making a cruise in European
waters for the sake of moral prestige,--he, of course, to be in command
of the squadron. His energy and dashing character made a strong
impression on Lafayette, who was then in the country, and who heartily
supported Jones in the projected scheme. Lafayette was one of the
strongest advocates for an alliance between the colonies and France, and
believed that a fleet fitted out in French ports under the United
States flag would not only help out the weak colonial navy, but would
precipitate war between England and France. He wrote a letter to General
Washington strongly recommending Jones as leader of such an undertaking.
About the same time Jones had an interview with Washington to appeal
against what he deemed another injustice. The Trumbull, one of the fine
new frigates just completed and built in accordance with Jones's
recommendations, was placed under the command of Captain Saltonstall,
who had been captain of the Alfred when Jones was first lieutenant of
the same ship, and against whom the latter had made charges of
incompetence. Jones did not get the Trumbull, but the interview was
probably instrumental in procuring an order from the Marine Committee
for Jones to enlist seamen for a European cruise. On June 14, 1777,
Congress appointed him to the command of the sloop of war Ranger,
eighteen guns, and on the same day the permanent flag of the United
States was determined upon. Jones, as usual, saw his spectacular
opportunity and said: "That flag and I are twins; born the same hour
from the same womb of destiny. We cannot be parted in life or in death.
So long as we can float, we shall float together. If we must sink, we
shall go down as one!"

Jones, with the Ranger, sailed for France under the Stars and Stripes
November 1, 1777, bearing with him dispatches to the American
commissioners, the news of Burgoyne's surrender, and instructions from
the Marine Committee to the commissioners to invest him with a fine
swift-sailing frigate. On his arrival at Nantes he immediately sent to
the commissioners--Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee--a
letter developing his general scheme of annoying the enemy. "It seems to
be our most natural province," he wrote, "to surprise their defenseless
places, and thereby divert their attention and draw it from our own
coasts."

It had been the intention of the c