moment that Franklin, Jefferson, Lafayette, the Morrises, or any of the others, would have associated with, corresponded with, and publicly praised a vulgar blackguard? Would such a man, however successful, have been admitted to any society whatsoever? Or, having in the first flush of joy at the news of his tremendous victory been so admitted, could such a man have retained his position for thirteen years--until he died, in fact? Nonsense! He looked like a gentleman; he wrote like a gentleman; whenever his words have been recorded we find he spoke like a gentleman, and he certainly fought like one. Never was a man so calumniated. His actions were so great that intense interest was felt in his career from the day of his arrival in Europe, and after his death quantities of sketches of him appeared, many of which are still extant. They are of the chap-book order--the dime novel of the day--and usually contain an awe-inspiring picture, and relate a tale in which smuggling, gambling, falsehood, theft, rape, murder, and everything else that is vile, are included. Laughton seems to have arrived at his estimation of Jones by accepting these scandalous tales as authentic, and building his biography of material culled from these disgraceful and discredited sources. No man can conceal his real character for any great length of time, especially a man in official station, who lives in the white light of public criticism. If Jones were the creature that Laughton describes him, it would appear somewhere in some serious page of his own. He was a most voluminous correspondent--Philip II was not a more indefatigable letter writer than he--and he spoke of the subjects under discussion with a sailor's frankness. Why is it that none of these things are evident? He was foolish sometimes, but never base. It is too late to write down in a few careless words the great men who entertained so high an opinion of the commodore. But Professor Laughton is not alone in his opinions. Indeed, his conclusions appear to represent a general English sentiment. So great a novelist as the gentle Thackeray calls Jones a traitor, and the popular opinion even in this day does not seem to have changed. In the current number of the London Academy[60] he is again called a "pirate." Let us settle this question at least.