ntervened before he sailed again,--a time he devoted to
business and society. As Jones and his interesting midshipman Fanning
separated at the end of this period, the latter's final impressions of
his captain may here be given:--

"Captain Jones was a man of about five feet six inches high, well shaped
below his head and shoulders, rather round shouldered, with a visage
fierce and warlike, and wore the appearance of great application to
study, which he was fond of. He was an excellent seaman and knew naval
tactics as well as almost any man of his age; but it must be allowed
that his character was somewhat tinctured with bad qualities ... his
courage and bravery as a naval commander cannot be doubted. His
smoothness of tongue and flattery to seamen when he wanted them was
persuasive, and in which he excelled any other man I was ever acquainted
with.... His pride and vanity while at Paris and Amsterdam was not
generally approved of."

Fanning has many anecdotes to relate in regard to Jones's affairs of
gallantry of an humble character. Several of Jones's biographers have
dwelt upon the gorgeous and aristocratic nature of the hero's amours.
Fanning has the solitary distinction of narrating the other side. Jones,
indeed, was a good deal of a snob, but he was broadly appreciative of
the fair sex. He probably was never deeply in love with anybody,
certainly not with any woman of humble character. Of such his
appreciation was of a simple and earthly kind.

Although Jones seems to have had no intimate friends, with possibly one
exception, there certainly was about him a very strong charm, which made
him a favorite in good society. He had a flattering tongue, a ready wit,
and a gallant manner. Of Jones's attractions Benjamin Franklin once
wrote to a woman:--

"I must confess to your Ladyship that when face to face with him neither
man nor, so far as I can learn, woman can for a moment resist the
strange magnetism of his presence, the indescribable charm of his
manner, a commingling of the most compliant deference with the most
perfect self-esteem that I have ever seen in a man; and, above all, the
sweetness of his voice and the purity of his language."

Mr. Varnum of Rhode Island, who met Jones only in connection with public
business, said of him:--

"I confess there was a magic about his way and manner that I have never
before seen. Whatever he said carried conviction with it."

Even more sensible of Jones's charms than