Hmmm ! - Just a coment. The verse - from DT "Soldiers Joy" =
"John Paul Jones in an old tin can Scoured the ocean like a fightin' man The British said "Paul are you ready to strike" Paul said "I'm just beginning to fight""
Old Tin Can - Tin can followed the American rebelion by about 40 years.
Tin can was, and maybe still is, US Navy slang for a "Destroyer"
I think the folk process might have altered the original verse. If in fact the ancestory of this verse dates from the original.