“The Memorable Engagement of Captain Pearson of the SERAPIS with Paul Jones of the BON HOMME RICHARD and his squadron, September 23, 1779.” (First View). Oil on canvas, 20″ x 45″, by Thomas Buttersworth (1768-1842). Painting in the U.S. Naval Academy Museum Collection, 1949.
It was there in the half-dark of the crypt that I became consumed by John Paul Jones’s adventurous life, maybe as close as America got to producing a Byronic hero. At the time I was taking a seminar in “Pyscho-History” (it was the 70s) and being an early adopter of Cockburn’s maxim to “waste no experience that can be turned into copy” I used my new-found obsession with Jones to write a 50-page psychological profile of the American corsair as my class project, viewing his life through the lens of Erik Erikson’s theory of personality.