One day, on July 6, 1747, a little boy was born in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. This boy was named John Paul he was the son of a Scottish gardener. He would be later called John Paul Jones. When he was 12 years old he went to the British merchant marine for the first time as a cabin boy. He sailed along with merchant men and slavers, being the first mate aboard a slaver brigantine by 1766 and got his first command in 1769. Around 1773, he became the leader of a merchant vessel. While on the ship he had killed a mutinous crewman in Tobago at the West Indies, and instead of staying in prison and waiting for trial, he had gone to North America. From then on he was thought of as a pirate to the British. he ran away from British justice. He attempted to hide his identity by adding the surname (last name) Jones.

When the war began with Britain in 1775, John Paul Jones visited his two friends in Philadelphia, so he could find a job with the Continental navy. The next year he became captain of the sloop Providence. His first time on the Providence he destroyed the British fishing fleet in Nova Scotia and took over 16 British prize ships.

In 1777 he commanded the sloop Ranger. He sailed to France in 1778, and there he received from them the first salute given to the American flag by a out of country warship. In the spring he frightened the coastal population of Scotland and England by making daring raids on shore and crashing many British vessels.

Jones was then placed as commander, and promoted in command of a mixed group of American and French ships. When he sailed at the top of this little squadron in August 14th of 1779, he took over 17 merchant men off the British coast. On September 23rd, he dropped in with a convoy of British merchant vessels followed by H.M.S. Serapis and Countess of Scarborough. Challenging Serapis, Jones quickly got Bonhomme Richard alongside the larger British warship and whipped the two ships together. With the end of their guns touching, two vessels shot into each other's insides. Although his smaller warship was on fire and going under water, Jones didn't listen to the British that were demanding for surrender ;" I have not yet begun to fight, " Jones replied. More than three hours after that bloody battle started, Serapis surrendered, and Jones took control of it.

Although hailed as a hero in Paris and also in Philadelphia, Jones did such stiff political rivalry in his homeland that he never again started a major American control at sea. In 1788, the Russian Empress Catherine II (The Great ) told him to rear captain in the Russian navy. He took an important role in the Black Sea campaign vs. the Ottoman Turks. Jealousy and political intrigue in his Russian rival stopped him from getting proper credit for his discharge. When 1790 came Jones retired and left to live in Paris. On 1792 Jones was appointed U.S. Consul to Algiers, but in July 18th of that year he died before the commission came. He was buried in Paris, but on 1905 his remains were removed from his long-forgotten grave and brought the remains to United States where, in 1913, they were finally brought back to in the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Maryland.