John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones was born in July 1747 in Scotland, but emigrated to America, and in the War of Independance fought on the American side.
In 1778 he sailed in the Ranger, a sloop, to attack the west coast of Britain, firstly Whitehaven. The most impresssive aspect of his actions for me was how much he managed to accomplish with such an unwilling crew. When he asked for volunteers to sail in small boats to attack Whitehaven harbour, the lieutenants refused and feigned illness. The "volunteers" sailed in two boats with combustables to burn shipping in the harbour. However the crew of the other boat said they were "frightened by noises" and their candles had gone out so they achieved nothing, and they actually went ashore into an alehouse ! Jones and several of his men from his boat entered the fort and spiked the guns, but on return to his boat even this crew had also managed to extinguish their candles. This crew had planned to sail off without him if they could. He did manage to set fire to one vessel before the alarm was raised by a traitor sounding the alarm running through the streets.
In September 1779 Jones was back in another ship, the Bonhomme Richard. It was very slow, poorly armed with whatever cannons Jones had managed to find, and crewed by a bewildering mixture of nationalities including fifty English prisoners-of-war ! Another six ships sailed with the flotilla, but the captains were certainly not under command of Jones, but had been "invited to join" the cruise. Jones was determined to attack a port on the east coast of Britain. He planned to attack Leith and demand a ransom from nearby Edinburgh otherwise he would burn the towns. This would be retaliation for the British burning American coastal towns. (While sailing up the Firth of Forth towards Leith, a town official did not recognise them and sailed out in a small boat to ask whether they could spare any powder and shot because they had heard the "pirate Jones" was in the area!) A gale then blew up and forced the fleet away from Leith.
Jones then sailed down to Newcastle, captured a sloop, and was determined to burn the colliers in the bay to cut off the coal supply from London. However, the other captains would not take part, it seems they were more interested in prizes, and Jones finally decided he could not make this raid on his own. A letter from Sunderland says "they so much alarmed the inhabitants that many of them immediately had their valuable effects either buried in the earth or conveyed up the country. The militia there beat to arms and with many of the town's people lined the shore until morning."
Jones then sailed further south and stayed around Flamborough Head and Hull for two days, capturing other small ships. The towns of Hull and Bridlington were on full alert for an invasion. See links for details. My ancestor Alexander Cairens was on guard duty on the coast.
Finally on the 23rd Sept he sighted the long-awaited Baltic convey escorted by the warships Serapis and Countess of Scarborough. The merchant ships retreated north to shelter under the guns of Scarborough Castle while the escorts faced Jones's fleet. The battle of Flamborough Head had begun.
There are many accounts of John Paul Jones and the battle of Flamborough Head on the web :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Flamborough_Head
Books - John Paul Jones, fighter for freedom and glory, Lincoln Lorenz, 1943.
John Paul Jones, a sailor's biography, by Samuel Eliot Morison, 1959
Night on Fire, by John Evangelist Walsh, 1978
Return to Alexander Cairens who was on defense duty on the coast