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Thomas ap Catesby Jones: Commodore of Manifest Destiny. By Gene A. Smith. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Pp. xx, 223. Illustrations, maps. $34.95.)
In this sympathetic, but not uncritical, biography of Captain Thomas ap Catesby Jones (1790-1858), Gene A. Smith presents a fuller portrait of a man who is known mainly for his seizure of Monterey, California, in 1842 under the mistaken idea that the United States and Mexico were at war.
Orphaned at the age of fourteen, Jones was placed in the custody of an uncle who later died in a duel. Family political connections and the threat of war enabled the young orphan to enter the U. S. Navy as a midshipman in 1807. During the British advance on New Orleans in the War of 1812, Jones fought in the battle of Lake Bourne. As a result of a wound sustained in that battle, Jones was unable to lift his left arm above his shoulder for the rest of his life. Postwar duties took Jones to the Mediterranean, where he learned about the management of a large warship, the practice of diplomacy, and the discipline of the officers and the crew.
Jones inherited land in northern Virginia, and between naval duties he worked to improve and enlarge his property. In 1823, he married Mary Walker Carter, a descendant of the Lees and the Carters of Virginia, and began to raise a family. As the commander of the sloop Peacock in the Pacific in 1826-1827, Jones advanced American interests in the region and checked those of Great Britain. He negotiated treaties with the regents of Tahiti and Hawaii. On the island of Oahu, he mediated a dispute between...