WHO WAS JOHN PAUL JONES?
JOHN Paul Jones, hero of the American Navy or pirate? Whichever he was, hero or villain, my old mate Scotty likes to say: “So it was a Scotsman who founded the American Navy!” Scotty, an ex-fisherman who now works on Bridlington Harbour, was born in Kirkcudbright in Scotland, as was John Paul as he was known then (the Jones came later). Jones was born in Kirkbean, Kirkcudbright, on July 6 1747, the son of a landscape gardener. He was indentured in 1761 at the age of 13 to an English ship owner at the port of Whitehaven. His first voyage was on board an 18-gun brig called Friendship bound for Barbados and Virginia. John Paul loved the sea, worked and studied hard, and in 1766, at the age of 19, he became first mate on the brig Two Friends of Kingston, Jamaica, and two years on he became master of the brig John, of Liverpool. In October 1773, while in Tobago as master of the ship Betsy of London, captain Paul became involved with an insubordinate and mutinous Tobagan seaman who he ran th
