The American captain seemed not to notice the intended insult. Every American boy and girl has a right to be proud of Paul Jones for his noble reply: “Sir, you have fought like a hero.” [Illustration: JOHN PAUL JONES COMMANDING THE “BON HOMME RICHARD” IN THE BATTLE WITH THE “SERAPIS.”] The _Pallas_ had captured the _Countess of Scarborough_ after an hour’s fighting. The _Bonhomme Richard_, when cut loose from the _Serapis_, sank to the bottom of the sea. Before the rest of the enemy’s fleet could stop them, Jones and the commander of the _Pallas_ sailed away with the _Serapis_ and the _Countess_ to a safe neutral port in Holland. The British now offered a reward of more than fifty thousand dollars for Captain Paul Jones, dead or alive. The people of Holland begged him not to fly the American flag, as there were two British fleets waiting outside that Dutch harbor to capture him. But Paul Jones insisted on flying the Stars and Stripes, not only in that port, but when he came out and ran the gauntlet of more than forty British men-of-war. He passed them all with colors flying, and reached a French port in safety. Captain Paul Jones was one of the heroes of the world. The French made him a knight and King Louis presented him with a magnificent gold-handled sword. The United States Congress voted him a gold medal in honor of his greatest victory and passed a resolution commending “his zeal, prudence and intrepidity,” assigned him to the command of a new ship of the line then being built, and proposed to create for him the rank of real admiral, until then unknown in the American navy. General Washington wrote him a letter of congratulation in which he said: “You have won the admiration of the world.” Thus the son of a poor gardener became our greatest naval hero in the War of the Revolution. But above all the honors he received at home and abroad, this was Paul Jones’s proudest boast: “_I have ever looked out for the honor of the American flag._” GENERAL MARION, THE CAROLINA “SWAMP FOX” A hundred years ago, when boys had but few books of any kind, “The Life of General Marion” was their favorite book of adventure, because of its short stories of rare bravery and hairbreadth escapes. General Francis Marion, of whom the book tells, was a southern man, born the same year as General Washington, and a commander of some of the American troops in the War for Independence. During that war, when the British found that they could accomplish little in the northern states, they decided to carry the war into the south. Lord Cornwallis was the British commander; under him Colonel Tarleton was a cavalry officer notorious for bullying and cruelty who became a terror to the whole region. Another commander of British troops in the south was a former American general, Benedict Arnold, the traitor, who joined the British after he had failed to deliver West Point into the hands of the enemy.