for employment in the
trading-port of Whitehaven, in the opposite county of Cumberland.
Paul's first adventure--the appendix of Jones was an after-thought of
his career--was in the service of Mr. Younger, a merchant in the
American trade, who sent his apprentice on a voyage to Virginia, where
an elder brother of Paul had profitably established himself at
Fredericksburg. This gave him an early introduction to the country
with which the fame of the future soldier of fortune was to be
especially identified.

The apprenticeship of Paul was of short duration. The failure of his
employer threw the youth upon his own resources; but he lost no time
in taking care of himself. His studies on shipboard had already
qualified him for the higher duties of the mercantile service; the
slave-trade, the active pursuit of those days, offered him an
engagement; he sailed for the African coast in the King George, a
vessel engaged in this infamous traffic, out of Whitehaven, and in his
nineteenth year was trusted as chief mate of the Two Friends, another
vessel of the trade, belonging to Jamaica. Having carried his human
cargo to the island, sickening of the pursuit, he sailed as a
passenger to Kirkcudbright, in his native district. Opportunities are
always presenting themselves to the watchful and the initiated. The
chief officers of the vessel died of the fever; Paul took command and
carried the ship in safety to the owners. They put him in command of
the brig, the John, on another West India voyage.

Finally, in 1771, he left Scotland never to return to it, save to
carry terror among its population. He proceeded to London; found
employment in the West India trade, and in 1773 settled himself for a
while in Virginia on the estate of his brother, to whom he had now
become heir. This was a grand turning-point of his career, and to
signalize it properly, Paul, who was somewhat of a fanciful turn,
added the name Jones to his proper appellation, John Paul.

On the organization of the infant navy of the United States, in 1775,
John Paul Jones, as he is henceforth to be called, received the
appointment of first of the first lieutenants in the service, in
which, in his station on the flag-ship Alfred, he claimed the honor of
being the foremost, on the approach of the commander-in-chief,
Commodore Hopkins, to raise the new American flag. This was the old
device of a rattle-snake coiled on a yellow ground, with the motto,
_Don't tread on me_, w