an.
While the engagement of the Richard and Serapis was going on, the
Pallas, better officered than the Alliance, captured the other English
vessel, the Countess of Scarborough. The two prizes were carried to
the Texel, where the squadron enjoyed the uneasy protection of
Holland. Jones himself had a more satisfactory reception in an
enthusiastic greeting on the Exchange at Amsterdam, and a brilliant
triumph, illuminated by the smiles of the fair sex, shortly after in
Paris. In October, 1780, he left for America in the Ariel, bearing
with him a gift from the king, a gold-mounted sword, with the
inscription on the blade: _Vindicati Maris Ludovicus XVI. Remunerator
Strenuo Vindici_--"Louis XVI., rewarder, to the valiant defender of a
liberated sea." The voyage was interrupted, at its outset, by a severe
storm off the harbor, in which Jones displayed his usual heroism. The
vessel was refitted, and after a partial action on the high seas with
a mysterious stranger, reached Philadelphia in February, 1781.
In 1787 he left America with the intention of serving under Louis.
When he reached Paris, he was met by a proposition to enter the
service of Catherine of Russia, in which he was induced to engage by
prospects of rank and glory. On his journey to St. Petersburg, he had
a characteristic adventure in his passage from Stockholm to Revel,
which he made while the navigation was interrupted by ice, traversing
the sea, with great hardihood, in an open boat, extorting the labors
of the boatmen by his threats of violence. He was well received by the
Empress, who forwarded him to Potemkin, then in command on the Black
Sea, in a war with the Turks. It is not necessary to recount the
movements of a small squadron, with a divided command and jealous
counsels, presided over by a whimsical, despotic court favorite. Many
as were the vexations encountered by Jones in the inefficient
resources, the shifts and expedients of foreign allies, and the
straits of the American commissioners, they were light compared with
the stifling restraints of Russian tyranny. Jones did much fighting,
in his command of the Wolodomer, on the Black Sea, against the Pasha,
but retired with little glory. Persecution followed at St.
Petersburg--there was an assault upon his moral character, which was
triumphantly disproved--various projects flitted through his teeming
mind, and his connection with the country closed after a residence of
fifteen months. It is sad
|