like a veteran. His skill and daring were the
talk of the village. One day James Younger, a ship-owning merchant from
Whitehaven, then a principal seaport on the neighboring coast of
England, visited Arbigland, in search of seamen for one of his vessels.
It happened on that day that Paul Jones was out in his yawl when a
severe squall arose. Mr. Younger and the villagers watched the boy bring
his small sailing-boat straight against the northeaster into the harbor;
and Mr. Younger expressed his surprise to Paul's father, who remarked:
"That's my boy conning the boat, Mr. Younger. This isn't much of a
squall for him." The result was that Mr. Younger took Paul back with him
to Whitehaven, bound shipmaster's apprentice. A little while after that,
Paul Jones made his first of a series of merchant-ship voyages to the
colonies and the West Indies. He continued in Mr. Younger's employ for
four years; when he was seventeen he made a round voyage to America as
second mate, and was first mate a year later.

Paul left Mr. Younger's service in 1766 and acquired a sixth interest in
a ship called King George's Packet, in which he went, as first mate, to
the West Indies. The business instinct, always strong in him, received
some satisfaction during this voyage by the transportation of blacks
from Africa to Jamaica, where they were sold as slaves. The slave-trade
was not regarded at that time as dishonorable, but Jones's eagerness to
engage in "any private enterprise"--a phrase constantly used by him--was
not accompanied by any keen moral sensitiveness. He was always in
pursuit of private gain or immediate or posthumous honor, and his grand
sentiments, of which he had many, were largely histrionic in type. After
one more voyage he gave up the slave-trading business, probably because
he realized that no real advancement lay in that line.

On the John O'Gaunt, in which Jones shipped for England, after leaving
Jamaica, the captain, mate, and all but five of the crew died of yellow
fever, and the ship was taken by Paul into Whitehaven. For this he
received a share in the cargo, and in 1768, when he was twenty-one years
old, the owners of the John (a merchantman sailing from the same port)
gave him command, and in her he made several voyages to America. Life on
a merchantman is rough enough to-day, and was still rougher at that
time. To maintain discipline at sea requires a strong hand and a not too
gentle tongue, and Jones was fully equipped