Welcomed home with unusual acclaim, Paul Jones found that during his absence two things had happened which vitally concerned him. One thing was the ravaging of his plantation by the British. His fine buildings now lay in ashes, he was told. His splendid heifers had gone to satisfy the appetites of the raiding soldiers under Lord Dunmore. His slaves, who had become to him "a species of grownup children," had been carried off to die under the pestilential lash of cruel overseers in Jamaican canefields, while the price of their poor bodies swelled the pockets of English slave-dealers. To his great pleasure, however, he learned that his own overseer, canny old Duncan Macbean, had gotten away and joined General Morgan's riflemen, presumably there to wreak vengeance on the Red-coats with John Paul's own trusty rifle. This was indeed a hard blow to the young captain who, in commenting upon it, wrote to Mr. Hewes: "It appears that I have no fortune left but my sword, and no prospect except that of getting alongside the enemy." The second bit of news was the belated notification that, while he was away on his cruise, Congress, on October 10, 1776, had made him a commissioned captain in the United States Navy. It might be expected that such an announcement would be very gratifying to him, but not so. Paul Jones received it with more bitterness of spirit than pleasure, for he was only number eighteen in the list of appointees. This was an injustice which he never forgot, and to which the sensitive fellow referred all through his subsequent life. He thought he ought to have been not lower than sixth in rank, because, by the law of the previous year, there were only five captains ahead of him. In the meantime, too, he had done good service, while the new captains ranking above him were untried. If Paul Jones had a failing it was that of desire for prestige. Rank was to him a passion, not merely because it would enable him to be more effective, but for its own sake. He liked all the signs of display--titles, epaulets, medals, busts, marks of honor of all kinds. "How near to the heart of every military or naval officer is rank, which opens the door to glory!" he wrote. But, mind you, Paul Jones did not have the "swelled head." He never once over-estimated his abilities, inwardly or outwardly; and he desired fame because he knew he was entitled to it. If the reward failed to come after he had qualified for and performed the service, he felt cheated--just as the day-laborer feels cheated when he does his task and is not paid his wage.