[Footnote 50: Nassau was then in command of the Russian fleet in the Baltic, and an encounter with him--had a Swedish command been tendered Jones, and if he could have accepted it--would have been interesting. There would have been a final demonstration, which probably would have convinced even Nassau, as to the merits of the rival commanders in the Liman. Nassau, by accepting the advice of the English and other foreign officers associated with him, succeeded with a superior force in beating the Swedes, whereupon honors were showered upon him--more land, more peasants, more roubles, more rank. His favor was higher than ever; but he was magnificently beaten a short time after by a very inferior Swedish fleet, and his defeat was as decisive as it was disgraceful. He lost fifty-three vessels, fourteen hundred guns, and six thousand men. He had refused to take anybody's advice on this occasion and had conducted the battle himself. His cowardice and incapacity therefore were entirely apparent. He tried to attribute this defeat, which compelled Catherine to make peace upon terms not advantageous to her, to the cowardice of the Russians whom he commanded. The Russians were not cowards. He fell from favor, left the court, and passed the remainder of his life on his estate in Poland in the society of his homely but devoted wife. It is to be hoped that she made things interesting for him, but it is hardly likely. He died in obscurity and poverty in 1809, unregretted and forgotten.] [Footnote 51: A portion was subsequently paid to his heirs by the French Government.] [Footnote 52: See Appendix No. V.] [Footnote 53: From my book, American Fights and Fighters.] [Footnote 54: This sword was, of course, not that presented to him by the King of France. After Jones' death his heirs gave this famous sword to Robert Morris. Morris, in turn, presented it to Commodore John Barry, at that time senior officer of the United States Navy. By him it was bequeathed to his friend Commodore Richard Dale, once of the Bon Homme Richard, and it now remains in the possession of his great-grandson, Mr. Richard Dale, of Philadelphia.] [Footnote 55: Why a monument has not been erected to Jones I can not understand. It would be a noteworthy object for individual and national effort, and in no better way could we commit ourselves to the fame and achievements of the great captain, and forever stamp with disapproval those calumnies with which envy seeks to sully the name of our first great sailor.] [Footnote 56: The frontispiece of this volume.] [Footnote 57: Some of his phrases in his Russian letters remind me of Shakespeare's Henry V.] [Footnote 58: I have known hundreds of sailors more or less intimately, and I have never met one who might be included in either of those melancholy classes.]