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When Jones
was in Paris negotiating for prize money, he received the
following note from Delia, implying that he had not been to see
her, perhaps because she was now widowed and might be serious!
December 1783 from Delia
"Is it possible that you are then so near me, and that I am
deprived of the sight of a mortal who has constituted the misery
of my life for four years? O! most amiable and most ungrateful
of men, come to your best friend, who burns with the desire of
seeing you. You ought to know that it is but eight days since
your Delia was at the brink of the grave. Come, in the name of
Heaven!”
Jones
traveled widely all over Europe in a very adventurous lifetime,
yet during all his travels he kept most of Delia’s love letters
with him right up to his death in Paris in summer 1792. For a
man to keep all these letters during a very difficult
twelve-year period in his life shows that Paul Jones was clearly
touched by Delia’s love and devotion, at a time that was the
highlight of his personal and professional life. I am sure that
in his own way Paul Jones loved Delia, but in 1783, once she was
free to marry her true love, Jones would have regarded marriage
as tying him down in his future career, and he would have been
right. Delia eventually went back to Holland.
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