By any of these definitions can Paul Jones be called a pirate? It will be readily seen that the charge hangs upon the question as to whether Jones held a commission from an established state. In fact, the determination of that point settles the matter. He was regularly commissioned a captain in the navy of the United States, as we have seen.[62] Was the United States an established power, a sovereign state? The United States began to be with the Declaration of Independence. To quote Woolsey again: "The sovereignty of a state dates from its _de facto_ existence, and does not depend upon its recognition by foreign powers. Thus the sovereignty of the United States was complete from July 4, 1776, not 1782, when the English Government recognized, not granted, its independence." If the United States had not a legal existence as a sovereign power competent to wage war, and therefore to issue commissions to naval officers, until the treaty of peace, England would have granted independence thereby, instead of which she recognized a long-accomplished fact. Moreover, the British Government, long before peace was declared, had conceded belligerent rights to the revolted colonies, after much protestation. But necessary privileges of belligerency are those of raising forces and commissioning officers whose status as individual belligerents is determined by the recognition. None of the American prisoners taken from time to time were hanged as rebels or traitors, nor would such action have been permitted by the British people, if it had been seriously entertained by the king. Even if they had captured Paul Jones, the English, in all their fury, would not have dared to treat him as a pirate. Upon the point of law there is no justification for the charge. Paul Jones' commission was as valid a document as any under which a naval officer ever sailed. The sovereignty of the United States had been recognized long before the termination of the war by France, Spain, and Holland, and Frederick the Great, by opening the port of Dantzic to American ships, had practically committed himself to that side; although the failure of any or all of these to do so would not have abrogated our _de facto_ existence as a nation.