John Paul Jones

An associate of Benjamin Franklin and hero of the American War of Independence, John Paul Jones was the first captain to sail an American warship under an American flag and was instrumental in the creation of a coordinated naval force for the new republic. Across the Atlantic, the Scotch Renegade has a far less enviable reputation, being most commonly remembered as a privateer and villain due to his daring raids on British ports. Frank Walker charts the career of this rugged individualist, from his beginnings as a young naval apprentice in the Scottish port of Whitehaven and initial voyages aboard slave ships; to his commission as an American naval officer who led an attack on this very port and continued to harass British shipping interests as part of the effort to bring the War of Independence to a close. His battle off Flamborough Head remains the longest continuous naval engagement in British naval history. An extraordinary interlude saw Jones fighting for Russias Catherine the Great against the Turks. 125 years after his death, his body was exhumed from an obscure grave in Paris and at the behest of Theodore Rooosevelt placed in an extravagantly decorated sarcophagus at Annapolis. Interrogating numerous contemporary sources, this book gives an accurate and balanced account of the life of this controversial and fascinating character.