American History Hit - Origins of the US Navy: America's Revolutionary Pirate

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Happy 250th Birthday to the US Navy! Today Don asks, who was John Paul Jones and did he really father the US Navy? Our guest is historian James L. Nelson, author of 'Washington's Secret Navy'.In July 2026, tall ships of the world will be coming to Port of New York and New Jersey. Find out more here: https://sail4th.org/Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries, with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. The year is 1779. Back in America, the revolution grinds on.

But here, under a moonlit sky on uncharacteristically calm coastal waters in the North Sea, a defiant band of Americans has carried the fight to England. Two ships drift on the glassy waters, locked together in mortal combat. Masts splintered, sails and rags, the air thick with smoke, flame, and the stench of gunpowder. One ship flies the proud Ensign of the Royal Navy. The other, the Bonham Richardt creaks at every sprung seam. Her decks slick with blood, her hull so torn by cannon fire that moonlight passes clean through her sides. Across the tangle of broken timbers and burning canvas, the British captain calls out to his enemy's commander.

Do you surrender? From the shattered decks of the American ship comes a single voice, hoarse and unyielding, the Scots-born sailor, who will soon become America's first naval hero, John Paul Jones. Nay, sir, he replies, I have not yet begun to fight. Hey, I'm Don Wildman. Welcome to another episode of American History Hit, here with brand new episodes every Monday and Thursday, plus hundreds of archived installments available wherever you get your podcasts. Nearly 250 years ago, the United States declared itself independence from its mother country

and began a long fight to secure its existence. Around that same time, a restless, Scott-turned American patriot came up with a daring notion that this struggle for our land ought to be taken to the seas. His name was John Paul Jones, or that was the name he adopted. Much of this man's epic biography is provable fact, but some of it was deliberately generated myth. Understanding the differences is part of understanding the history of the United States Navy. It will all soon be celebrated. The Navy, the nation, our seafaring traditions in spectacular fashion when on July 4, 2006, an international parade of tall ships makes it way from various

ports of call to New York Harbor. It ought to be quite the semi-quincentennial show. And today, we have just the seafaring guest to put all of this in perspective. James L. Nelson is an award-winning maritime historian and novelist, whose work brings to life the age of sail and the birth of the American Navy. He is a lifelong sailor along the coast of Maine, former Tall Ship Crewman, author of some 30 books, fiction and factual,

titles including George Washington's Secret Navy, Benedict Arnold's Navy, and the whole Revolution at Sea saga, the tales of Isaac Biddlecombe. Captain Nelson, welcome aboard. Honor to have you, sir. Thanks. I appreciate the promotion, but I don't remember

quite made cabin. Okay. Before we get into all this 18th century, nautical history, I think it's important to start with your personal connection to sailing in the sea and how it all steered you towards writing. You lived and worked on tall ships, yes? I did, yeah. I'd always had a fascination with ships in the sea ever since I was a kid. I have no idea where it came from.

No one in my family was a sailor. I've always said that it's clearly a genetic disorder and not learned behavior because I never learned it. But yeah, after college, I was living in Los Angeles. working in the television industry and getting restless. And about that time, I was living on my own sailboat at the time, a replica of Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hind came sailing into port. Ship had been built in England, sailed over to the United States.

They actually done a circumnavigation and was now on a five-year tour of the U.S. And gee, I saw that ship, and I thought, now this is what I've always wanted to do. So quit my job, said, okay, I'm going to do six months on board the Golden Hind. and then come back and resume my career in the television industry. I was gone for a year, came back, sold everything, moved on to the next ship. And so for the next five or six years, I worked on traditional sail on the East and West Coast. Such a fantasy for so many of us, you made a reality and then wrote about it for a good long time. Well, that's right.

I unfortunately turned 30, as is what to happen, and thought, okay, you know, it's time to get serious about life. And my idea of getting serious was to become a novelist, which is not exactly what most people would consider serious, but it actually worked out pretty well. And clearly I was raised on, you know, the hornblower books and Patrick O'Brien was really gaining no to write at the time. So clearly I was going to write about maritime subjects. So I started off writing fiction initially and then moved on to nonfiction as well. You see these ships from afar. What does it like to be inside of them? How hard are they to sail?

Well, what's the general experience being on board? They're unlike any other sort of sailing vessel you could possibly imagine. I mean, there are literally hundreds of lines, and you have to know the names and uses of each one. And, you know, people will ask, well, do you actually climb up the mass? Yes, that is standard operating procedure. You can't run these ships without working 50, 100 feet off the deck a lot of the time. It takes a lot of teamwork, a lot of coordination, because a lot of close. Complicated maneuvers have to happen at the same time.

And it's a thrill when it all works together that way. And a nightmare when it doesn't. Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, there must be doldrum moments where everything stops and you just sit in the water, at least like any other sailing ship, I suppose. Absolutely. You really can't grasp the history of John Paul Jones, never mind human civilization in the age of sail, without some notion of the world of these ships and how much life was involved with them,

whether or not you were a sailor. I mean, it was a fact of life. to imagine the world without transportation, pre-rail. I mean, this is the challenge of today's story. Ships and what they do represent everything. And the British in those days were about the best. Oh, yeah, absolutely. The British Navy, really from the beginning of the 18th century right through,

they were the naval power of the world. So in the same way that it was ridiculous for the Americans to think they could conceivably beat the British Army, the idea standing up to the British Navy was just absurd. But they did it anyway. John Paul Jones, his tale begins in 1747, born on the west coast of Scotland. Father was a gardener on an estate, nothing to do with the sea. And he's born simply as John Paul. The Jones will come later and we'll discuss that.

How does this kid find his way to the sea? It's sort of what I had said before about it being a genetic disorder. And clearly, he had it. He was called to the sea from an early age. I believe he had a relative who was a mariner. So he ends up going to see as a cabin boy at 13, which was not unusual at the time. You know, a lot of people craved that adventure. They saw it as a possibility for advancement.

You know, if you're a gardener like his father was, there's only so far you can go. But if you're a mariner, well, you can rise up to captain, you become a merchant, and you can potentially become wealthy. So it is a very viable career for someone at that time. And so available. I mean, that's the thing that we don't understand. You see those pictures of old ports, you know, New York. Harbor, never mind all the rest, just crowded with masts. That was the way it all looked.

It must have been calling out to young men like him. I just have to say the name of the place just because it's so beautiful. Kirkubrishur, right? Kirkubisher is where he's from. I love that. Yes. I'll take your word on the pronunciation. I've never been quite sure about it. You can actually visit his home today. I mean, there's still the cottage on that estate. he joins the Navy, as you say, H-13, sailing from Whitehaven. He's the apprentice on a merchant ship. And off he goes, an early entry into the whole world that he will distinguish himself in. How does John Paul land himself in the colonies?

It's a very long voyage that ultimately gets him to Virginia. He was a natural mariner, and he rose very quickly. Ultimately, he was a passenger on board of ship coming back to Scotland when the master and the first maid died, and he was just a passenger, but he was the only person on board who could navigate. So he drove the ship back, and as a thanks for essentially saving the voyage, the owners gave him command of the vessel. So he had risen to captain. He had an unfortunate habit of killing his crew members, which didn't. Now, that's unfair of me to say, but he had experienced a crew member who was mutinous, arguing with Jones about issues about pay, and Jones hadn't flogged. and was found by an admiralty court to be in the right.

He was justified in doing that. Unfortunately, the fellow died a couple weeks later. So that was sort of a mark on Jones's name. And then a few years after that, he was in another mutinous situation where he was actually attacked by a crew member and killed him with a sword. And at that point, he realized,

okay, you know, this is a little sticky. Now, this is number two. The courts are not going to be very favorable. So that's when he adds the Jones to his name, and goes to the colonies for the first time, really sort of reinventing himself in this new world. In the meantime, as we say, he worked on merchant ships. He worked on several slave ships in the Atlantic slave trade. He writes to very regretted that in later accounts.

And it is, well, in charge of that West Indian man, which I had to look up that title, that's a term for a ship capable of sailing the Atlantic, an India man. And that's where he has this run in with a crew member. This is where he ends up changing his name, right? We mentioned his real name, legal name was John Paul. He adds the name Jones. How's that? Well, again, he's killed a crew member who is mutinous.

And rather than facing trial, he hightails it to the colonies. And that's when he adds the Jones to his name as sort of a very clever disguise, if you will. Yeah, right. A pretty easy name to grab out of the world there. Good way to hide under that one. I think what we need to underscore is that this guy's a tough one. You know, he has come through the ranks, literally. And when you were a seaman in those days, you're dealing with a lot of different kinds of personalities, a lot of different situations, never mind the weather and all the seafaring problems and challenges you have to go through.

It forges a certain kind of personality, doesn't it? No, that's absolutely right. The term that we use in seafaring is up through the haws pipe. The hos pipe is the hole that the anger chain goes through. And someone who's come from beginning as a cabin boy as he did and rises to the rank of captain, we say he comes up through the hos pipe. And you're absolutely right. I mean, these are tough guys that he's working with, and he's able to take control of these crews very successfully.

He was an excellent captain, very well regarded. But that will continue to be a problem, even during the American Revolution, as we'll see, he's constantly fighting with his crews. And in some ways, it becomes worse because on a merchant vessel, the hierarchy is very clear. I mean, this is the captain. He is God on board the ship. And, of course, you were alluding before to the absolute lack of communication at the time. And crews of merchant vessels understood that.

You know, they were there doing a job. When you get into the American Revolution, suddenly these guys are fighting for liberty. And they've got a whole different idea of what the hierarchy on board a ship is. It doesn't go well, you know, because you simply can't run a ship as a democracy. Yeah. So he lands in Virginia, thanks to his relationship with his brother, who's already, in the colonies. And this is when things are really heating up. He's in the belly of the beast there, you know, this is Virginia. And word of American liberty is going on. This is where

you end up in a sort of psychological portrait of a guy who's been out there at sea for a number of years, you know, very independently, suddenly is in this land where he's hearing about tyranny, and that would certainly strike a hoard for him. He dates, interestingly, Patrick Henry's future wife, Dorothea. I mean, these are the circles he's traveling in. Finally, in 1775, he goes to Philadelphia to volunteer in the Continental Congress. Everything's happening now and becomes part of the first significant naval action of the war, which is a raid on the Bahamas that few people, including myself, have heard much about. Yeah, after much discussion and much political intrigue, the Continental Congress finally establishes a Navy in October 13th of 1775.

experienced mariners are hard to come by for a number of reasons. One, privateers are starting to go out to sea, and privateers, which are privately owned, armed vessels with a legal license to attack enemy shipping, can make a lot of money. And sailors don't want to work on Navy ships when they can work on privateers. And people who have command experience are in particularly high demand. So Jones is perfectly situated to get, a very high rank, and he gets taken on, he gets commissioned as first officer on board of the

flagship Alfred. And among the notable things that he does, he is the first one to raise the American flag on board a naval vessel. It was what at the time we called the, or now we called the Grand Union flag. It was 13 red and white stripes with the British Union Jack in the corner. That was the first original American flag, and Jones raises that on board the flagship Alfred. So the Congress had a very grandiose idea of what this little Navy was going to do. And it was only four ships. And they were converted merchantmen, which any naval historian will tell you, you can't really take a merchant ship and turn it into a Navy ship. A real Navy ship has got to be purpose built. But they didn't have the time and the funds for that. So they got these four

merchant vessels, converted them into naval vessels, and ordered them to go to Rhode Island and clear the British Navy out of there, and then go to Virginia and clear the British Navy out of there. And it was this absolutely absurd orders that they gave. The Commodore decided to do none of it. And he went to New Providence and raided there, yeah. And what would a raid like that entail? New Providence, NASA, was pretty lightly defended. There were, you know, a few British troops there and local militia. The ship sailed in and basically came to anchor. They sent the Marines ashore as the very first United States Marine Corps landing in history. And they go ashore and basically capture the small fort that's defending the harbor. They take Nassau, really with very little

resistance. It wasn't any great military action. But they do manage to gather an extraordinary amount of gunpowder and cannons and shot, which is something the Americans very desperately needed. So in that regard, it was a great success. The against the odds aspect of this man's career that is really so storied, you know, because we're not talking master and commander here. This isn't the man of wars fighting, you know, blasting each other on the open seas. We're talking about a guy who's very resourceful here and using what he has on hand. Part of his legend, though, I mean, the iconic aspect of him is that he works on both sides of the Atlantic. He takes his ships all the way across to France, then embarks from England.

That's what's so surprising when you hear about what's happened to him that it really took place. He's the first attack on the British in Britain, isn't he? Yeah, that's absolutely right. And I should say that, you know, Jones picked right when he joined the Continental Navy because he never would have been able to achieve what he did in the British Navy, where influence and money and your family has so much to do with your promotion. In the Continental Navy, even though influence was still an important thing, merit was also very important. And so a fellow like Jones with, you know, very tenuous connections

to anyone in power was still able to rise because of his innate ability and his leadership. So, yeah, he does take Ranger over to France and understands that most of the Continental Navy had been used for protection of the American coast and picking off British merchant vessels as they tried to get in and that sort of thing. Jones understood that taking the fight to the enemy was going to be very, very effective. And, you know, there's only so much he can do. He can't beat the British Navy. But if he goes over there and he becomes a distraction, if the Navy has to start sending ships out, wasting their time chasing Jones around when they could be doing other things, that's a real benefit.

If he starts taking merchant ships, then the merchant class and the insurance companies in London are going to start screaming. And they, you know, have a lot of influence on what Parliament is going to do. So he recognizes that, you know, this is an important part of the war. 1777, you mentioned USS Ranger. That's the boat he takes across the ocean. to France. But before we get into that activity, was he an idealistic man? I kind of glossed over the fact that he was in this for the ideas of the religion. Was he also an opportunist? He was very ambitious. And people will tend to say that like it's a bad thing. But in fact, all of these guys were very

ambitious. That's why they did what they did. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that. But yeah, he wanted command. He wanted the fame, absolutely. That was one of the things that led him to taking the chances that he did. Maybe say the same thing about George Washington, for that matter. Oh, absolutely. The battle we're talking about, really in Whitehaven, which I mentioned earlier in the broadcast, that's where he set sail as a young boy, 13 years old. He comes back to this port, which is far from London. This is way up on the West Coast and attacks there. I'm just curious why he would go so far out of the way of, you know, the main ports of Britain to that faraway place. It's a little hard to say. I think on the one hand, he certainly knew.

those waters well, and that would have been an advantage. The navigation was less difficult for him because he knew that area. I know that the historian Samuel Elliott-Morrison in his biography of Jones talks about how Jones might have had an excessive feeling of the importance of that area. You know, when he goes and later tries to capture the Earl of Selkirk, these are all the local nobility. that he grew up with. And in his mind, they were perhaps more important than they really were in the general sense. It makes me wonder if he's working out of grudge here.

This is happening out of France, which is an important part of this story. How much of the French have to do with his attacking Britain? Well, quite a bit. And certainly when he ends up with the Bonhomme Richard, that's a vessel that is provided by the French. The French were playing a very interesting game at this point, certainly prior to their officially coming in on the side of the United States,

they were secretly giving arms, secretly giving support to the American cause. Ben Franklin, of course, was the ambassador to France at the time, was an absolute genius at playing this game. And he could push the bounds of France is ostensible neutrality. You know, you push it right to the breaking point, right when he knew that they were going to really get met. he'd back off. And he did that again and again. He was brilliant. And he played an instrumental role in Jones's success. So that specific Whitehaven attack is April 23rd, 1778. And I just want to describe it a bit. You got two bookboats of about 15 men.

And their goal, as I asked before, was primarily to set fire to the 200 or more ships in that harbor. I mean, I say it's a small harbor. My Lord, 200 ships are in there as a full merchant fleet. the plan falls through, the men end up in a tavern getting drunk. Tell me how that works. Well, see, and this is again an example of the constant fight that Jones had with his crews because the crews, you know, they just felt emboldened to question anything that he wanted to do. As a mariner, I can tell you that sailors can be a really difficult lot to begin with.

You know, even now, they're the biggest bunch of whiners you ever run into. So these guys are infused with his sense of liberty. So Jones had initially envisioned, you know, quite a large raid with, you know, the crews of these vessels in command, and he ends up, as you say, with two boats going in there. And even then, they're hardly able to do one of the men deserts and alerts the town to what they're doing. So they end up just lighting one ship on fire. And they took the fort and spiked the cannons. They drove metal spikes into the touch holes.

So that actually ended up kind of saving them because when the town is alerted and they turn two to start firing, well, they can't. So he gets them back on the Ranger. He crosses to the Scottish side. His new aim is to kidnap the Earl of Selkirk. You mentioned this before.

This was the family that had employed his father. The Earl is not home, but Lady Selkirk is there and she entertains Jones. She persuades his men not to loot too much. They only take one set of silver plates. It's really a funny. story, but it's a statement on how difficult it was to, let alone plan these things, but

execute them in the end. Yes. Following day, April 24th, the Ranger battles with and defeats the British ship HMS Drake, and this is a major victory for Jones. Yes, absolutely. And again, it's the sort of thing that, you know, the Drake was what was called a sloop of war, three-masted ship, fairly small vessel, nonetheless. To the Royal Navy, she was nothing. The loss of the Drake was not a big deal. But it really frightened people that suddenly, you know, this war that was 2,000 miles away is now being fought right here. You're right on our shores. And they're taking British vessels.

And for the Americans to have an American ship defeat a ship of the Royal Navy, that is, from a morale standpoint, is huge. So as small in a material sense as the victory was, in terms of morale and in terms of the attitudes in England and Ireland, it was huge. Yeah, right. I like what you said about the insurance agents, though. They're the real ones who are calling the shots. Hey, these ships are going to cost us a lot of money. They carried a lot of weight. Exactly. He becomes famous for a battle the following year, 1779, with HMS Serapis. And we will talk about that when we come back after this break. We'll also talk about how John Paul Jones, great as he was, was not the father of the U.S. Navy. And we're back with our guest, James L. Nelson. James, John Paul Jones has this renowned status as a founding figure of the U.S. Navy.

But that is over-exaggerating his role in that particular history, isn't it? I think it is. And I think most historians would agree with me. You know, there's the old saying that success breeds a thousand parents and failure as an orphan. And in that regard, you know, the United States Navy is, a huge success. And I can name at least three people who are considered the father of the U.S. Navy. I can name five towns in the United States that consider themselves to be the birthplace of the American Navy. So, yeah, I think as important as Jones was, I do think that his status

as father of the Navy is a little excessive. James, the legend of John Paul Jones involves the famous line. I have not yet begun to fight. And this supposedly was said in very close quarters against the captain of the ship, the HMS serapist, the British ship. Describe this battle for us. Well, Jones had put out from France, thanks to the influence of Benjamin Franklin, and he'd been given command of the Bonhomme Richard, which, of course, is the French translation of poor Richard,

which was Benjamin Franklin's character. Of course, I didn't even think of that. That's interesting. Yes, yeah. So famous was Benjamin Franklin, and he had ships named it for him. Yeah. Exactly right. The Bonhomer-Rchard was a Indianman, a vessel that was essentially a merchant vessel, but a little beefier than most merchant vessels were. Because she was designed to fight as well. She was, I believe, a 44-gun ship, which was a pretty substantial vessel at the time. Jones puts out with a small squadron. So near Flamberra head, he runs into Serapist, the British Man o' War, which is escorting the Irish.

linen fleet. And Jones recognizes that this is a perfect opportunity. So he engages with Serapis, hoping that his other vessels are also going to come in and come to his aid. But the battle becomes fairly confused, and it really ends up being Bonhomme Richard versus Serapis. And Jones realizes that he's not going to win a gun-to-gun battle against them. The British gunners are excellent. Jones is not able to bring all of his guns into action. And in fact, some of his guns explode killing the gun crew, which is not good for morale. So Jones decides that he wants to grapple Serapis and actually board them, you know, take them by hand-to-hand combat. So he does manage to get the two ships locked together, but he's not able to board Serapis.

His one advantage, though, is that he's got Marine marksmen, and he sends them up into the rigging. If you look at one of these old sailing ships, they had a platform halfway up the mass, which was called the top. And he has the Marines in there, and they're able to quite effectively clear Serapus's decks with the gunfire. But this goes on for hours and hours of these two ships pounding away at each other. And, you know, I mean, it just is a real bloodbath, just the worst kind of naval combat. I mean, the physics of this have always confused me that they could actually lash onto each other. other. You know, it seems impossible to do that, first of all, but then you're able to stay like that for so long, but you say hours and hours, you'd think that would be over in a 10-minute brawl.

Yes. Well, it actually is kind of amazing to me as well. I know the therapist's rigging get tangled in the Bonhomme Richard, so they kind of locked together that way. Jones used grappling hooks and that sort of thing to physically bind the ships together so the serapist couldn't get away. When you're firing at that close the range, the guns can't hit below the water line, so there's nothing that's necessarily going to sink the ship

quickly, but they are making just a wicked mess of each other. I've seen slow motion footage of cannonballs hitting reproduced sides of ships, and it is just absolutely ghastly. Just a shower

of splinters that come out. So yeah, they're just pounding way to each other for hours. They weren't explosive shells, were there? They were really firing just like blunt force. The cannon balls were just round balls. Yeah, absolutely. Now, they did have other types of ammunition that they used.

They had chain shot, which was two cannon balls linked by a small length of chain that would spin, and the idea was that that would destroy rigging. Or you had canister shot, which was essentially a tin can full of might. basket balls that would give a shotgun effect. But most of these big guns are simply firing round iron balls. Where does the iconic line come from? At the time, if a ship wanted to signal that it was surrendering, it would take down its flag, would haul the flag down. In the midst of the battle, Bonhomme Richard's flag actually gets shot down. And so the Captain Pearson of the Serapist thinks that the Bonhomme Richard has surrendered. Now, one of Jones's

crew thinks that Jones is dead and thinks that the battle is over. So he goes and starts claiming that he wants to surrender. And Jones, you know, hears this and says, you know, no, what do you say? No, we're not surrendering. And so in this confusion, the captain and the therapist says, you know, do you surrender? And Jones ostensibly said, I have not yet begun to fight. I think most historians believe that that's apocryphal, but it is a great line. Yeah. And these stories are told over over again. I mean, his legend is built through writers like yourself, I'm sure. Back in the day, everything gets burnished with time, but it's a good line. So they win. He gets control of the serapist, right? That's right. He does. Tries desperately to keep the Bonhomme Richard from

sinking, but it's not able to. So ultimately, they just let it sink, and he takes command of serapus and sails that around Scotland back to France. Well, it's a good way to build a legend right there. Yes. I want to talk about, for the rest of this episode, really, how the Jones legend gets wrapped up in the founding of the U.S. Navy. We mentioned a little bit of this just earlier and discounted his direct role in this, but I want to get more into details. We're talking about a 20-year span of time here from the inception, which was, of course, the beginning of the revolution, when the Continental Congress creates a committee to create this, it's, quote, a fleet of sufficient force for protection

of these colonies, 13th of October, 1775. From that most, moment on, which Jones is part of this whole thing, a supposed Navy is created. Of course, it's a miniature Navy. Yes. The folks behind this are important, John Adams and George Washington. They understand the need for a Navy. But to what end, if they can't grow this thing a lot faster? The story of the creation of the Navy is absolutely fascinating. I love this period. And part of the thing that you have to bear in mind is that there was no real sort of unity. People had very, very different ideas. The southern colonies were not at all in favor of a Navy because they knew it was going to be very expensive and they knew it was going to be built by Northerners and crewed by

Northerners and protecting northern shipping. They weren't interested. Washington understood the need for Navy. He came to understand the need for Navy, but he also recognized that the United States was not able to build anything sufficient. So he actually was not in favor. He was not in favor of, of building a navy. He thought it was a waste of time. What he wanted was the French Navy. And you see that continuously in his correspondence, particularly after France comes in on the side of the United States. What Washington wants from France is money and ships. He doesn't want any more French officers. He's got plenty of those. He wants money and ships. Because Washington comes to realize that he can fight forever on land and never lose. But he's never actually going to

win until he has control of the sea, whereas someone like Adams, for instance, felt very strongly that the United States could build a Navy and it could do serious good. Now, of course, Adams was from Boston. That is a seafaring town. Washington is from Tidewater, Virginia, and is not nearly as intimate with the sea as a New Englander would be. What is the Secret Navy that you wrote about in your book, Washington's Secret Navy? This is a very interesting thing. So Washington shows up to take command of the army outside of Boston. This is after Conqueror-Hill, when the British Army is basically under siege and they're completely cut off by land, but they can get resupplied by sea. And Washington thinks there's nothing they can do

about it. They can't stop the ships from coming in. There was a colonel from Marblehead named John Glover, who was part of Washington staff, who we think probably said to Washington, And look, you know, you don't need men of war. All you need are small ships that can go out and capture these merchant vessels. And Washington understood the brilliance of that. But he also understood that the Navy was a very, very controversial thing in Congress. So rather than ask permission to do it, he just did it. He took his war chest and he started outfitting these small schooners,

arming them and sending them out after British merchant vessels. and he was very successful with it. But it's some time before he fesses up the Congress that he's done this. Because like I said, he understood that the proposition of a Navy was a very controversial thing. I say 20 years later, 2nd of January 1794, the third Congress of the United States resolves to then create a naval force adequate to the protection of the United States against the Algerian corsairs, whoever they are. That's right.

Well, during the American Revolution, the Navy was referring. It was the Continental Navy. We really didn't call it the United States Navy. After the revolution, the Navy is pretty much disbanded. Congress was very wary of the standing army or a standing Navy. Navies are very expensive. The country didn't have the money. They really let the Navy last. Prior to the revolution, a lot of the countries along North Africa and the Mediterranean had been preying on merchant shipping, capturing ships of foreign countries, enslaving the crews, holding the for ransom. As long as America was part of Great Britain, we were protected by the British Navy. And so the, what were known as the Barbary pirates, the Algerians and the Tunisians, pretty much left American ships alone. Once we were independent, all bets are off. And the Barbary pirates started capturing American ships and enslaving the crews. So initially, we were paying. ransom, basically protection money to these countries. But there was a growing chorus that

instead of paying for this, we should just get a Navy and put a stop to it. So that was what the Naval Act of 1794 was really geared towards, was build these six frigates to go and protect American shipping. It brings to mind, you know, the Horn of Africa these days. You know, the whole pirates going on there. The Americans would have been hearing about the same sort of thing. As you say, that fleet is built, including the still floating constitution in Boston. Listen, I want to just ask you, point blank, who do you think the father of the U.S. Navy is? If not, John Paul Jones. I would say John Adams.

I think that Adams was one of the most vocal advocates for a Navy. He was working behind the scenes to make it happen. He was part of the naval committees. He had the vision for a Navy. Yeah, I would give the credit to John Adams. Another major force comes later in expanding the Navy. You mentioned the very fundamental fact of American military life, which is that Americans didn't want a federalized army.

You know, he didn't want an army, he didn't want a Navy. And that extends well into the 19th century, even to the late part. You know, as far as the Navy's concerned, it's really Teddy Roosevelt, who turns this corner for us, isn't it? He's the one that really wants a bigger Navy as a show of force on the international scene. Roosevelt was a great supporter of the Navy, absolutely. Now, there had been a fairly substantial Navy, you know, by the time of the Civil War, you know, the United States was building a Navy really designed to fight England

because we kept thinking all through the, you know, the early 19th century that we're going to have to fight England again. But, yeah, Roosevelt comes along and really makes the Navy a very prominent thing. He builds this great white fleet and sends it out to tour the world. and really show the importance and the dominance of American naval power. And it is at this time that he uses the legend of John Paul Jones to his advantage in doing so, right? Yeah, that's exactly right. He sends his fleet to France. He discovered Jones's tomb, presumably.

Okay. They found a coffin that matched the description of Jones's coffin, and the body had actually been preserved in alcohol. He went to work as an admiral for Catherine the Great and led fleets. Russian fleets. It's not entirely clear why. I think he, you know, a lot of these fellows after the revolution went back to being merchant captains. And then when the Navy was established in 1794, they stepped back into being naval officers. Jones never did that. And I suspect he just couldn't bear the thought of not being a naval officer and not, you know, being a hero. But it really doesn't

work out very well for him. And he comes back to Paris. He's largely broke. He's partially forgotten. A lot of his friends are ignoring him. It's kind of a pathetic ending, really. So, yeah, he's buried in a Protestant cemetery in Paris. An unmarked grave, really, right? Yes, that's right. Exactly. He did have friends enough that they built a lead-lined coffin and preserved him in alcohol, thinking that he would at some point be recognized. And he is. And he is. Yes. Yeah, they find the coffin. Roosevelt sends part of the great White Fleet to escort him his body back to the United States. And of course, now he's buried in Naval Academy in Annapolis. Like Napoleon. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful sarcophagus.

I guess the saying at the Naval Academy is that everyone here works except John Paul Jones. Interesting. I mean, what a voyage. Not only this man, but also this legend takes. It's extraordinary. And it really excited me to get a chance to understand who this story was about, let alone how the legend was created. It's a really amazing statement on not only his personality, but also the need for a Navy. James L. Nelson is an award-winning maritime historian and novelist. Please look up his books. Revolution at Sea Saga is amazing five books about Isaac Biddlecombe. James, are you excited about this tall ships parade that's coming in 2026? Oh, I love these. They're wonderful. Yeah, I was fortunate enough to be third officer on board the replica of Frigate Rose in 1992.

during the Columbus Quintennelial. So participated in a lot of these parades of sale. And they're just such a thrill. They're just so wonderful to see these ships. I remember it just barely from being 14 back in the day and seeing them coming in. It's going to be neat to see it as an old man. All right, thanks for joining us.

Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of American History Hit. As you've made it this far, why not like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts? American History Hit, a podcast from History Hit.