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2nd §, No 10., Mar. 8. °56.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
199 
marriage festivities were prolonged? Would not 
the failure of the wine be owing to the crowd of 
people who, doubtless, had followed Him to hear 
His words, and who would thus ‘increase, be- 
yond previous calculation, the number of the 
guests?” Thus, this miracle would not only 
confirm the faith of the new disciples (John ii. 
11.), but would create this crowd of followers 
into believers on Him who “ beautified and adorned 
with His presence,” and first miracle that He 
wrought, the marriage-feast at the house of a 
poor relative or friend. It seems to me that 
when Mr. Trench represents our Blessed Lord 
and His disciples as coming accidentally, as it 
were, to the wedding, he robs this part of the 
narrative of much of its force. Our Lord’s ae- 
ceptance of the invitation to the marriage-feast on 
His own part, and on that of His disciples, would 
seem to show something further than His sanction 
to the institution of marriage, viz. that He came 
to sanctify all life —its times of joy, as well as its 
times of sorrow; that He thereby “ shewed that 
His religion was not morose and unsocial; that 
He discountenanced by His example that course 
of rigid abstinence and mortification by which 
some, who would be thought His most perfect 
disciples, have disgraced His gospel” (Abp. New- 
come) ; — and “ that He should not be as another 
Baptist, and withdraw Himself from the common 
paths of men, a solitary teacher in the desert; but 
that His should be at once a harder and a higher 
task, to mingle with and purify the common life 
of men, to witness for and bring out the glory 
which was hidden in its every relation.” (Z'7acts 
Sor Christian Seasons.) Curusert Bens. 
PAUL JONES. 
Two of your correspondents call the celebrated 
Paul Jones a pirate. One Serviens (2"°S. i. 55.), 
and another under the signature of ¥. (24S. i.74.). 
I am not going to attempt the defence of Paul 
Jones's character ; but to do a simple act of jus- 
tice, in denying his being a pirate in any sense of 
the word. 
Paul Jones, though a native of Great Britain, 
went to reside in what were then called our Ame- 
rican plantations, very early in Fife, when quite a 
boy; and that country was to him, as to tens of 
thousands‘of others, his adopted country. When 
the dispute between the mother country and her 
colonies arose, some of the colonists took the part 
of their adopted country, and some of the parent 
state. Those on the British side called the oppo- 
site ones rebels ; but did not venture to treat them 
as such when taken prisoners, by hanging them. 
Now Paul Jones was a commissioned officer in 
the newly formed government of the United 
States. He never sailed an hour without a com- 
mission; and had he been taken prisoner, his 
commission would have protected him from the 
pirate’s doom, Had death, after surrender, been 
his fate, the Americans, and their allies the French, 
uld probably have retaliated, and hung all our 
ers fallen into their hands. By the acknow- 
ledged law of nations, Jones was safe under his 
commission ; a much more honourable document 
than a letter of marque. 
It is true that Jones had under him men who 
were something like the modern American /libus- 
| tiers, and whom he could not control, as is proved 
when they landed at the Earl of Selkirk’s; but 
the history of that transaction, and a letter of 
Jones’s (which I have read) to Lady Selkirk, 
shows his vexation, and his own chivalrous turn 
of mind. As far as I can recollect of this history, 
as much of the plate as Jones could collect was 
returned with the letter. Besides the history of 
his life in two volumes, which I read some years 
ago, the novelists have done Jones justice in 
this instance, especially as to his more than dis- 
approval, his abhorrence of the crime of his fol- 
lowers. 
Paul Jones was afterwards in the service of the 
French crown; and received knighthood and an 
order, the name of which I have forgotten. Then 
he was in the service of Russia, and received into 
the Order of Knights of St. Anne. Undoubtedly 
(however people may differ as to the general cha- 
racter of Paul Jones), he was a rear-admiral in 
the United States service, and was Sir John Paul 
Jones, Knt., of the two Orders alluded to. And 
if bravery alone is considered, he well deserved 
his honours; and if Capt. Pearson was knighted 
by George III. for fighting the celebrated hero, 
which he did to the delight of his brave adver- 
sary, we have no reason to be ashamed of Jones 
as a native of Britain. Pirate he was not. And 
his taking the part of his adopted country was 
natural; and what thousands so situated did, but 
whether right or wrong, will ever be an open 
question. Grrvas K. Hormes. 
Budleigh Salterton. 
PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE. 
Helioplastic, and Photography on Lithographic Stone. — 
M. Becquerel has communicated to the French Academy 
of Sciences two processes, called by their inventor, M. 
Foierm, Helioplastic and Photography on Lithographic 
tone. 
The first of these is based on the property possessed by 
gelatine, which has been dried and impregnated with a 
chromate or bichromate, and submitted to the action of 
light, of ceasing to swell when immersed in water, whilst 
if it has not undergone that action, it increases to about 
six times its bulk. 
M. Poitevin spreads a uniform coating of a solution of 
gelatine upon a smooth surface, such as glass; allows it 
to dry, and then plunges it into a solution of bichromate 
