John Paul was a Scots sailor, who had been a slave trader and subsequently master of a West India merchantman, and on going to America had assumed the name of Jones.

He was a man of boundless ambition, vanity, and vigor, and when he commanded American privateers he became a terror to the maritime people from whom he sprang.

In the summer of 1779 when Jones, with a squadron of four ships, was haunting the British coasts, every harbor was nervous.

At Plymouth a boom blocked the entrance, but other places had not even this defense.

Sir Walter Scott has described how, on September 17, 1779, a squadron, under John Paul Jones, came within gunshot of Leith, the port of Edinburgh.