ABSTRACT
Commodore. He became the best-known Continental Navy hero of the American Revolution, establishing traditions of heroism and aggressive combat doctrine that carried forward to the US Navy. Christened John Paul in Scotland, he became a captain in the British merchant service at the age of twenty-one. In 1773, after a fatal altercation with a crew member in Tobago, he fled to Virginia and assumed the name Paul Jones. When the American Revolution began in 1775 he was commissioned a First Lieutenant in the Continental Navy under the name John Paul Jones, and quickly earned a reputation as an aggressive naval leader. In May 1776 he took command of the Continental sloop Providence, 12, which became an effective commerce raider, and in August 1776 he received a captain’s commission from the Continental Congress. In July 1777 he took command of the sloop-of-war Ranger, 18, conducting audacious raids against ports of the British Isles and capturing the sloop-of-war HMS Drake, 20, off Ireland’s coast.
