Knight of the Seas

A 500-page biography dealing with the first and one of the greatest of American naval heroes will be welcomed by those to whom John Paul Jones is merely a name of glory. So little is generally known about his life that his adventures in foreign services after the War of the Revolution are almost mythical. He was a choleric man, disappointed in the treatment given him by Congress, and so he offered his unquestioned talents as a naval officer to France and Russia. There is something fantastic about his career. The eighteenthcentury adventurer or soldier of fortune is a more or less familiar figure, but the professional naval officer from the newest republic serving under the autocrat of all the Russias was a strange thing. The author took four years to write this book, and on the whole her research and study show good results. Careless proofreading and unnecessary anachronisms detract from its effect of authority. In any event, Miss Thomson has shown John Paul Jones whole, with all his defects and all his qualities, which is more important than small errors in detail.