d also been given him
for small commands, which he had likewise rejected. His manner in doing
so could not exactly be called diplomatic. He wrote M. Chaumont, that
patriotic and benevolent gentleman whom Jones alternately flattered and
reviled, a rather typical letter: "I wish to have no connection with any
ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go _in harm's way_. You
know, I believe, that this is not every one's intention. Therefore buy a
frigate that sails fast, and that is sufficiently large to carry
twenty-six or twenty-eight guns on one deck. I would rather be shot
ashore than sent to sea in such things as the armed prizes I have
described."

The innumerable delays which consequently intervened between his arrival
at Brest, in May, 1778, and his departure on his next cruise a year
later, in June, 1779, put the active Scotchman in a state of constant
irritation. He continued his dunning correspondence with the greatest
energy, alternately cajoling, proposing, complaining, begging to be sent
on some important enterprise. He wrote innumerable letters to de
Sartine, Franklin, the Duc de Rochefoucauld, de Chaumont, and many
others, and finally to the king himself, with whom he afterwards had an
interview. The statement of his wrongs in his letter to the king,
reiterated in letters to many others, involves an account of the many
promises de Sartine had made and broken, and of Jones's various
important proposals for the public good, which had been slighted.

"Thus, sire," he writes, "have I been chained down to shameful
inactivity for nearly five months. I have lost the best season of the
year and such opportunities of serving my country and acquiring honor as
I can hardly expect again in this war; and to my infinite mortification,
having no command, I am considered everywhere an officer cast off and in
disgrace for secret reasons."

Jones's pertinacity and perseverance in working for a command are quite
on a par with his indomitable resolution in battle, and he was finally
rewarded, probably through the king's direct order, by being put in
command of a small squadron, with which he made the cruise resulting in
the capture of the Serapis and in his own fame.

Jones was highly delighted with the appointment, but his troubles
continued in full measure, and to all his troubles Jones gave wide and
frequent publicity. All the ships of his squadron, with the exception of
the Alliance, were French, largely officered