Artist: Gerry Embleton (biography)
Medium: Watercolour on Board
Size: 16" x 12" (400mm x 300mm)
Date: 1965

This is the unique original Watercolour painting by Gerry Embleton.

This is the original artwork from Look and Learn no. 163, 27th February 1965, showing John Paul Jones.

John Paul Jones was born John Paul in Scotland in 1747. After first going to sea at the age of 13 he first worked on slave ships until about 1768. During a voyage to Jamaica in 1768 the ships captain died and Paul had to take command, successfully navigating the ship back to a safe port. The grateful Scottish ship-owners made him captain of the ship Bonhomme and for the next few years he led two voyages to the West Indies.

In 1770 he may have been arrested after a sailor that he viciously flogged died, amongst accusations that his discipline was 'unnecessarily cruel'. In any case, in about 1773 Paul fled the United Kingdom after killing one of his sailors in a dispute over wages. After arriving in the American colonies he adopted the surname 'Jones', becoming John Paul Jones.

In 1775 he joined the American rebel navy and had some success throughout the American Revolution. He eventually left American service and joined the Russian Navy until 1788. Jones died in Paris in 1792, and his grave was lost until 1905, the site where it was buried being used for cockfights for a time.