John Paul Jones was one of the founding fathers of the United States Navy, America's first naval hero, and America's greatest revolutionary naval commander. John Paul Jones, born Paul Jones, began his sailing career in 1759, at the age of 12, as an apprentice to a shipowner. The ship crossed the Atlantic once a year, where Jones visited his older brother, a tailor, in Fredericksburg, Virginia; here Jones would study navigation and improve his English. At the age of 17, his apprenticeship ended due to the bankruptcy of the shipowner. (1)Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Jones quickly accepted the position of third officer aboard a slave ship, where he made two voyages between Jamaica and Africa. Jones, however, had become disgusted with the slave trade, and in 1762 he resigned his position and joined the merchant ship John to return home. This would prove to be a valuable experience for Jones and the start of his legend. During the return trip, John's captain and first mate died of fever, leaving Jones as the only seafaring sailor on board. Jones managed to take control of the ship and sail it to England. The shipowners were so impressed that they put 21-year-old Jones in command. (2) John Paul Jones was in Philadelphia at the start of the Revolutionary War. The Continental Navy suffered from a lack of men, money, supplies, and, above all, leadership; men would not enlist under a leader they did not know or trust. Jones began his naval career when he was commissioned as a lieutenant by the Continental Congress. His first assignment was as first mate of the Alfred, a merchant ship converted into a man-of-war and the main ship of the fleet to sail to the Bahamas. In May 1776, John Paul Jones was promoted to captain and given command of the sloop Providence. Achievements were quickly accumulated; in six months, Providence captured sixteen British ships and overturned a transport ship carrying British supplies to the British army in North America. Jones was ambitious in lobbying for a larger command and in June 1777, with the help of his congressional friend, John Hancock, he was given command of the Ranger, an eighteen-gun sloop. The most important achievement of his time aboard the Ranger occurred on February 14, 1778, off the coast of Ireland; The Ranger was attacked by the Drake, a twenty-gun British sloop. The two ships fought, with Ranger emerging victorious; for the Royal Navy, it marked the first and most decisive defeat by the Continental Navy in British waters and the beginning of the Continental Navy's fight in enemy territory. (3) In February 1779, the East Indiaman Duc Du Duras was purchased by Benjamin Franklin and command was given to John Paul Jones, who renamed the ship Bonhomme Richard, a tribute to Benjamin Franklin's pseudonym, Poor Richard. Equipped with new guns, a squadron of ships under Jones' command, consisting of the Bonhomme Richard, the Vengeance, the Pallas and the Alliance, set sail for the most dramatic and important naval battle of the American War. independence. (4) September 23, 1779 would become the date that cemented John Paul Jones' legacy in American history. Jones encountered a large convoy of British merchant ships, escorted and protected by the forty-four-gun frigate Serapis and the twenty-two-gun sloop Countess of Scarborough. The fighting began quickly between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis, the Bonhomme. (9)