Edited by James C. Bradford

`This is a most ambitious and intriguing officer in the American Navy. Jones has Art, and Secrecy, and aspires very high. . . His voice is soft and still and small, his eye has keeness and wildness and softness in it.'
Entry in the diary of John Adams on meeting John Paul Jones

Subject of myth and legend and a host of biographies, John Paul Jones was an enigmatic character, well-known as an American naval hero, ill-understood as a man.

Now for the first time all Jones' extant papers gathered from repositories in the United States, Great Britain, the USSR, Denmark, the Netherlands and France are available on microfilm in a single collection. Not only do they provide a fuller and more detailed account of Jones' character and motivation than has been possible before, they also contain a wealth of information on eighteenth- century naval affairs including the collection of prize money, diplomatic relations between Europe and America during the period of the Revolutionary War, and the business and social affairs of Americans in Europe at this critical time.