captain died. The mate, who comes next to
the captain, died; all of the sailors were sick, and some of them died.
There was no one who knew about sailing such a big vessel, except young
John Paul. So he took command and sailed the ship into port without an
accident, and the owners were so glad that they made the young sailor
captain of the ship which he had saved for them.

John Paul was not the only one of his family who loved America. He had a
brother who had crossed the ocean and was living in Virginia, on the
banks of the Rappahannock River. This was the same river beside which
George Washington lived when a boy. The young captain visited his
brother several times while he was sailing on his voyages, and he liked
the country so much that, when his brother died, he gave up being a
sailor for a while, and went to live on his brother's farm.

When he became a farmer, he changed his name to Jones. Why he did so
nobody knows. But he ever after bore the name of John Paul Jones. He
made this one of the best known names in the history of the seas.

I doubt if he was a very good farmer. He was too much of a sailor for
that. So, when the American Revolution began, he was eager to fight the
British on the seas. There was no nation at that time so powerful on the
sea as England. The King had a splendid fleet of ships of war--almost a
thousand. The United States had none. But soon the Americans got
together five little ships, and sent them out as the beginning of the
American navy, to fight the ships of England.

John Paul Jones was made first lieutenant of a ship called the _Alfred_.
He had the good fortune to hoist for the first time on any ship, the
earliest American flag. This was a great yellow silk flag which had on
it the picture of a pine tree with a rattlesnake coiled around it, and
underneath were the words: "Don't tread on me!"

Then the grand union flag of the colonies was set. This had thirteen red
and white stripes, like our present flag, but, instead of the stars, in
the corner it had the British "union jack." Thus there was a link on the
flag between the colonies and England. They had not quite cut apart.

[Illustration: JOHN PAUL JONES.]

Jones had first been offered the command of the _Providence_, a brig
that bore twelve guns and had a crew of one hundred men. But he showed
the kind of man he was by saying that he did not know enough to be a
captain, and was hardly fit to be a first lieutenant. That was