The Life and Adventures of Rear-Admiral John Paul Jones, Commonly Called Paul JonesAbbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
History
The Life and Adventures of Rear-Admiral John Paul Jones, Commonly Called Paul Jones
Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
Jones, John Paul, 1747-1792
Believing all this, and wishing, as we have said, to compliment France,
Congress placed its finest frigate in the hands of Landais. The result,
until the time when the Alliance left L’Orient, the reader knows.
The Alliance, with Mr. Lee on board, at length reached Philadelphia. The
conduct of Landais, whose title to command his own men doubted, was so
insane that the officers, passengers and crew all became incensed. Mr.
Lee was prominent in this movement. The ship was committed to the
officer next in rank. A court of inquiry was held, in which Mr. Lee
testified strongly against the captain as insane. The charge was so
fully sustained that he was dismissed from the service of the United
States. It was not deemed expedient to waste time by prosecuting the
more serious charges against him. He was consequently consigned to
insignificance. Thus thrown out of service, Landais took up his
residence in the city of New York. Destitute of funds, he was miserably
poor, living, one can hardly tell how, upon an income of but two hundred
dollars a year. Still he retained all his ancient pride, maintaining the
air of a gentleman, and refusing any assistance which could indicate
that he was in want.
He contrived, at every session of Congress, whether at Philadelphia or
Washington, to make his appearance, and to urge a memorial expressive of
the injustice which he thought had been done him, and demanding
restitution to his rank and the arrears of pay. It is said that at one
time he was reduced almost to nothing, when an unexpected division of
some prize-money gave him an annuity of one hundred and five dollars.
With true French hilarity he said, “I have now two dollars a week on
which to live, and an odd dollar for charity at the end of the year.”
To the last he kept up the exterior and the courtly bearing of a
gentleman. All that was visible of his linen was ever spotlessly clean.
His thread-bare coat was brushed with the utmost neatness. On
ceremonious occasions, or when making a call, he wore conspicuously a
pair of paste knee-buckles, yellow silk stockings, carefully preserved,
though much faded, and which were adorned with what were then called red
clocks.
Claiming to be an officer in the United States Navy, unjustly deprived
of command, he ever wore upon his hat the American cockade. On the
Fourth of July, and on the day which commemorated the evacuation of the
city of New York by the British troops, Landais, who had assumed the
title of admiral, invariably dressed himself in his old Continental
uniform. The large brass buttons, though they had lost their brilliance,
attracted attention. The long skirts of his blue coat reached almost to
his heels, enveloping his thin, shrivelled form. The sleeves seemed to
have shrunken, for they scarcely came to his wrists. He thus paraded the
streets, with all the airs of a nobleman of the ancient regime.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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