John Paul Jones: The Pirate Who Founded America's Navy

Behind every big movement in history, there's a hero. And that hero seemingly gets all of the credit. But behind that

hero are other men that were deemed too rough around the edges to get any of the fame. For every George Washington,

there's a Daniel Morgan. For every Abraham Lincoln, there's a Cashes Clay. For every Omar Bradley, there's a

terrible Terry Allen. And for the United States Navy, there's this man. Today, we're talking about John

Paul Jones, the father of the United States Navy. Ladies and gentlemen, it's pretty well understood that America won

the Revolutionary War by utilizing guerrilla warfare tactics. What's less understood is that while American

Revolutionary War heroes like Daniel Morgan, Andrew Pickkins, and Francis Marian were conducting guerrilla warfare

in the United States, John Paul Jones was utilizing guerrilla warfare tactics on the water and taking that fight all

the way to the British, becoming the first man to attack Great Britain on their own turf in over a hundred years.

He was the first man to raise an American flag on the first ever US Navy commissioned warship, the USS Alfred. He

was there and he participated when the United States Marine Corps made its first amphibious landing in history. He

was the first American to ever capture a British warship. And to the best of my knowledge, he was the last American

Revolutionary War hero to be brought back home and laid to rest. And we're going to get to it right after a word

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and a discount code down below. Let's get back to the video. Our story begins in 1747 when a

young John Paul is born. Note, it is just John Paul, not John Paul Jones. Yet he was born in Kirkban, Scotland on the

prestigious Abigand estate where his father was the head gardener. And this is also where he grew up because they

lived on the estate because his father was a head gardener. And this gave him a different childhood than many other

people. It's this weird dichotomy that John Paul and his family are lower servant class people. But because they

live on the estate, they're surrounded by the wealthy aristocrats all day, every day, 24/7. So John Paul is well

educated from a young age. He can read. He can write. He's articulate. He knows how to walk, talk, act, dress the part

of an aristocrat. But no matter what, at the end of the day, he's just the gardener's son. You won't I should treat

him like white, folks. No. What's the name of that peckerwood boy from town that works with the glass? Oh, you mean

Jerry? That's the boy named Jerry. You just treat him like you would Jerry. John sees and feels this treatment his

entire childhood, and it doesn't take long for him to catch on that he's never not going to be the gardener's son. So

he has to come up with a way to change his stars, so to speak. And the easiest way to go about that is for him to

pursue a career in the Navy and become a captain of a ship. And captains back then, referred to as masters, are almost

always part of the aristocratic wealthy society. So that's what he wants to do. He becomes an apprentice on a merchant

marine vessel at the age of 13 years old. For the next four years, between the ages of 13 and 17, he apprentices on

a ship called the Friendship, learning anything and everything he can about how to be a good sailor. Then after four

years, the friendship ends up getting sold and 17-year-old John Paul is out of a job and unemployed. So he takes the

first job that he can get, which unfortunately is working on a slave ship in the transatlantic slave trade. He

does that for several years and he hates it the entire time. He finds the slave trade to be absolutely disgusting later

in his own writings describing it as an abominable trade, which while obviously true, it's also worth mentioning that

these were pretty progressive views to have in the 1700s, especially for a simple gardener's son. Regardless, John

Paul had those opinions and for that reason, he quit. And when he quit, he quit at port in Jamaica. He was halfway

through a two-way trip and he just quit there. He couldn't do it anymore. So now he's basically stranded in Jamaica. So

he hangs around the ports looking for a new job that isn't in the slave trade. He ends up meeting Samuel McAdams, the

captain of the Brig, who offers him a ride back to Britain if he's willing to work on the trip, to which he

immediately agrees. So they set sail, they start making their way back to Britain. And then along the way, Captain

McAdams ends up getting yellow fever and dies, which is, you know, horrible. But also, at the end of the day, as far as

the crew's concerned, not that big of a deal. We have a first mate. There's a chain of command for a reason. The first

mate takes over. Couple weeks later, the first mate gets yellow fever and he dies, too. Now, that sucks. Also,

however, there's probably a third guy in the chain of command that's now going to take over. But there there isn't. You

see, at this point in time, being able to navigate on the ocean was kind of like protected tradecraft. They didn't

want everybody on a ship knowing how to navigate the ocean. So, usually it was just the captain and the first mate that

actually knew how to do it, and everybody else was just kind of following orders. So, now the two dudes

that had the skill to navigate their way back home are both dead, and nobody knows what the [ __ ] they're doing, and

they're basically stranded out at sea. But luckily, the 20-year-old kid they picked up in Jamaica had been studying

to be the best sailor that he could for the past seven years, and he actually knew how to navigate the ocean. He takes

command of the ship, brings it all the way back to Britain, no problem. The owner of the Brick John finds out what

happened. He hears about this 20-year-old hot shot they picked up in Jamaica that was able to navigate his

ship from being lost at sea. And he figures, "Fuck it. I'm just going to make this kid the captain." And that's

exactly what he does. John Paul is now master of the ship. He has changed his stars. He should be in the aristocratic

class now. But the Brig is a really small ship. He needs to keep working as a captain and work his way up so he's a

captain of a much larger vessel. And that'll cement his role as a gentleman. So that's what he does for the next

three years. He just continues being the captain of the Brig, making voyages across the Atlantic and back. And it's

kind of a struggle the entire time because a lot of the men under his command are older, more experienced

sailors. And they don't think they should have to be taking orders from some 20 to 23 year old kid that was a

son of a gardener. Despite that difficulty, it never really becomes a huge issue until 1770 when one of his

crew members by the name of [ __ ] Maxwell decided that he's from a wealthy Scottish family and there's no way in

hell he's taking orders from the son of a gardener that's younger than him. He tries to get some of the crew to join

with him to stir up a mutiny. They're going to throw John Paul overboard. He's going to take over the ship. John Paul

finds out about this. He orders him to be flogged with 12 lashes from the cat of Ninetales, which seems extreme, but

at this point in time, it was completely standard practice. [ __ ] Maxwell learned his lesson. He just sits down and shuts

the [ __ ] up for the rest of the trip. They make their way over to the West Indies. They port. He says, "Fuck you. I

quit." He leaves. John Paul's like, "Okay, whatever." Drops off his cargo, picks up his other batch of cargo. He

heads back to Britain. Upon making port back in Britain, John Paul is immediately placed in shackles and

arrested and put on trial for the murder of [ __ ] Maxwell. Apparently, after leaving John Paul's ship, he went found

another ship that took off sooner than John Paul did, headed back to Britain. And on that ship, he got yellow fever

and he died along the voyage. And now his wealthy Scottish family is claiming that John Paul murdered him. So John

Paul has to post bail, get permission from the court to travel back to the West Indies, get documentation from the

port authorities saying that [ __ ] Maxwell was there. He was alive and John Paul didn't kill him. He gets that

documentation. Then he has to find out the other ship that he took back to Britain, track down that captain, and

get documents from that captain saying, "Yeah, he was on my ship. He got yellow fever. He died." He gets all those

documentations, goes back to the court, his name is legally cleared, but this whole process takes like 6 months and

his name is getting drugged through the mud in the court of public opinion the entire time. So, while he's legally not

a murderous captain, a lot of people don't know that. So, that sucks, but there's nothing he can do. So, he just

keeps doing his job. And then two years later, he is given a promotion, he's given the command of a much larger cargo

ship called the Betsy. And the Betsy is a humongous cargo ship. It's one of the biggest ones that Britain has. So, at

this point, he should definitely be in that wealthy aristocratic class. he should be a gentleman. And he starts

going to the dinner parties, you know, with the powdered wigs and all the [ __ ] And he's allowed to be there,

but at the end of the day, he can still feel that everybody's looking down on him because no matter what he does, he's

still the son of a gardener. And at this point, he's starting to think to himself in the back of his head like, "Okay, I'm

just I'm going to keep doing this. I'm going to make a bunch of money and then I'm going to move over to the United

States. I'm going to live in Virginia with my brother who's been living there for years as a tailor and I'm just going

to retire in the United States in the new world where there's a new opportunity. There's not hundreds of

years of, you know, I'm from this family or that family. Everything's new. That's going to be my new start. But before he

can do that, he's got to earn enough money so that he can show up to the United States as a rich man. So, he

keeps working. And then in 1773, [ __ ] hits the fan. On one of his voyages, his ship gets damaged in a storm and he has

to make an unplanned port in Ireland, stop, have the ship repaired. Then once the ship is repaired, he gets sick for

like 3 weeks. And while that's going on, a lot of the cargo ends up getting spoiled. So, by the time he makes it to

the port that he was originally supposed to be at, he doesn't have all the cargo to sell. He sells what cargo is still

good, makes enough money to pick up his next load of cargo, and he heads back to the UK. The problem is he now doesn't

have enough money to pay all the sailors under his command while they're at sea, which wouldn't seem like a big deal.

It's not like you can [ __ ] do anything with the money while you're out in the middle of the ocean. But

apparently, some people got really upset about it. One of his sailors got drunk and decided to attack him with a club.

And when he came at Jon with the club, Jon drew his sword and stabbed the man straight through the chest, killing him

almost immediately. Now, that's a clear-cut case of self-defense. However, Jon realizes that a lot of his men are

pissed off. They haven't been paid. A lot of men are friends with that guy. He's dead. He's worried that his crew

isn't going to stick up for him. And on top of that, he still has the reputation as a murderous captain, even though that

was complete [ __ ] So John, fearing he's not going to get a fair trial, flees to America and starts

living in Virginia with his brother, the Taylor. Now, this is late 1773. He's now stuck in Virginia. He's basically lost

his career as a ship captain. He adopts the last name Jones, becomes John Paul Jones, attempting to not be found. He

doesn't really know what to do with himself. Presumably, he's depressed. He just kind of hangs out at his brother's

house all day. He's reading, doing philosophy, poetry, just trying to take his mind off the fact that his entire

life plan has just been completely derailed. Then in 1775, the American Revolution kicks off. And holy [ __ ]

this is his chance. He can go serve in the United States Navy and make something of himself. So he immediately

heads off to Philadelphia and volunteers to join the United States Navy, which at this point doesn't even exist yet. And

at this point, not a lot of experienced men were going to volunteer to join the United States Navy because the

Continental Congress was issuing letters of mark or marquee. A letter of mark was basically a permission slip from the

Continental Congress, the government of the United States, to go out and be a pirate. If you were some random dude and

you had a boat with guns on it and you wanted to take that boat and go rob the British, you were absolutely welcome to

do so, bring your loot back to America and you could keep it, which meant that pretty much all the experienced sailors

in America were given those two options. You could join the United States Navy, be treated like a peeon, and get a small

amount of money for your service. Or you could go be a state sanctioned pirate and maybe win the lottery. Who knows?

Most people are taking that second option, but not John Paul Jones. So John Paul Jones gets commissioned as a

lieutenant right out of the gate and he is serving under Captain Essex Hopkins, the man that's in charge of the entire

United States Navy at this point aboard the USS Alfred, the United States Navy's first ever commissioned warship. And

while serving there, John Paul Jones is the first man to ever raise the Grand Union flag aboard the USS Alfred. If you

don't know, the Grand Union flag is essentially, in my opinion, the first American flag. It still has the British

flag in the upper leftand corner where today we have 50 stars, but it has the stripes for the 13 colonies. And the

message was clear. This was 1775. America hadn't declared its independence yet, but there was a rebellion going on.

So the meaning behind that flag was, hey, we're united. We're armed. We're ready to fight, but we're still willing

to reconcile if you agree to start treating us appropriately. And that's why they left the British flag in the

upper corner. That didn't last for very long. While serving as lieutenant on the USS

Alfred, John Paul Jones is having his crew drill over and over and over again how to fire the cannons. He wants to get

them to the point that they can fire this cannon once every 15 seconds because he knows that's why the British

Navy is so good. They drill their battle drills over and over and over again like a welloiled machine. The problem is the

United States Navy has no funding. The British have cut off the supply of all of the gunpowder, all of the cannons,

all the cannonballs, all the supplies. So, they're just drilling it dry, going through the motions over and over and

over again, which also highlights the problem. We need guns. We need gunpowder. We have to get supplies. So,

in March of 1776, the United States Navy under the command of Essex Hopkins decides that they are going to, for the

first time in US Navy history, project power. They are going to go out on the offensive and attack New Providence, the

capital of the Bahamas. And that's because it is a major British military outpost with a ton of military supplies,

cannons, gunpowder, guns, uniforms, everything. They're going to go in there, take it over, and steal all those

supplies so they can continue fighting this war. So, they're getting ready to take off, and 234 seemingly random dudes

show up with guns. These guys are like, some of them are wearing civilian clothing with like hunting coats, some

of them are wearing blue coats, some of them have green coats. It's just this ragtag crew of dudes with guns. And they

are under the command of a Captain Samuel Nicholas. And these are America's first Marines. Literally men recruited

out of a bar, Ton Tavern, a few months prior, and they're coming, too. The Marine Corps just got founded. They

don't even have official uniforms yet, but they're already showing up to fight. I have come here to chew bubble gum and

kick ass, and I'm all out of bubble gum. So, they make their way down to the Bahamas, and once they get to the port

where the actual military base is, it becomes very obvious that the British know that they're there. They know why

they're coming, and they're ready to defend it. Commander Hopkins is about to just sail directly into the port into

all the gunfire and just slug it out. At which point, John Paul Jones goes, "Or, hear me out. We've got 234 Marines in

the back of the ships. Why don't we just sail around, not go through all the gunfire, land on an unoccupied beach,

let the Marines get out, and go take everything over?" Essex Hopkins agrees and that's exactly what happens. 234

Marines and 50 sailors make their amphibious landing on the beach. They then immediately go they capture the

city of Nassau and the British Fort Monagu all in one fail swoop. They captured 88 cannons, 15 mortars, 68

barrels of gunpowder, a bunch of guns, a bunch of other military supplies, and they took the British governor Montford

Brown as their prisoner. Montford Brown would later complain that the Marines and the Navy men drank all of his booze

out of the governor's palace, officially cementing the American military tradition of win, get hammered,

repeat. From here, they make their way back to America, John Paul Jones is promoted to captain, and he is given

control of the USS Providence, a 12 gun sloop. The only problem is the British Navy has put up a blockade, essentially

trying to force the American ships to stay inside the harbor. That way we can't interrupt their supply lines. John

Paul Jones doesn't really give a [ __ ] He waits for one night when it's dark, it's foggy, slips through the blockade,

and then just starts [ __ ] [ __ ] up with what amounts to guerrilla warfare tactics on the water. John Paul Jones

and the crew of the Providence proceed to go out and start capturing British merchant vessels left and right. They

have multiple run-ins with British warships that try to stop him, but they're never able to quite pull it off.

The HMS Solo Bay gets clever and they try to raise the Grand Union flag, signaling to John Paul Jones that

they're actually an ally. At which point, John Paul's not buying it, but he pretends like he does. So, he lowers his

sails, basically sending the signal like, "Go ahead, go ahead and approach and we'll have a conversation." And as

the ship gets close, they veer off and they're actually trying to set up a full broadside run. But at the perfect

moment, he raises the sails and speeds away. And now they're headed the opposite direction and they're not going

to be able to get turned back around in time to catch him. Thank you, Commodore, for getting us

ready to make way. On another occasion, the HMS Milstone chases him for eight hours straight, shooting cannons at him

the entire time, and they miss every single one of them. And on the eighth hour, right as it becomes apparent

they're not going to be able to catch him, and he is going to get away. He orders one of his Marines to fire a

single musket shot to compliment the captain of the HMS Milestone on his beautiful marksmanship.

Nice shooting, Tex. They then proceed to go and capture even more British merchant vessels. They capture 16 in

total. Then John Paul Jones realizes that the British military is eating an awful lot of fish for food. And all that

fish is coming from a bunch of fishing villages in Nova Scotia. And he's about to put an end to that ship. So the USS

Providence rolls up, sinks the first ship, sinks the second ship. The third ship is looking pretty awesome. So they

decide they're going to go ahead board it. They get on board. They don't like it. So they light it on fire, get back

on the USS Providence, and then destroy 12 more ships. Then they commandeer five of them and sail them back to America.

Look at me. Sure. I'm the captain now. At this point, Congress is like, "Holy [ __ ] John Paul Jones is putting in

[ __ ] work." So they give him the USS Alfred. That's going to be his flagship. Now he's got his own little fleet

because he's still going to maintain control of the USS Providence and he's also picking up the USS Hamstead. He

immediately takes a small fleet back up to Nova Scotia, captures five more ships, burns another one down, raids the

entire coastline, and burns down an entire warehouse full of whale oil. Okay, that's great for the war effort,

but now John Paul Jones has a huge problem on his hands because the American Navy is having a big issue with

recruiting because everybody's opting to go where all the money is, and that's in privateeering under a letter of Mark.

So, he was short-handed when he left America, and now that he just picked up five more ships, he's absolutely

short-handed. So he ends up recruiting people from Nova Scotia to operate some of these ships for him. That's fine.

Next mission, he receives word he needs to go to a coal mine in Nova Scotia, sail up there. There's a bunch of

American prisoners being held there by the British military. He needs to launch a raid and free him. On the way there,

they run across a massive British transport ship called the Mles. So he pulls right up with his Marines, boards

the ship, takes it over. On board, there is 10,000 winter uniforms for the British. commandeers the entire vessel,

continues towards the objective. By this point, the USS Providence is in rough shape and so is its crew. Everybody's

overworked. The Providence is leaking. They want to turn back, but John Paul Jones like, "No, we got to keep moving

forward. Just keep it together. We're going to get through this." He gives a speech. He feels like he improved

morale. Apparently, he didn't because the USS Providence basically has mutiny. They turn the ship around in the middle

of the night and they flee. That sucks, but he still has the Alfred, still has the Hamston, and he's got all the other

fishing vessels and that transport that he captured. He continues on his way to Sydney, Nova Scotia to free these

prisoners. He gets to Sydney, Nova Scotia, finds out the prisoners have actually switched sides, and they're now

working for the British, very similar to how the Nova Scotia people are now working for him on all his captured

vessels. So, it's just part of the game. The problem now is that his little fleet has been caught up to and is being

chased by the HMS Solo Bay and the HMS Wilford, two fairly large British warships, and he does not want to get in

a gunfight with these guys. So, that night, John Paul Jones has a genius plan, okay? He's got all these captured

ships and he has his two American naval vessels. So what he decides to do is he tells one of his captured ships, loads

it up entirely with the Nova Scotians that are working for him because he knows that they're not going to be held

liable when they get captured. Right? All they're going to have to do if the British capture them is be like, "Look,

we were his prisoners. We had to follow orders or he was going to kill us. So they're going to get away scot-free."

What he has him do is he has them hang a lantern up on their ship and sail a different direction while his other

ships kill all light and continue sailing back towards Boston. The British warships take the bait. They chase down

this fishing vessel all night. And by the time the sun is up and they realize what happened, John Paul Jones and his

little fleet are long gone. So John Paul Jones makes it back to America. And technically, the mission may be

considered a failure because he didn't rescue the 300 prisoners. But there weren't actually 300 prisoners to rescue

because they had switched sides. He captured all these naval vessels. And more importantly, he captured those

10,000 winter uniforms, which had a humongous impact on all of America. Those 10,000 winter uniforms were then

worn by the American forces at Valley Forge during winter and kept them from freezing to death. And they are the

exact same uniforms that Americans wore when they crossed the Delaware River on Christmas. Now, at this point, John Paul

Jones is kicking ass, right? He's doing more for the war effort on the naval front than literally anyone else in the

entire US Navy. And in his mind, he's thinking, "They're going to make me the first admiral in American history. This

is going to be [ __ ] awesome." He gets back to Boston. he finds out not only is he not going to be made an admiral, he's

actually getting demoted. Apparently, in John Paul Jones absence, aka while he was out winning a war, the government

decided that they should have a comprehensive list of their naval officers and how important they are and

base rank off of that. And for some reason, John Paul Jones is ranked 18th. And every single man ranked higher than

him on this list is ranked that high because they're either friends with somebody or they're somebody's kid.

Basically, it's the same [ __ ] the British were doing with their aristocracy. They're rewarding

connections and not ability and merit and getting the [ __ ] job done. So, John Paul Jones is absolutely pissed.

They take away his fleet. They take away the USS Alfred and they give him a smaller sloop called the USS Ranger and

give him orders to sail to France where he is going to meet up with Benjamin Franklin where he is supposedly going to

pick up a new frigot, an actual warship with a ton of guns. So, there's a little bit of a silver lining. He makes his way

over to France. So he sails across the Atlantic. He's about to France. And then one of his

spotters sees 17 sails off in the distance. And he's thinking, "Surely this is a British supply convoy. We're

going to go. We're going to [ __ ] all them up. Then we'll go to France." And the crew is actually pumped about this

because by this point in the war, the United States government had decided that whenever a US Navy ship captures a

British ship, the crew would get a portion of the money that they captured. And this was going to help them with

naval recruiting. So not everybody wanted to go be a privateeer and do a bunch of pirate [ __ ] So, the crew is

pumped. They're ecstatic. They're chasing down this supply convoy. They're all going to make a bunch of money. It's

going to be awesome. They get up on this supply convoy and they have the oh [ __ ] moment because, yeah, it's a big British

supply convoy, but it's being escorted by the HMS Invincible, a massive British warship with 74 [ __ ] cannons on it.

We're all going to die together out here. You're a good group of boys to die with, I'll tell you that much. Now,

they're kind of screwed because they approach the convoy from the rear. So if they peel off and turn around, the HMS

Invincible is probably going to see them and they're going to chase them down and they're absolutely going to sink them.

So John Paul Jones, master of [ __ ] immediately pulls down anything that would signify that they're Americans and

just pulls in with the rest of the convoy and pretends to be a British merchant ship all day long until

nightfall. And then under the cover of dark, he turns the ship around and goes straight to France. They make a clean

getaway. Nobody knew they were even there. So the USS Ranger and John Paul Jones make it into France on December

2nd, 1977. And pretty much as soon as they get there, he finds out that the French gave away the frigot to somebody

else. You what? Perfect. Great. Sailed across the Atlantic Ocean for literally nothing. This is fantastic. So, he ends

up linking up with Benjamin Franklin. They end up becoming buddies. He's hanging out with all the aristocrats in

France, rubbing elbows, and eventually he realizes he's not going to get the ship he wants. So, he's like, "Fuck it.

Why don't you guys just cut me loose and let me go do my thing?" And that's exactly what he gets. The orders he

receives are, and I quote, "Distress the enemy." And that's exactly what he do. Britain is already writing newspaper

articles about John Paul Jones basically being a pirate after raiding Nova Scotia. They want to see a pirate. He's

going to show them what a pirate does. He absolutely covers the deck of the USS Ranger and swivel guns. He gets his

hands on every musket and blunder bus he can find. Loads up on marines and sailors and sets off towards White

Haven. White Haven is a major port that he's familiar with that's going to have hundreds of ships in its harbor, a major

coal outpost, and he is going to go there and try to burn down every ship in the harbor. He is going to be the first

man to attack Britain on its own home turf in over a hundred years. And that stat's cool to say and all, but you need

to appreciate the real strategic genius of what he's actually about to go do by attacking Great Britain on its own home

turf in a 100 years. Nobody is alive today in Great Britain at this point in time that has ever seen Britain be

attacked ever. So, if he can pull this off, it's going to be absolutely huge. It's going to freak out the British

population and it's going to send the message to the British like, "Hey, you guys are busy projecting your power all

the way across the Atlantic Ocean. You're taking your massive navy and you're sending them over to America to

mess with us. And if you do that, we're going to send people to mess with you. And that's going to force the British

Navy to pull back a significant amount of their ships just to patrol their own borders. Okay, if you're not picking up

what I'm putting down, let me put this into like modern context. Imagine if during the global war on terror, ISIS or

al-Qaeda somehow got their hands on a battleship and invaded Miami. Okay, it'd be [ __ ] freaky. So, the USS Ranger

sets off towards White Haven. As they're leaving the harbor in France, they fire their cannons, saluting one of the

French naval vessels as they pass by. And that French naval vessel returns the salute. Okay, this is a humongous deal.

It's the first time it ever happened in US naval history. Firing the cannons back in salute meant that you recognize

this nation as its own sovereign entity and you recognize their authority. And this was the first time in American

history that it ever happened. So the USS Rangers is headed towards White Haven and John Paul Jones's lieutenant

lets him know like, "Hey, there's some of the members in the crew that want to have a mutiny. They think this is a

crazy plan and they kind of want to throw John Paul Jones in shackles and sail back to America." Luckily, not all

the crew is against John Paul Jones on this, especially the Marines who are there to keep order and they've had his

back the entire time. They kind of tamp down the mutiny and continue towards White Haven to go on this mission. So

they arrive there on April 23rd, 1778, and early morning hours, he has to make a decision how he's going to go about

this. And what he figures is he can't take the whole crew out because half the crew is mutinous. So he's going to end

up leaving the Marines with the ship because he doesn't want to leave the mutinous crew there. He doesn't want to

take them with him cuz he doesn't trust them. He doesn't want to leave him there alone cuz they might steal the ship and

leave him stranded. So the Marines are going to stay there with the mutinous crew, hold them on the ship, make sure

they don't leave Jon Paul Jones and the men that he has loyal to him. So he's going to go out in rowboats in two

groups of 15. You got John Paul in one group and then you got 15 sailors in the other. John Paul Jones is going to take

his men. They're going to scale the walls of the fort. They're going to sneak in, kill the guards if they have

to, and then they're going to go they're going to take nails and they're going to hammer them into the ignition holes of

the cannon, rendering the cannons absolutely useless so that they don't get shot at. And while that's going on,

the other crew is going to go out to the harbor with lanterns and burn every ship to the ground. So John Paul Jones and

his crew go, they scale the walls to the fort. The guards are asleep. He's trying to be quiet. Doesn't kill him. Doesn't

fire a shot. Trying to be stealthy. Goes in, renders all the cannons completely useless. So, at this point, John Paul

Jones is thinking, "Okay, good. That's taken care of. Now, he's going to go out in the harbor and help the rest of his

men burn a 100 ships down." He looks out into the harbor. There is a distinct lack of [ __ ] on fire. So, he goes out

there. He's looking for his men. He's like, "What the [ __ ] is going on?" And then he starts hearing alarms going off.

The people in the town are waking up. They realize they're being invaded and they're setting off alarms. He finally

finds this other group of men and half of them are drunk and he's like, "What the [ __ ] is going on? It's raining. The

lanterns couldn't light very well. They were trying to light ships on fire. They got one ship to actually start burning.

It didn't even burn down all the way because everything's raining and wet and they couldn't get a fire started. So

apparently the other group of sailors said, "Fuck it. We're going to go break into a bar and drink all their booze."

And that is what alerted the people in the town and they're now setting off the alarm. So John Paul Jones is like, "Fuck

it. Now we have to leave." So they go, they board the USS Ranger and they take off. So they make their clean getaway.

At this point, John Paul Jones is like, "All right, not exactly what I have in mind, but we're doing pirate [ __ ] What

should we do next? We're in White Haven. That's really close to St. Mary's Isle. St. Mary's Isle is where the Earl of

Selkerk lives. We're going to be able to make it there in a couple hours. So we're going to go there. We're going to

kidnap the Earl of Selkerk. And then we're going to trade him for a bunch of American prisoners. And that's going to

send a message that we're actually targeting British nobility now." So they get in. They break into the Earl's

estate. He's not home, but Lady Cell Kirk is. Hello, Poppy. Now, at this point, his

crew is like, "Let's plunder and steal absolutely everything so we can all sell it and get a big payday." And John Paul

Jones is like, "No, no, we're not going to do that. What we're going to do is we're going to steal one thing. We're

going to steal their silver plate." You know, like the silver dining dish for like a tea set. We're going to steal

that and only that and then we're going to leave. Okay, this is perfect. It's the perfect plan. And here's why.

Because by stealing the silver plate, it just ruins the entire tea set. Which is that a big deal? No, of course not. But

to fancy British nobility, it's the end of the world that grown men broke into their house and there are now

ramifications for their government actions and it's going to spread across the nobility [ __ ] circles like

wildfire that hey, we can get attacked too and it's going to negatively impact us also. Okay, but here's why it's

actually the perfect plan. All right. Now, most historians are going to tell you that the crew wanted to plunder

everything and John Paul Jones didn't want to plunder anything and he resisted and he fought them and he ended up

brokering this deal where he only let them steal one silver plate. Okay, I'm going to call [ __ ] on that. It just

doesn't make sense if you've ever talked to another grown adult ever. In my super duper not expert opinion, John Paul

Jones did this because he wanted to bang Lady Selkerk. What do you mean by that? And hear me out because by stealing the

one silver plate, he's pulled off the old I left my hoodie at your house trick and now I have an excuse to come back

later. And I know this because after they boarded their ship and left, he wrote Lady Cell Kirk a letter where he

sincerely apologized and it wasn't his idea and he was going to buy the plate back from his crew and deliver it to her

himself. But that doesn't prove that he wanted to sleep with her. If anything, it proves my point that he wanted to be

a gentleman and do the right thing. book. M maybe if it wasn't for the fact that he made duplicates of that letter

and sent copies of it to his homie back in France, Benjamin Franklin. Okay, that's really significant for two

reasons. One, this is a 1700's equivalent of taking screenshots of you spitting game and sending it to your

friends. And two, he sent it to Benjamin Franklin, the most notorious womanizer out of any other founding father ever.

You know, I invented electricity. I'm sensing a little electricity right here. Didn't Ben Franklin have syphilis?

Yes, but I don't. Okay, this is probably shocking to a lot of you, okay? Cuz you think of Ben Franklin and you think of

the pictures of the old guy with the balding mullet that's kind of chubby and you're like, "Oh, he invented a lot of

[ __ ] and he's a founding father." Yeah, that's all true. But this dude's entire life, he was slinging dick like it was a

going out of business sale. Benjamin Franklin literally invented the odometer. Okay, they didn't have cars

back then. What the [ __ ] you tracking mileage for? He didn't do it so he could figure out how many miles he had left on

his Prius. He did it so he could keep track of how many miles of pipe he laid. Hey, there is hundreds upon hundreds, if

not thousands of letters of correspondence between Benjamin Franklin and Women of Nobility, where he is doing

nothing but spitting straight game the entire time. Okay. In 1745, Benjamin Franklin published a paper called Advice

on Young Men in Their Choice of Mistress. Not Wife, not Female Companion, Mistress. Okay, I'm not going

to read the entire thing for you. You can take the time and read it on your own. You should. It's absolutely

hilarious. But to summarize it, it's essentially a PowerPoint of why you should be sleeping with cougars for fun.

My favorite line from it is, and I quote, "The sin is less. The debauchering of a virgin may ruin her

and make her life unhappy." Okay. Translation: If I sleep with her first, I'm going to ruin her for everybody

else. which I cannot stress to you enough is an outrageous thing to say right now, let alone in the 1700s. Don't

worry, I've got more receipts for this than I've got time. Horus Walpole, a British writer, once wrote, "He's too

much the favorite of the ladies to escape their notice." Okay, John Adams, you know, like the other founding

father, John Adams, once wrote, "The life of Dr. Franklin was a scene of continual dissipation." Okay,

translation, Benjamin Franklin gets more than an animal shelter. In his own autobiography, Ben Franklin said, and I

quote, "I frequent intimacies with low women." Okay, if you're not picking up what I put down, I'm trying to tell you

that John Paul Jones didn't just send a letter to his friend. Okay? He submitted his homework to get graded by the

master. You have been well trained, my young apprentice. They will be no match for you. Okay? Do you see now? Do you

see why it's the perfect plan? He steals one singular silver plate. Now, that's going to spread throughout the

aristocratic society. All the women are going to be freaked out that this pirate's going to show up and ruin their

tea set. And then he's going to come back, restore the plate, bang Lady Cell Kirk. Then all the aristocratic men are

going to be furious because John Paul Jones the pirate is showing up stealing tea sets and banging their wives. It's

the ultimate form of psychological warfare. So the USS Rangers set sail. They leave the Selkerk Estate. And at

this point, it's literally only been a day. All of the events that we just covered, White Haven and the Selkerk

Estate was just April 23rd. It is now April 24th and John Paul Jones could probably head back to France and be a

hero because he's just conducted a major psychological warfare operation. But you know what would be even funnier? Since

there's probably now a bunch of British military vessels in the area, it'd be pretty cool if he strategically

transferred one to his possession. He's going to go steal a British warship and be the first man to ever do it. So he

starts making his way back towards White Haven looking for British military vessels. He comes across some fishing

ships, gets up close, talks with the people on the fishing ships, and like, "Hey, have you seen any British warships

around? They give him intel. They haven't seen any over towards White Haven, but right across the channel

about 70 mi away, there is a British warship over near Belfast." Perfect. John Paul Jones disguises the USS Ranger

as a merchant vessel and then puts on a British uniform. He then proceeds to sail really close to the HMS Drake,

pretending to be a British merchant vessel in distress. So, the HMS Drake goes out to investigate. The HMS Drake

sends over a boarding party to see what's wrong. He politely greets them, lets them get up on the deck, at which

point he says, and I quote, "You're my prisoner, sir, and I'm John Paul Jones." Got you, [ __ ] They then raise the

American flag, which essentially forces the HMS Drake to engage them in open water. Now, here's the tricky part. John

Paul Jones doesn't just want to sink the HMS Drake. He wants to capture it and tow it back to France. Luckily, he's got

Marines and he knows how to use them. So, they start dancing around the HMS Drake. And he gives the order to his

Marines to use their musketss and start picking off every officer and every man above deck. After an hour of combat,

John Paul Jones's men have sustained six casualties, and the British, 42, including all of their senior

leadership, at which point the HMS Drake is forced to surrender. John Paul Jones is now the first American to capture a

British warship. But what good is that if nobody knows about it? So he doubles back, goes back to the fisherman that

originally gave him the end tail. Sails up next to him, gives them a cut of the sail and a bunch of gold and gives them

instructions to go tell the story to everybody that'll listen. You just make sure people know what happened here

today. He then sails back to France and he is a [ __ ] hero and it is a massive party. He ends up getting gifted a

French officer sword and hanging out with a bunch of French women with his buddy Benjamin Franklin. The American

and British newspapers are talking about how he's the first American to capture a British warship. He launched a raid on

White Haven. He's the first man to attack Great Britain in over a hundred years, and he invaded the Selkerk estate

and only took a single plate, proving that he was a gentleman, sending the message that he could have done a lot

more if he wanted to. In contrast, the British newspapers are freaking out, calling him a barbaric pirate that has

the audacity to attack nobility. After the parties and the celebration dies down, the political [ __ ] sets in.

John Paul Jones is like, "Okay, I've proved myself. Give me a better ship and then give me some more ships to support

me. Let me take an entire fleet out and go do this. I'll wreak havoc everywhere." But for some reason, the

government just isn't doing anything. They won't give him a fleet. They keep offering him like [ __ ] tiny ship

after [ __ ] tiny ship. He's writing letters of protest to everybody that'll listen. And in one of these letters, he

writes one of the most famous quotes in US naval history. I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not

sail fast, for I intend to go in harm's way. Translation: I want to haul ass and beat ass. Give me a [ __ ]

ship. After like 6 months, they finally give him a 42 gun ship that he renames the bomb Rashard, which translates to

the Poor Richard, which is a play on Benjamin Franklin's poor Richard's almanac. In addition to that, they give

him four other smaller ships and 380 men, and he now has his own little fleet. And on October 17th, 1779, they

leave port to distress the enemy even more. For the next month and a half, they just sail up and down the British

coast, wreaking havoc. They seize 12 merchant vessels. They make landings in Ireland and Scotland, forcing the

British to scramble and panic. Then on September 23rd, 1779, the grand finale. His little fleet comes up on a massive

fleet of 40 British cargo ships. The only problem, they're being guarded by two British warships, the HMS Cerapus,

which is a massive 50 gun frigot, and her support ship, the HMS Countest of Scar, Bro. Okay, here's the problem. The

HMS Cerapus absolutely on paper should beat the Bomber Shard. Okay, despite what John Paul Jones wanted, the Bomber

Shard is not a fast military ship. It was a merchant vessel that he converted into a warship. It's big, it's slow,

it's clunky, it's old. But you know what? [ __ ] it. He's got Marines. We're going to figure it out. So John Paul

Jones is going to take his weakness and turn it into a strength. What's his weakness? He doesn't have a ship that's

that great. He doesn't really care about the ship. That's actually a strength. You got to realize this is vehicle

onvehicle combat. Okay? If you're having road rage with some dude in a Lambo and you're driving a 1994 clapped out F-150,

you think you're going to let the dude in the Lambo win? No, you have nothing to lose. So John Paul Jones opens up the

fight by pulling up right next to therapists and lashing the ships together. John Paul Jones has just

turned this into a close quarters slugfest and he's got Marines. They're opening up with their musketss, their

blunder buses. They're throwing grenades. It is a [ __ ] show. The Capus is opening up with its cannons, blowing

the bombshard to smitherines. At which point it becomes obvious the bomber shard is going to sink. The British

officer yells over to John Paul Jones, "Are you ready to surrender?" To which he famously replies, I have not yet

begun to fight. He then orders the entire ship to board the HMS Cerapus and they engage in close quarters combat for

3 hours. John Paul Jones and his crew win, forcing the British to surrender on their own vessel. He then cuts the bomb

rashard loose and lets it sink. And while all that was going on, the other British support ship was being

engaged by the other ships in his fleet, and they surrendered, too. They then spend the next 10 days evading the

British Navy and get their ships into a Dutch harbor. Now, there's a huge problem. When the bomber shard went

down, it took the American flag with it, and he's not about to fly the British flag on the ship that he just took from

the British. So, essentially, he has no flag on either of these ships. Okay, to us, this doesn't seem like a big deal.

Back then, humongous [ __ ] deal. Because if any warship sails into a harbor, not flying a recognized flag,

they're immediately considered a pirate. And the British have already been saying that John Paul Jones is a pirate and

harboring a pirate is illegal and it would justify the British going to war with the Dutch if they're harboring a

fugitive, which is exactly what John Paul Jones looks like right now. So this is a diplomatic emergency and the Dutch

are in a tough spot. They don't want to go to war with America or England. And those are pretty much the only two

possibilities if they weigh in. So they just kind of stall as long as they can. While that's going on, the Americans are

scrambling to have a new American flag made. And they just kind of have to go off like a loose description. There's

like 13 stripes, red, white, and blue. And there's like a field of stars in blue. And what the seamstress or flag

maker comes up with is therapist flag. And they're like, "Fuck it. That's close enough. Fly the colors. Diplomatic

emergency solved." And from here, everything goes to [ __ ] Uh John Paul Jones is ordered

to turn over therapist to the French because technically they're the ones that gave him the bomb rashard and

financed the entire endeavor. So that's their ship now. And he is then sent back to America. Once he gets back to

America, he is given a golden medal by Congress, which is the equivalent to a Medal of Honor back in this point in

time, similar to the one that Daniel Morgan was given because the Medal of Honor didn't exist yet. He is then

pretty much stuck behind a desk on administrative duty because the United States Continental Congress doesn't

think that they actually need to have a strong naval presence once the war is over and the war is winding down and

it's looking like America's going to win. John Paul Jones continues to advocate and is very adamant that

America should have a massive, strong, powerful navy, but nobody wants to listen to him. The American

Revolutionary War comes to an end and the Continental Navy is essentially disbanded because America has no

interest in having a navy other than defending its own shores. And now John Paul Jones has nothing to do. Then in

1787, Katherine the Great of Russia comes knocking because she's fighting the Russo Turkish War and she needs

experienced sailors to go help her win this war. and John Paul Jones gets the offer and he takes it with the

permission of Congress. He goes over, he fights for Russia, [ __ ] up the Ottoman Empire and politics strikes again. They

don't want some foreigner getting all the credit for these massive successful naval engagements. So, they end up

giving the credit to some other dude that's politically connected. [ __ ] me, right? On top of that, guess which other

country Katherine the Great is recruiting naval officers from? The British. Guess who hates John Paul

Jones? The British. Because of that, they then frame him and claim that he assaulted a 12-year-old girl, which did

not happen. Almost every historian agrees on that. But the scandal was so big and so large that Katherine the

Great determined that it just wasn't the political impact of taking Jones's side. So, she cuts him loose. John Paul Jones

then retires to Paris, France in 1790 because he knows the most people there and he had the most fun there with

Benjamin Franklin. He's writing back to the United States offering his services, offering to help them found a United

States Navy and build up the Navy that America should have. And nobody wants to listen. And then 2 years later in 1792,

John Paul Jones would pass away from kidney disease and is buried in what amounts to an unmarked grave in

obscurity in France, where he remained for over a century. It wasn't until 1899 that America's French diplomat, another

war hero that had earned the Medal of Honor, Horus Porter, spent six years trying to track down his remains. And he

finally did it in 1905. Then under Teddy Roosevelt, his remains were exumed and transported back to America with an

inscription that reads, "John Paul Jones, 1747 to 1792, US Navy, 1775 to 1783. He gave our Navy its earliest

traditions of heroism and victory. And that is the story of John Paul Jones, the father of America's Navy. He is

credited with capturing or sinking at least 46 enemy ships, killing over 3,000 enemy combatants, and taking over 2,000

prisoners. He was the first man to raise the American flag over the United States Navy's first warship. He was there when

the Marine Corps made their first amphibious landing. He is the first man to invade Great Britain in over a

hundred years. And he is the first American to capture a British warship. And yeah, he actually got that silver

plate back to Lady Selkerk. I like to think he got lucky. She later described him as noble. So in conclusion, that's

John Paul Jones and it's a name you should remember. Thanks for watching. Best way to support the channel is go

buy some merch over the fatlectrician.com. Quackbang out. Just when I think I hate politicians

enough, they prove me wrong.