Nor did Jones take a commission from two belligerent adversaries--that is, he had no commission from England which he threw up to accept that of the United States. He had never served in the English navy in any capacity. There were officers in the United States land service who had held English commissions and yet accepted American commands, but Jones was not one of them. He had never, until he entered the Russian service, sailed under any commission save that of the United States, and one of the noblest acts of his life was his indignant repudiation of a French letter of marque when his acceptance of it was considered the only way of saving his head. Nothing could induce him to declare the Alliance a French ship in those hazardous moments in the Texel when he was menaced by the Dutch fleet on one side and the English fleet on the other, nor would he even temporarily hoist the French flag on that ship. He did not even commit the so-called illegal and irregular act of accepting a commission from two allies, for he refused a French commission again and again. This certainly constitutes a clear and overwhelming refutation of the charge of piracy. Indeed, on the question of piracy, Jones' own ingenious comment is not without interest. Laughton has called attention to it in the following words: "Paul Jones strongly objected to the word as applied to himself; he had, he said, looked in the dictionary and found the definition of pirate to be 'an enemy against mankind.' Now, he was not the enemy of mankind, but only the enemy of England. With a _tu quoque_ argument, not wanting in ingenuity, he urged that, as England was then at war with the whole of America, the greater part of Europe, and much of Asia, not to speak of a part of Africa, she, in point of fact, came as near being the enemy of mankind as could well be conceived--that England was therefore the pirate, not Paul Jones." Why was it that the English called him a pirate, put a price on his head, and attempted to compass his death or capture by private hands? Why was it that he evoked such widespread animosity, and became the object of a hatred which has not exhausted itself to this day? Surely not because he had been a British subject! All who fought on the American side had been British subjects. Jones had removed to America and had determined to settle there before the war broke out. Why should any one attempt to insinuate that the same feelings which actuated Adams, Washington, and Patrick Henry did not operate to make him espouse the colonial cause? He was as fond of freedom as they, and as anxious to promote it.