The Admiral and the Ambassador by Scott Martelle Page B

a fresh ship to command—the twenty-four-gun
Ariel,
which the French had captured from the British. Jones once again oversaw a refitting, and on October 7, 1780, the
Ariel
set out as part of a convoy of fourteen America-bound ships. They almost immediately encountered a massive tempest with “mountain seas,” as Fanning described thewaves, which the
Ariel
barely survived. It was an epic storm; the French coast was littered with ships blown aground. After the storm passed, the
Ariel
limped back into port for another full refitting—the masts and sails were all but gone.
    By now, Jones’s celebrity in Lorient was waning, in part because of his own sexual escapades, viewed as scandalous by many of the local residents, not to mention the cuckolded husbands. Jones added to his troubles with an odd set of actions, as recounted by Fanning. He had persuaded an Irishborn passenger named Sullivan to stay on the ship for several days after it made its way back to port to oversee a contingent of marines aboard ship. As Jones kept extending his need of Sullivan, the man eventually demanded to be let ashore. Jones instead ordered him thrown in chains and held below. Sullivan won his release through the intercession of friends in Lorient and then stalked Jones to a room the captain was renting in port and beat him savagely with a cane. Several days later, Jones was again beaten by a member of the military garrison after refusing a challenge to a duel. 6 Twice battered, Fanning reports, Jones rarely left the ship again until it set out again for America, but only after further straining local relations when he rounded out his crew by pressing into service—essentially, kidnapping—a number of American sailors at port in Lorient. 7
    Jones set sail around December 12. With his guns reduced and his hold full of military supplies (not to mention volatile gunpowder) and other cargo for America, he chose a southern route in hopes of avoiding a battle. He almost succeeded. Near the end of the voyage, a loyalist privateer far faster than the
Ariel
approached. Jones ordered the
Ariel
’s deck cleared, the gun ports closed, and a detachment of French marines to stay ready below deck. Hoisting a British flag, Jones struck a pose as a British captain and demanded that the privateer, the
Triumph
, account for itself. After a shouted exchange, he ordered
Triumph’s
captain to present his papers aboard the
Ariel;
the captain refused. Jones ordered the Stars and Stripes hoisted and directed his men to fire; they did, strafing the deck of the
Triumph
. The gambit caught the
Triumph
by surprise, and after a weak attempt at defense, the captain, John Pindar, surrendered.
    Yet Jones wasn’t the only commander capable of a ruse. As Jones was distracted issuing orders to seal the victory and assemble a crew to sail the
Triumph
to the United States as a prize, Pindar suddenly ordered his men to unfurl the sails. The ship sprinted away before Jones could maneuver the
Ariel
into a position in which it could use its cannons. The duplicitous Jones had been outmaneuvered. There was nothing left to do but set out again for Philadelphia. En route Jones caught wind of a mutiny plot and headed it off; the
Ariel
sailed into port with twenty crew members in irons but its cargo of military supplies, French soldiers, and letters from Franklin and the French government to the Continental Congress intact.
    The voyage of the
Ariel
was Jones’s last sailing command for the US Navy. The
Ariel
was returned to the French, who sailed it back to Europe. Jones sat through a board of inquiry to satisfy lingering questions about the Landais affair. Jones was cleared, but his volatile personality and reputation had long ago soured his peers in the navy. Jones desperately wanted to be named admiral and be placed in charge of the entire US Navy, but he was much less savvy on the battlefield of politics than at sea. Backroom communications by fellow