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The action might be considered a draw, taking into account the damage done the British ship, and that she evidently had had enough of it. To the impetuous soul of Paul Jones though it seemed from the first to be what he afterward pronounced it—“the disgraceful affair with the Glasgow.”
From that hour there was no longer any confidence possible between him and Commodore Hopkins. The commodore had acted according to his best judgment; but he was not a Paul Jones. As Bill Green expressed it in the foks’l: “When the Glasgow went off howlin’ like a broken-legged dog, there oughter been somebody to stop her; and, mates, if Mr. Paul Jones had ’a’ been in command, we’d ’a’ had some prize money sure, as well as savin’ our credit.” Although there was a subtile estrangement between Commodore Hopkins and Paul Jones, each respected the other’s character. But it was more agreeable to the commodore to have Paul Jones anywhere than on the Alfred, so that in a very short while he was placed in command of the sloop of war Providence.