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John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy

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For Evan Thomas to remind readers that John Paul Jones was his own worst enemy, that his vanity, ego and ambition rivaled those of the preening Alexander Hamilton is unnecessary and an understatement. John Paul Jones was, as much as the knowledge pained him, a glory hound. He was also one of the bravest, most skilled and dashing officers in the services of the United States during the Revolutionary War, and Thomas brings the cantankerous, manic-depressive little bulldog to vivid life for today's historians, history buffs and armchair adventurers. The highest highs and lowest lows of Jones's life toss, exalt, thrill, and lurch the reader like an unpredictable sea, and what a wonderful voyage it is!

John Paul Jones is the latest "self-made man" to appear in a biography, following on the heels of Willard Sterne Randall's cumbersome yet well-rendered "Alexander Hamilton: A Life." From humble roots, the son of a Scottish gardener, Jones was determined to rise from under the oppression of the European class system. He gazed out across the magnificent gardens created by his father and saw the ocean, with its seemingly endless horizon -and that is how Jones decided to live the rest of his life: He would expand, grow himself and mold his image anew, as wide as the sea, as broad as the sky.

As much taken with sail and sea as they took him, John Paul Jones was a natural, a gifted sailor who always tried to improve himself, whether his nautical skills, or by reading books to absorb philosophy and seeking the company of men from whom he knew he could learn. Unfortunately, Jones was never able to subdue his passions sufficiently, not sufficiently enough for any self-reflection to temper his sensitivities and thin skin, nor for him to ever cultivate the necessary strengths to achieve his highest ambition: Appointment to the rank of Admiral in the United States Navy. He would have to travel to Russia near the end of his life and enter the service of Catherine the Great to achieve that rank, but as fundamentally flawed and blameful as Jones was, he was not a rank human being. He was steadfast, loyal to his adopted country, America, and never gave in to the easy profit of privateering or ever turned his back on the Stars and Stripes.

He was as big-hearted and melodramatic as he was tragic and romantic, a sometimes womanizer who barely had a head for wine and never drank hard liquor. Like Thomas Jefferson, Jones was a paragon of paradox and yet always was, in the best sense, an American patriot.

It's painful to look on, page after page, reading about Jones's exploits and ideas, tactics and tales, only to see him constantly self-destruct, eventually alienating every single person around him. Nonetheless, Jones knew how to fight in an age where most men achieved rank through connections and lineage, and even though he didn't always win, he won enough: Jones was a tonic for fledgling America, and any other person or power savvy enough to employ his courage.

Sadly, Jones was far from the best judge of character, and often found himself in an impossibly frustrating, nightmarish circumstance because of his own inability to discern veneer from character, though Jones seems to have had plenty of character, and yet constantly coveted superficial laurels of those less worthy. But no matter how badly he may have comported himself, and in spite of how myopic most of his handlers were, blinded to Jones's full potential, "Little Jones" was indeed a mouse that roared.

Whether Jones ever knew it during his life, he certainly reflected the rigid principles of honor to which he held himself and others, and Evan Thomas has written a flowing, absorbing book about John Paul Jones, a man who cherished freedom above all else, and helped bring it to so many others.

Author Evan Thomas's account of the life of John Paul Jones is an excellent narrative historical biography that brings to life yet another colorful personality from the American Revolution. Like his contemporary, Alexander Hamilton, Jones was a vain, contentious and controversial figure of humble origins who rubbed many of those who knew him the wrong way. He also happened to be a rare and valuable commodity in Revolutionary America in that he was a man who actually knew how to fight.

As Thomas dramatically illustrates, Jones was virtually the only captain among the Americans to have any success against the Royal Navy. Jones's raids against the British home isles and his daring defeats in two diferent battles against Royal Navy battleships made him famous world wide. Thomas's detailed accounts of the naval battles are particularly gripping. And while Jones most likely never said the famous words, "I have not yet begun to fight," that does not detract from his heroic refusal to surrender his ship in what was perhaps the bloodiest naval battle of the age of sail.

Thomas tracks Jones's entire life, from his childhood as the son of a Scottish gardner, to his time as a merchant ship captain through his Revolutionary exploits to the last, bizarre chapter in his life when he became an Admiral in the Russian fleet against the Turks. Thomas is evenhanded in his descriptions of Jones, detailing his many faults in addition to his triumphs. In the end, the picture that emerges is of an essentially noble individual whose insecurities made him his own worst enemy. At just over 300 pages of narrative, the book is a relatively quick read and also has plenty of illustrations.

Overall, an outstanding historical biography that should be enjoyed by history buffs and even by more casual readers.

In my opinion these are the best new history books of the last year (in no specific order): Evan Thomas, JOHN PAUL JONES; Simon Winchester, KRAKATOA; James Loewen, LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME; Joel Hayward, FOR GOD AND GLORY; Anthony Beevor, THE FALL OF BERLIN. Thomas and Hayward analyse outstanding warriors (John Paul Jones and Lord Nelson, and do so with all the talents one expects of writers).

Empathetically and skilfully, Thomas has portrayed John Paul Jones with much more psychological credibility and consistency than the previous "standard" biographer, the patrician Samuel Eliot Morison. We now see a new J-P-Jones: he's a real Jones, a flawed Jones; a great Jones.
The author visited Jones's birthplace in Scotland and spent time aboard sailing ships (he's an accomplished sailor, anyway); he revisited a wealth of documentation. He tried to get inside the man's mind. The resulting portrait of a ruthlessly ambitious, social-climbing naval genius with almost no fear is essential reading for anyone wondering how America's great fleets ever came to dominate the seas.

Get this book, and Edgar Vincent's "Nelson: Love and Fame" and Joel Hayward's "For God and Glory: Lord Nelson and His Way of War", and you have the three best books on naval warriors written in many years.

It would not be easy to write a biography on a man such as this. John Paul Jones did tremendous things for the American cause, and stood by his adopted country's navy even while being repeatedly mistreated and stabbed in the back by the likes of John Hancock, Edward Bancroft, and others. There is no explanation for Jones's loyalty, except to say that he was in it for glory. In fact, this seems to have been the motivation behind most of Jones's exploits. Still, vainglorious as the man was, there is no denying that he made a tremendous contribution to the American Revolution.

Evan Thomas handles his subject well, and seems mostly fair in his treatment of Jones. Still, he cannot help indulging in what is an all-too-common practice in historical biography these days. Thomas does not hesitate to throw his own thoughts in and add a little detail which enriches the narrative but not the history. Describing at times what Jones was feeling, what he wanted to do, how the weather affected him, and other details is stretching it a bit, given there is no way anyone can know these things for sure. Despite this shortcoming, however, this book is an entertaining read, and certainly worth the time to learn of one of the great unsung heroes of the Revolutionary War. It is nothing short of tragic that Jones was driven by an ungrateful America into service with the cruel Catherine the Great. This issue, along with many others, is treated in Thomas's book.

This book is as good as Joel Hayward's acclaimed new work on Lord Nelson called "For God and Glory". Both say something NEW about their subjects, and both are meticulously documented and expertly and engagingly written.

John Paul was the son of a Scottish gardener, born in 1747. With little fortune, no prospects of getting an education, and facing a rigid hierarchy he could not break, his prospects of doing anything else than his father's career were unlikely. The one limited prospect of advancement was going to sea, which he did at age 13. It was his place to excel; he was careful, deliberate, and punctiliously neat. His flight to success worked; even though he had to change his name while he was on the run for a murder charge, John Paul Jones can be counted as one of the Founding Fathers. In the biography _John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy_ (Simon and Schuster), Evan Thomas has insightfully examined Jones's ambitious climb, and the other side of ambition's coin, his vanity, which halted the climb from going as far as Jones had aimed. In balancing both sides, Thomas has produced a model biography of America's most famous sailor.

John Paul had to work the lowest levels in the Royal Navy, sailing slave ships. In 1774, he killed a mutinous sailor off Tobago, and his career was over. He fled to Virginia as John Paul Jones. His timing was fortunate; by 1775 the Continental Congress had a starting fleet and needed officers; he was commissioned as a first lieutenant. Jones proved to be one of the few in the navy who had a strategic vision, one which was recommended by a novelty transcending the orderly set-piece battles between ships: terrorism. It is perhaps discomforting to think of Jones as a terrorist, but he realized that war could be waged against cities and peoples, not just against professional fighters. The British had counted on the Royal Navy to keep them safe in their homes, and Jones breeched the shield. His daring touched on English anxiety about piracy, and he was often depicted as a pirate. More importantly, the English started wondering if warring to keep their colonies was really worth it. He won special fame for action against the new, copper-clad frigate _Serapis_. He was not, however, justly rewarded by his country. He was denied the rank of admiral because of the machinations of his fellow captains. His suspiciousness and irascibility did not recommend him, even though his courage and seamanship did. He took the only job he could get when the Revolution was over, in the Russian navy, but in 1792, possibly weakened by care and by years of exposure to the elements, he died lonely and forgotten in Paris. He had a small funeral, and then oblivion. Eventually a laundry was built over the graveyard.

Jones was resurrected in 1905; the young President Teddy Roosevelt needed a naval hero, and being a naval historian himself, he knew how the country had slighted its first great sailor. "Every officer in our navy should know by heart the deeds of John Paul Jones," the President orated at the time. Jones was put at final rest in a magnificent marble sarcophagus beneath the transept of the Naval Academy Chapel. It would have been just what he wanted: "My desire for fame is infinite," he admitted. Jones would not be so proud of Evan's fine biography, for it makes plain the egotism; John Adams called him "leprous with vanity." For a Founding Father, he had little to say about the importance of democracy and equality, although he wrote plenty against tyranny. But Evans's biography also makes plain Jones's courage, and explains well the successes that Jones the striver was able to gain. It is a thorough and thoroughly entertaining picture of a fascinating figure.

First, this biography is well-researched and well-written. Mr. Thomas was particularly adept at describing the battle scenes and was careful to site more than Jones' as a source for his depictions.

What truly added to this biography was that Mr. Thomas made no effort to "gild the lily" that was John Paul Jones. He depicts him as he probably was - a pretty unlikeable, womanizing, whiny, glory-seeking martinet who eventually wore out his friends with his complaints and pleas for a fleet.

If there is a criticism of this book, it would be that the recitation of Jones' whinings get repetitive and somewhat tedious - but - that is exactly how they must have seemed to those who through the years tried to help him since they all abandaned him in the end.

Mr. Thomas effectively shows both sides of Jones who today would have been on mega doses of Zoloft (at least). At the same time he was pestering the powers that be for ships and complaining about favoritism (that was not shown his way), Jones was making observations, predictions and suggestions about an American Navy that were prescient and obviously knowledgeable.

This was a very good and non-biased biography. If there were one thing I came away with from the book, it was that in the end - through no fault of his own - John Paul Jones did not really do much "on paper." One great battle and a few good skirmishes. However, by bringing the Revolution to Britain's doorstep his victory(ies) had a huge psychological effect on Britain - a nautical terrorism if you will. Mr. Thomas does well to put Mr. jones in true perspective - both his deeds and his legend.

This marvellous, entertaining new biography of the American naval hero John Paul Jones captures him in all his flawed glory. During the Revolutionary War, the fledgling US Navy was no match for the British Navy, which was accustomed to whipping all comers on the high seas. Against this background of near-universal American failure, Jones upset the complacency and arrogance of the British public with a series of dashing raids and single-ship battles in the home waters of England, culminating with his incredible capture of a brand new British ship-of-the-line, Serapis, which easily outgunned his leaky old Indiaman, the Bonhomme Richard. This victory was due almost exclusively to Jones' famous and near-insane refusal to surrender.

Valiant at sea, Jones was often lost ashore, like many great captains. Jones alienated his few patrons, and was accurately described by John Adams as "leprous with vanity." Jones, in his turn, called Adams "conceited" (certainly true) and "wicked" (not true, but debatable). Like Alexander Hamilton, he was an insecure, intelligent, but impoverished lowland Scot with a yen for intellectual improvement, a penchant for wenching, and a whiff of bastardy. Unlike Alexander Hamilton (to my knowledge, anyway), he wrote fragments of homoerotic verse in Latin, found hidden among his papers after death, and had an unpleasant proclivity for teenage girls.

Thomas' biography is always lively and at times surprising, packing a great deal of punch in its brief 311 pages. The battles at sea are particularly rousing.

An excellent, well written and highly readable biography of an exceptional hero from American history. I knew only the historical caricature of Jones from American history and was slightly disappointed to find that America's naval hero was a man with the same flaws and faults common to all men. Still, his inspiration and determination kept the American Revolution on track. Through this book I grew to like Jones and was genuinely saddened by his treatment from the country he had fought so gallantly to liberate, and which ultimately led to his untimely and tragic demise.