This is the memory palace. I'm Nate de Malle.

He had not yet begun to fight.

He had been shot at

Bullets and cannonballs had torn holes through his ship in some of his shipmates.

They were outgunned, and when the British captain had shouted and asked if he was ready to surrender.

John Paul Jones said, I have not yet begun to fight, which was a hell of a good one.

And it was true. That was the way he rolled back then.

In hours later, when his ship was on fire and had nearly sunk into the turning Atlantic,

and his flag had been shot away, the other captain asked if he'd struck,

if he'd pulled down his flag to surrender.

And John Paul Jones said, I may sink, but I'll be damned if I strike, which is also a hell of a line.

He didn't remember actually saying that one, but it didn't matter.

That's the way it got reported back home, and the people back home loved it.

And it helped make him a bona fide hero of the revolution,

a great man in a time of great men.

He had not yet begun to fight. He remembered that.

And he remembered when he ordered his men to attack the British mainland,

to take the fight right to him.

And when he took prisoner after prisoner, ship after ship,

wreaking havoc on the Royal Navy off the coast of Nova Scotia.

And when he was honored by George Washington,

and by the King of France.

...