“I am sorry, sir, that Mr. Adams holds a poor opinion of me.” This with a sigh. “It was my dream to be a captain, and have a ship of my own. However, I am here to serve the cause, rather than promote the personal fortunes of Paul Jones. Let the list go as it is; the future doubtless will bring all things straight. I am free to say, however, that from the selections made by Mr. Adams, as you repeat them, I think he has provided for more courts-martial than victories.” The two gentlemen in talk are Mr. Hewes, member of the Colonial Congress from North Carolina, and Planter Paul Jones. Mr. Hewes is old and worn and sick, and only his granite3 resolution keeps him at the seat of government.
“Mr. Hancock,” continues Mr. Hewes, “is also from Massachusetts, and as chairman of our committee he gave Mr. Adams what aid he could. There’s one honor you may have, however; I arranged for that. The issuance of the commissions is with Mr. Hancock, and if you’ll accompany me to the Hall you will be given yours at once. That will make you the first, if not the highest, naval4 officer of the Colonies to be commissioned.”
“On what ship am I to serve?”
“The Alfred, Captain Saltonstall.”
Raw and bleak5 sweep the December winds through the bare streets, as the two go on their way to the Hall, where Congress holds its sittings. Fortunately, as Lieutenant Paul Jones phrases it, the wind is “aft,” and so Mr. Hewes, despite his weakness, makes better weather of it than one would look for.
“I’ll have a carriage home,” says he, panting a little, as the stiff breeze steals his breath away.
“I can’t,” breaks forth6 Lieutenant Paul Jones, after an interval7 of silence—“I can’t for the life of me make out how I incurred8 the enmity of Mr. Adams. I’ve never set foot in Boston, never clapped my eyes on him before I came to this city last July.”
Mr. Hewes smiles. “You sacrificed interest to epigram,” says he. Lieutenant Paul Jones glares in wonder. “Let me explain,” goes on Mr. Hewes, answering the look. “Do you recall meeting Mr. Adams at Colonel Carroll’s house out near Schuylkill Falls?”
“That was last October.”
“Precisely! Mr. Adams’ memory is quite equal to last October. The more, if the event remembered were a dig to his vanity.”
“A dig to his vanity!” repeats Lieutenant Paul Jones in astonishment9. “I cannot now recall that I so much as spoke10 a word to the old polar bear.”
“It wasn’t a word spoken to him, but one spoken of him. This is it: Mr. Adams told an anecdote11 in French to little Betty Faulkner. Later you must needs be witty12, and whisper to Miss Betty a satirical word anent Mr. Adams’ French.”
“Why, then,” interjects Lieutenant Paul Jones, with a whimsical grin, “I’ll tell you what I said. ‘It is fortunate,’ I observed to Miss Betty, ‘that Mr. Adams’ sentiments are not so English as is his French. If they were, he would far and away be the greatest Tory in the world.’”
“Just so!” chuckles13 Mr. Hewes. “And, doubtless, all very true. None the less, my young friend, your brightness cost you a captaincy. The mot was too good to keep, and little Betty started it on a journey that landed it, at a fourth telling, slap in the outraged14 ear of Mr. Adams himself. Make you a captain? He would as soon think of making you rich.”
The pair trudged15 on in silence, Mr. Hewes turning about in his mind sundry16 matters of colonial policy, while Lieutenant Paul Jones solaces17 himself by recalling how it is the even year to a day since that Norfolk ball, when he smote18 upon the scandalous nose of Lieutenant Parker.
“Now that I’m a lieutenant like himself,” runs the warlike cogitations of Lieutenant Paul Jones, “I’d prodigiously19 enjoy meeting the scoundrel afloat. I might teach his dullness a better opinion of us.”
Lieutenant Paul Jones for months has been hard at work; one day in conference with the Marine20 Committee, leading them by the light of his ship-knowledge; the next busy with adz and oakum and calking iron, repairing and renewing the tottering21 hulks which the agents of the colonies have collected as the nucleus22 of the baby navy. Over this very ship the Alfred, on which he is to sail lieutenant, he has toiled23 as though it were intended as a present for his bride. He confidently counted on being made its captain; now to sail as a subordinate, when he looked to have command, is a bitter disappointment. Sail he will, however, and that without murmur24; for he is too much the patriot25 to hang back, too strong a heart to sulk. Besides, he has the optimism of the born war dog.
“Given open war,” thinks he, “what more should one ask than a cutlass, and the chance to use it? Once we’re aboard an enemy, it shall go hard, but I carve a captaincy out of the situation.”
Congress is not in session upon this particular day, and Mr. Hewes leads Lieutenant Paul Jones straight to Chairman Hancock of the Marine Committee. That eminent26 patriot is in his committee room. He is big, florid, proud, and, like all the Massachusetts men since Concord27 and Lexington, a bit puffed28 up. No presentation is needed; Mr. Hancock and Lieutenant Paul Jones have been acquainted for months. The big merchant-statesman beams pleasantly on the new lieutenant. Then he draws Mr. Hewes into a far window.
“I can’t see what’s got into Adams,” says Mr. Hancock, lowering his voice to a whisper. “He burst in here a moment ago, and declared that he meant to move, at the next session, a reconsideration of the appointment of our young friend.”
“And now where pinches the shoe?”
“He says that Paul Jones isn’t two years out of England; that his sympathies must needs lean toward King George.”
“It will be news if the patriotism30 of Mr. Adams himself stands as near the perpendicular31 as does that of Paul Jones!”
“And next he urges that our friend is a man of no family.”
“Now, did one ever hear such aristocratic bosh! The more, since our cause is the cause of human rights, and our shout ‘Democracy!’ I shall take occasion, when next I have the honor to meet Mr. Adams”—here the eyes of the old North Carolinian begin to sparkle—“to mention this subject of families, and remind him that it might worry the Herald’s College excessively, if that seminary of pedigrees were called upon to back-track his own.”
“No, no, my dear sir!” and the merchant-statesman, full of lofty mollifications, makes a soothing32 gesture with his hands. “For all our sakes, say nothing to Mr. Adams! You recall what Doctor Franklin remarked of him: ‘He is always honest, sometimes great, but often mad.’ Let us suppose him merely mad; and so forgive him. We may do it the more easily, since I told him that, even if his objections were valid33, he was miles too late, the question of that lieutenancy34 having been already passed upon and settled. Let us forget Adams, and give Paul Jones his commission.”
As Lieutenant Paul Jones receives his commission from Mr. Hancock, the latter remarks with a smile:
“You have the first commission issued, Lieutenant Jones. If the simile35 were permissible36 concerning anything that refers to the sea, I should say now that, in making you a lieutenant, we lay the corner stone of the American Navy.”
0101
Lieutenant Paul Jones bows his thanks, but speaks never a word. This silence arises from the deep emotions that hold him in their strong grip, not from churlishness.
“And now,” observes Mr. Hewes, who is thinking only of heaping extra honor on his young friend, “since we have a fully37 commissioned officer to perform the ceremony, suppose we make memorable38 the day by going down to the Alfred and ‘breaking out’ its pennant39. Thus, almost with the breath in which we commission our first officer, we will have also commissioned our first regular ship of war.”
“Would it not be better,” interposes Mr. Hancock, thinking on the possible angers of Mr. Adams, “to wait for the coming from Boston of Captain Saltonstall?”
Mr. Hewes thinks it would not. Since Mr. Hewes’ manner in thus thinking is just a trifle iron-bound, not to say acrid40, Mr. Hancock decides that, after all, there may be more peril41 in waiting for Captain Saltonstall than in going forward with Lieutenant Jones. Whereupon, Mr. Hewes, Mr. Hancock and Lieutenant Jones depart for the Alfred, which lies at the foot of Chestnut42 Street. In the main hall of Congress the three pick up Colonel Carroll, Mad Anthony Wayne. Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Livingston, and Mr. Morris. These gentlemen, regarding the event as the formal birth of the new navy, decide to accompany the others in the r?le of witnesses.
The flag is ready in the lockers43 of the Alfred—a pine tree, a rattlesnake, with the words “Don’t Tread on Me.” Lieutenant Paul Jones, as he shakes out the bunting, surveys the device with no favoring eye.
0113
“I was ever,” observes Lieutenant Paul Jones, looking at Mr. Hewes but speaking to all—“I was ever curious to know by whose queer fancy that device was adopted. It is beyond me to fathom44 how a venomous serpent could be regarded as the emblem45 of a brave and honest people fighting to be free.”
After delivering this opinion, which is tacitly agreed to by the others, the flag is bent46 on the halyards, and “broken out.” Also, a ration29 of grog is issued to the crew—so far as the Alfred is blessed with a crew—by way of fixing the momentous47 occasion in the forecastle mind. The crew cheers; but whether the cheers are for the grog, or Lieutenant Paul Jones who orders it, or the rattlesnake pine tree ensign that causes the order, no one may say.
Following the “breaking out,” the grog and the cheers, Mr. Hewes, Mr. Hancock and their fellow-statesmen, retire—the day being over cold—to the land, while Lieutenant Paul Jones, now and until the coming of Captain Saltonstall in command of the Alfred, remains48 aboard to take up his duty as a regularly commissioned officer in the regular navy of the colonies.
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1
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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lieutenants
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| n.陆军中尉( lieutenant的名词复数 )；副职官员；空军；仅低于…官阶的官员 | |
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3
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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8
incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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chuckles
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的名词复数 ) | |
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outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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solaces
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| n.安慰，安慰物( solace的名词复数 ) | |
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18
smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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19
prodigiously
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| adv.异常地，惊人地，巨大地 | |
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20
marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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21
tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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22
nucleus
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| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
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23
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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24
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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patriot
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| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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28
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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29
ration
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| n.定量(pl.)给养，口粮；vt.定量供应 | |
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patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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33
valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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34
lieutenancy
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| n.中尉之职，代理官员 | |
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35
simile
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| n.直喻，明喻 | |
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permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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39
pennant
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| n.三角旗；锦标旗 | |
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40
acrid
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| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
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41
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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42
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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43
lockers
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| n.寄物柜( locker的名词复数 ) | |
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44
fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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45
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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46
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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47
momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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48
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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