In person Jones was a small, slender, well made man, about five feet seven inches high. His complexion was dark, his features were regular and his eyes black and brilliant. He had acquired a charming manner, especially with women, and not a little education and polish in his varied career. He wrote and spoke fluently, and, like Nelson, sometimes amused himself by making indifferent verse. His chief fault was his vanity. In morals he was rather above the custom of the time and the society in which he mingled. He had one child by Aimee de Teli son, which died in infancy.
As a strategist, tactician and fighter he stands high among naval captains. Louis XVI conferred on him the Order of Military Merit and presented him with a magnificent sword; the Empress Catherine appointed him a rear admiral and created him a knight of Sainte Anne and Congress formally thanked him and awarded him a gold medal for his services. He was accorded the honor of a public funeral by the French Assembly, and was buried in a Protestant cemetery at the corner of the Rue de la Grange aux Belles and the Rue des Ecluses Saint Martin, in Paris. In the spring of 1905, through the efforts of Gen. Horace Porter, American Ambassador to France, his remains were discovered and identified and brought to America in the armored cruiser Brooklyn, flagship of Rear-Adm. Charles D. Sigsbee s accompanying squadron. They are in
terred at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., awaiting the completion of a suitable resting place for them.
There is one mystery connected with Jones' life which has never been cleared up. No one knows why John Paul assumed the name Jones. There have been two attempts at explanation : one that he took it in testamentary succession to his brother, William Paul, who had taken the name Jones to inherit property from one William Jones., a Virginia planter. This is now disproved, and the prevailing theory is that the name was assumed. by John Paul out of respect and affection for the Jones family of North Chrolina, from whom he had received much law:Ines& Bibliography.- Barnes, J. S.,