Sailor of Fortune
It may be because he was a Scot by birth that we do not remember Paul Jones, whose tomb at Annapolis the Queen Mother visited the other day, as a successful invader of these islands. Most people know that a small French force landed at Fishguard in 1797 and surrendered rather ingloriously soon after doing so; but everybody overlooks the Commando-type operations which Jones, who had been given a fast ship and a free hand to do whatever he considered best 'for distressing the enemies of the United States,' carried out against Whitchaven in 1779. His men, it is true, were not ashore for long, but they spiked the guns of the forts, tried to fire the shipping in the harbour and created a good deal of general havoc. It is odd that this able and resolute buccaneer, who ended his naval career in the service of Catherine the Great and died a pauper in Paris at the age of forty-five, should have bequeathed his name to a dance whose main raison d'être at children's parties is—or used to be—to benefit those who are too shy to acquire partners for themselves. When I was a small boy I always assumed that Paul Jones must have been a timid and unhandy oaf, the male equivalent of a wallflower.
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