In cruising off the coast of Galloway, it occurred to him, that, if he
could get into his power a man of high rank and influence in the state,
he should able, by retaining him as a hostage, to ensure to the American
prisoners of war more lenient treatment than was threatened by the
British government. Knowing that the Earl of Selkirk possessed a seat at
St. Mary's Isle, a beautiful peninsula at the mouth of the Dee, and
being ill-informed with regard to the political connections of that
nobleman, he destined him for the subject of his experiment. With that
view, he landed on the Isle, about noon, with two officers and a few
men; but, before they had proceeded far, he learned that his lordship
was from home. Finding his object frustrated, he now wished to return;
but his crew were not so easily satisfied. Their object was plunder; and
as they consisted of men in a very imperfect state of discipline, and
with whom it would have been dangerous to contend, he allowed them to
proceed. He exacted from them, however, a promise that they should be
guilty of no violence; that the men should not enter the house, and that
the officers, after having made their demands, should accept what might
be put into their hands without scrutiny. These conditions were
punctually obeyed. The greater part of the Selkirk plate was carried off
in triumph by the crew, and Paul Jones was, for a time, stigmatized as a
freebooter; but he nobly vindicated his character, by taking the
earliest opportunity of purchasing the whole of it, out of his own
private funds, and remitting it safe to its original owner, without
accepting the smallest remuneration. National prejudice has
misrepresented this transaction; and in order to excite the popular
indignation against Jones, it has been common to state, that this
attempt on the person, and as it was supposed the property, of Lord
Selkirk, was aggravated by ingratitude, his father having eaten of that
nobleman's bread. Nothing can be more false. Neither Mr. Paul, nor any
of his kindred, ever was in the earl's employ, or had ever the most