caballing of heartless and narrow-minded courtiers, denied him the well-earned
praise that was due to his services. He was, however, on his return to St
Petersburg, as an acknowledgment of his fidelity, invested with the order of
St Anne, and informed, that in a short time he would be called to perform a
part in services of much greater importance. He had seen enough of the Russians, however, and disgusted with the sordid selfishness and the low sensuality that reigned in the court of Catharine, took leave of her dominions, in the month of August, 1789. The remainder of his days he spent partly in Holland
and partly in France, devoting his leisure hours to the arrangement of his
affairs, and to the preparation of papers which might exhibit his character and
his services in their true light to posterity. He also made a large collection of
important documents relating to the public transactions in which he had been
engaged, which will be at some future day, it is to be hoped, given to enrich
the history of the important period in which he lived. He was seized with
water in the chest, and died at Paris in the month of July, 1792. As the laws
relative to the interment of calvinists or heretics were not then abolished in
France, application was made to the national assembly, which gave free liberty
for his being buried with all public honours, and ordered a deputation of their
number to attend, one of whom pronounced an elegant eulogium upon his charracter over his grave. He left among his papers a copious memoir of his life written with his own hand, which his friends, it has been said, had it in contemplation to publish. We cannot doubt but that its publication would add to the history of that important era many valuable notices, and be hailed by the public as a most valuable contribution to the general stock of literature. From the brief sketch of his life which we have given, the reader will be at no loss to appreciate the character of Paul Jones, which, in his own country, has been misrepresented by prejudice. That he was a naval genius of the first order, his actions abundantly demonstrated. He was the man who first flung upon the winds the flag of the United States; and he graced it by a succession of victories,
all of which were relatively of the most splendid character. Unlike the vaunted achievements of single ships belonging to the same nation in the late war, every one of which possessed a vast superiority of men and of metal, Jones accomplished
his purposes with means, to all appearance, inadequate to the end, his ships being often half rotten, only half provided in necessaries, and his sailors of the most motley description. In every battle which he fought, superior skill and bravery were the evident sources of victory. Nor can the circumstance which has been so often urged against him, that of turning his arms against his native country, detract, in the smallest degree, from his merit. He was, be it remembered, at the commencement of the war, a regular colonist of America, and was, therefore, no more liable to this charge, than was any other individual out of all the thousands who at first took up arms against Great Britain, and eventually constituted the American republic. Less, however, can be said, for his entering the service of Russia, which was discreditable to his generosity and love of freedom.
K
KAY, John, long well-known in Edinburgh as a miniature-painter and caricaturist, and almost the only artist of the latter kind produced in Scotland, was born in April, 1742, at a place called Gibraltar, near Dalkeith. His father, and an uncle named Norman, were both stone-masons, and he was himself des-
