Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1895 — Jones’ Success with “Scratch” Crews [ARTICLE]

Jones’ Success with “Scratch” Crews

One of the strangest things in Paul Jones’ career was the success he achieved with “scratch” crews. In his greatest fight, contemporary history says, he had “as bad a crew as ever was shipped,” being made >up of all nations, among them Maltese, Portuguese, and Malays, who did not always comprehend the word of command. Paul Jones has b<*?n severely denounced for having returned to the place of his birth bent on destruction; but, as Cooper justly points out, an officer's oath obliges him to do all in his power to harass the enemy; and it was not only Paul Jones’ right, but his duty, to use his knowledge of the Scotch and Irish coasts in the prosecution of the war. If he had any feeling on the subject, it would have been his duty to suppress It. But Paul Jones probably had no feeling whatever, except resentment. He had left his native land as a child, and upon his last visit he had been cruelly ill used, as he thought; and he did his duty on this cruise -with no more repugnance than he would have felt at doing it elsewhere—and did it mercifully.—Century.