> John Paul Jones is perhaps the most famous American Privateer. In 1776, when the Revolutionary War started, John Paul Jones and his ship was off in Europe on

> John Paul Jones is perhaps the most famous American Privateer. In 1776, when the Revolutionary War started, John Paul Jones and his ship was off in Europe on other business. Hearing that war has been declared, he began to attack the British Isles on behalf of the USA. John Paul Jones had been living in the american colonies for a few years before the war broke out. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in 1774, and personally knew Richard Henry Lee. When the war broke out in 1775 he joined the American navy and was a lieutenant serving on the USS Alfred, the first ship to be commissioned by the Continental Navy. While many of the missions he commanded involved commerce raiding, he was never a privateer and never carried Letters of Marque. > Alas: the American Flag was described to him through letters. So he really didn't know what it looked like. John Paul Jones was actually the very first person to hoist America's official naval ensign, one of his duties on the maiden voyage of the Alfred. It was actually Ben Franklin who didn't know what an American flag looked like, and told the dutch it had blue stripes. > John Paul Jones was captured however and charged for Piracy. Fortunately, he had an American Flag flying on his ship, so he was "legitimate". He was not captured and charged with Piracy, he was in a Dutch port and the Brtish asked he be handed over as a pirate, instead of as a commander of an American vessel. He knew perfectly well what an American naval ensign looked like, and had been flying one, but it was shot away in battle. In fact the whole ship had been sunk and he transferred over to a British ship captured in the same battle. Further, this event occurred in 1779, more than 3 years after Jones had joined the American Navy, and was actually the last American ship that he would command.