After a month in port Jones started on a second cruise. This time he took with him the "Providence" and also the "Alfred,"--the ship of which he had been first lieutenant on the expedition to Nassau. Another raid was made on Canso, and another batch of prizes was captured. One of these, the "Mellish," had a cargo of clothing which was intended for the enemy's troops, but which was needed even more by our own army, at this time just beginning its winter campaign. When he came home from this second cruise, Jones thought he had shown by what he had done that he deserved a better ship, and Congress thought so too; and after some little delay he was appointed to the new sloop-of-war "Ranger," which was building at Portsmouth, and in which during the following year he entered upon a new and larger field of operations.
About the time that Jones took command of the "Providence," his companion in the squadron, Nicholas Biddle, was sent out in the brig "Doria" on a cruise to the Banks. Biddle was at this time twenty-five years old. He was born in Philadelphia, and had begun life as a sailor before the mast at the age of fourteen. On his second voyage he was wrecked in the West Indies, and narrowly escaped with his life. Afterward he went to London, and in 1770, when a war was threatened between Great Britain and Spain, he obtained an appointment as midshipman in the Royal Navy under Captain Stirling. War did not break out, however, and young Biddle joined the exploring expedition under Commodore Phipps, which sought to reach the North Pole by the way of Spitzbergen. On the same expedition was another youngster, by name Horatio Nelson, who was destined afterward to lead the English fleet to victory at the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. After the return of Phipps's ships, Biddle left the navy and came home to take his part in the war that was now beginning. His first commission, from the Committee of Safety in Philadelphia, was signed by its president, Benjamin Franklin, and appointed him "Captain of the Provincial Armed Boat called the 'Franklin,' fitted out for the protection of the Province of Pennsylvania, and the Commerce of the River Delaware against all hostile enterprises, and for the defence of American Liberty." But when Congress formed its first squadron, under Commodore Hopkins, he was transferred to the Continental Navy. The "Doria," which Biddle commanded on the expedition to Nassau, and which he was now to take on her first independent cruise, carried an armament of fourteen 4-pounders, which, as I have said, were little better than popguns, and of course unfit for fighting with a ship-of-war. Her crew numbered one hundred men. On her way out, the "Doria" made three prizes. Off Newfoundland she captured two transports, with four hundred troops on board. Any ordinary man would have found it a difficult task to dispose of so many prizes and prisoners; but Biddle had served in the navy, and he knew what discipline meant. Manning the captured ships from his crew, he filled their places on board the "Doria" with prisoners, and started to return home. On the way back, six more vessels were taken. These were manned in the same way, by stripping the brig of her sailors and taking the best of the prisoners to do their work. Finally the "Doria" arrived at Philadelphia, with all her prisoners and with only five men left of her original crew. It would have been hard to find another man in the service, even if it were Paul Jones himself, who could have kept in check such a ship's company as that. One of the prizes was wrecked, and another recaptured, but the rest got safely into port.