Paul Jones bowed, and replied with fine gallantry: "May it please your Royal Highness, if fortune should favor me at sea I will some day lay an English frigate at your dainty feet!" The next morning the _Ranger_ put out to sea again. With the salt spray dashing in his nostrils, with every fiber of his adventure-loving soul thrilling once more in expectation of a brush with the enemy, Paul Jones forgot the tameness of politics and the foibles of social functions. With gusto he took a brigantine in the Irish Sea on the 14th, and sank her. Then proceeding into St. George's Channel he ran onto the _Lord Chatham_, a British merchant ship bound from London to Dublin. This vessel was valuable enough to keep as a prize, so the Scotch captain manned her with a prize crew and had them take her to Brest. Paul Jones now headed farther northward along the coast of England. In his mind he was formulating an exceedingly daring plan, none less than a sudden descent upon Whitehaven, the seaport he knew so well as a boy and from which he had made his first voyage to America. If he could dash into Whitehaven, destroy most of the immense shipping which was always harbored there, and thereby effect an exchange of prisoners in Europe, he thought the risk would well be worth while. But when he arrived in the vicinity of his old headquarters, the winds were so contrary to his purpose that he gave up the project for the time being. For the next few days he cruised along the southern coast of Scotland on the lookout for other enemy prizes. Nothing of great moment occurred, and with better weather conditions than had previously prevailed, he made up his mind again to try an attack on Whitehaven. The hills were covered with snow when the _Ranger_ came within sight of them. In the harbor of the town of some fifty thousand inhabitants were collected almost three hundred merchant-ships and fishing-smacks. The captain had carefully let down the portlids to conceal his guns, and adopted whatever other means he could devise for concealing the nature of his ship. Paul Jones determined to wait for night to perform his operations. He would need the screen of darkness. When that hour had come he ordered every man mustered on deck. Then he announced his plan to them and finished by saying tersely: "I call for thirty volunteers to assist me in this task of reprisal for the numerous burnings the British have put upon us in America. No man need engage in this enterprise unless he wishes to. But those who share with me its dangers shall also share with me its glories." It seemed as if every man on deck shouted, "Aye, sir!" As might be expected Wannashego, the young Narragansett, was among the first. Paul Jones smiled with satisfaction. "With so many volunteers I see I shall have to choose my thirty men from among you. The strongest and most active are the ones I want."