The next day the National Assembly passed a resolution decreeing "that twelve of its members shall assist at the funeral of a man who has so well served the cause of liberty." True or not, the words attributed to Napoleon after Trafalgar, in 1805, are no more than justice to Paul Jones. "How old," Napoleon asked, "was Paul Jones when he died?" On being told that Jones was forty-five years old at the time of his death, Napoleon said:-- "Then he did not fulfill his destiny. Had he lived to this time, France might have had an admiral." Paul Jones has been called by his friends patriot, and by his enemies pirate. In reality he was neither. He was not one of those deeply ethical natures that subordinate personal glory and success to the common good. As an American he cannot be ranked with his great contemporaries, for his patriotism consisted merely in being fair and devoted to the side he had for the time espoused rather than in quiet work as a citizen after the spectacular opportunity had passed. He was ready to serve wherever he saw the best chance for himself, whether it was with the United States, Russia, or France. In no unworthy sense of the word, however, was he an adventurer. The deepest thing in his soul, the love of glory, rendered him incapable at once of meanness and of true patriotism. In search for fame he gave up family, friends, and religion. In these relations of life he would have been and was, as far as he went, tolerant and kind; but in them he was not interested. Love of glory made him a lonely figure. It rendered him a _poseur_, vain and snobbish, but it also spurred him on to contend, with phenomenal energy, against almost innumerable difficulties. As far as his deeds are concerned, Paul Jones appears in the popular consciousness as he really was,--a bolt of effectiveness, a desperate, successful fighter, a sea captain whose habit was to appear unexpectedly to confound his enemies, and then to disappear, no one knew where, only to reappear with telling effect. He has been the hero of the novelists, who, expressing the popular idea, have pictured him with essential truth. A popular hero, indeed, he was, and will remain so, justly, in the memory of men. * * * * * The Riverside Press _Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co._ _Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._