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Show "" EARLY LIFE OF PAUL JONES. ' Be Came to America to Inherit an Estate In Virginia. There is no record of his having attended at-tended any school except that of the parish of Kirkbean, but he developed a truly Scotch passion for reading and writing. He went to sea when 12 years old and made two voyages during his minority in a slaver, but hating the traffic he left it and tho ship too. At 20 he was in command of a finobrigantine. About this time occurred what he calls, in a letter to Robert Morris, "a great misfortune," adding, "lam under no concern whatever that this or any other circumstance of my past life will sink mo in your opinion. " Tho trouble was a threatened criminal prosecution for having had a carpenter flogged, which was tho usual mode of punishment in those days. Tho mattor was investigated, investigat-ed, and Paul Jones was fully acquitted. It is worthy of remark that the mag istrate who inquired into that rnattet notes that Paul Jones expressed great Sorrow for having had the man flogged, although the charge of cruelty was fully disproved. Ho returned to Scotland once after this, and although affectionately received by his own family his friends and neighbors seem to havo treated him coldly. Tho smart from this injustice turned the rudifferenco he felt for his native land into hatred, and ever after ho considered himself quite free from any responsibility for having been born and having spent tho first 12 years of his life in so inhospitable a country. In his twenty-seventh year a great and fortunate change ocourred to him. His brother William, who had emigrated emigrat-ed to Virginia and died there, left him an estate. There is no doubt that Paul Jones was often afterward in want of ready money, but it must bo remembered remem-bered that everybody was in want of ready money in tho eighteenth century. Certain it is, from his papers preserved at Washington, that he might bo considered consid-ered at the beginning of the war a man of independent fortune. The two years of his life in Virginia are obscure, as might be erpeoted from a man living the life of a provincial country gentleman, which tho records concerning him prcvo. At tho outbreak of war with the mother country Paul Jones hastened to Philadelphia, and through Mr. Joseph Howes, a member of congress from North Carolina, got his commission as senior first lieutenant in the infant navy of tho colonies. It was then ho made tho acquaintance of Robert Morris, to whom ho felt a pas siouato gratitudo and affection, and whom he named as sole execntor in hii will, Mr. Howos being thon doad. iliss Molly Elliot Soawoll in Centurv. At the town mcciing ct Bosboro, Mass., March 18, four women were elected members of the school committee: commit-tee: Mm. H- X- Nelson, Mrs. O. T. Wetherbeo, Mrs. C. H. Burroughs and Mrs. C. H. Brown |