A naval adventurer, whose real name was John Paul, born in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, son of a gardener; took to the sea, engaged in the slave-trade, settled in Virginia, threw in his lot with the colonists and against the mother-country, and offered his services as a sea-captain in the war with a ship of 18 guns; he in 1778 infested the British coast, and made a descent on the shores of his native county; his sympathies were with the French in their struggles for liberty, and he fought in their service as well, making the "proud Forth quake at his bellying sails," and capturing two British war-vessels off Flamborough Head; he died in Paris, where he languished in poverty, but the National Assembly granted him a "ceremonial funeral," attended by a deputation; "as good," reflects Carlyle in his apostrophe to him—"as good had been the natural Presbyterian kirk-bell, and six feet of Scottish earth, among the dust of thy loved ones" (1747-1792).