I commenced writing the Life of Paul Jones with the impression, received from early reading, that he was a reckless adventurer, incapable of fear, and whose chief merit consisted in performing deeds of desperate daring. But I rise from the careful examination of what he has written, said, and done, with the conviction that I had misjudged his character. I now regard him as one of the purest and most enlightened of patriots, and one of the noblest of men. His name should be enrolled upon the same scroll with those of his intimate friends, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Lafayette.

As this exhibition of the character of Admiral Jones is somewhat different from that which has been presented in current literature, I have felt the necessity of sustaining the narrative by the most unquestionable documentary evidence. Should any one, in glancing over the pages, see that the admiral is presented in a different light from that in which he has been accustomed to view him, I must beg him, before he condemns the narrative, to examine the proof which I think establishes every statement.

The admiral had his faults. Who has not? But on the whole he was one of nature’s noblemen. His energies were sincerely and intensely devoted to the good of humanity. He was ambitious. But it was a noble ambition, to make his life sublime. He was a man of pure lips and of unblemished life. His chosen friends were the purest, the most exalted, the best of men. He had no low vices. Gambling, drinking, carousing, were abhorrent to his nature. He was a student of science and literature; and in the most accomplished female society he found his social joy. While forming the comprehensive views of statesmenship and of strategy, and evincing bravery unsurpassed by any knight of romance, he was in manners, thought, and utterance, as unaffected as a child.