as the navy is concerned, it either flew the Grand Union or a flag similar to the Gadsden device, and this is borne out by the records. As to who was the first naval officer to raise the first American flag to the peak of his vessel and capture the first prize, we only have to quote ex-President John Adams, who wrote from Quincy in 1813 to Vice-president Gerry as follows:

As Captain Barry did not go to sea in the Lexington until February, 1776, therefore this claim of President John Adams is undeniably true so far as regards Barry, for the records show that Manley, in a schooner called the Lee, captured the British vessel Nancy, bound to Boston, loaded with munitions of war for the use of the British troops besieged there, and among the articles captured was a mortar, which afterwards was used on Dorchester Heights by Washington’s troops in shelling the British in Boston. This same captain on the 8th of December, 1775, captured two more British transports loaded with provisions.

The Paul Jones claim rests upon not that his was the first vessel to hoist an American flag, but that the Alfred was the first commissioned United States war vessel to hoist the Grand Union Flag; but there is no record anywhere of the date, and as no naval commission was issued to Jones until December 7, 1775, the Manley claim made by Adams stands alone as regards the first American flag distinct from the English standard as changed by the Colonists; and it is also corroborated by a letter sent by General Howe on December 13, 1775, while he was besieged in Boston to Lord Davenport, complaining about Manley’s capture of the Nancy with four thousand stands of arms. Now, I claim that Adams could not have meant the Grand Union Flag, as it was not agreed upon until December, 1775, but the one I have described as having a blue union with white stars, a white ground with an anchor and the word “Hope” over the anchor (see Fig. 1). The Lee was an armed privateer. In a letter to Robert Morris, October, 1783, Jones, in speaking of the flag, made the claim that “the flag of America” was displayed on a war vessel for the first time by him, he then being a lieutenant on the Alfred; but there is no record as to whether it was a Continental or Grand Union Flag, or some other device; yet there are reasons to suppose it was the Grand Union Flag—first, because the Alfred was in the port of Philadelphia, and we find from the record (American Archives, Vol. IV, page 179) that the day signal of the fleets on February 17, 1776, at the Capes of the Delaware were to be made by using the “Grand Union Flag at the mizzen peak,” which was to be lowered or hoisted according to the information intended to be given under the code of signals furnished.

In the Ladies’ Magazine, published in London, May 13, 1776, the writer states that the colors of the American navy were “first a flag with a union and thirteen stripes, and the commander’s flag a yellow flag with a rattlesnake upon it.”

Fig. 12 Fig. 13

Fig. 14 Fig. 15

In the Pennsylvania Evening Post of June 20, 1776, was published a letter stating that the British cruiser Roebuck had captured two prizes in Delaware Bay “which she decoyed by hoisting a Continental Union Flag.” There is no doubt that from July 4, 1776, until June 14, 1777, we had as a national ensign simply a flag with thirteen stripes, as we had declared ourselves free from the government represented by the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew which we had hitherto on our flag, but having upon it a snake with the motto already so often mentioned of “Don’t tread on me,” and this design was used, but without any official action being taken thereon by the General Congress (see Fig. 11); yet from May, 1776, or June, 1776, the date fixed upon in the Ross claim, until May, 1777, the American troops fought the following battles: June 28, 1776, Fort Moultrie. The flag in that engagement was a blue flag with a crescent and the word “Liberty” upon it (see Fig. 12). Battle of Long Island, August 2, 1776, the British captured a flag of red damask with the word “Liberty” on it; September 16th, Harlem Plains, no flag being mentioned; October 28th, the battle of White Plains, the flag carried by the Americans was a white flag with two cross-swords on it and the words “Liberty or death;” November 16th, surrender of Fort Washington, no mention of a flag; December 26th, battle of Trenton, the flags in this battle were State flags; all other claims are the imagination of artists who apparently knew nothing of the history of the flag; January 3d, Princeton, the same as at Trenton; January 26th, Tryon’s attack on Danbury; and yet in all these engagements that took place after we had declared ourselves a free and independent people there is no record in existence, public or private, that the flag claimed to have been designed by Mrs. Ross in May or June, 1776, was carried. The first time the Stars and Stripes was carried by American troops of which we have any positive record was at the battle of the Brandywine, in September, 1777.

It soon became apparent in 1776 that we were fighting for more than mere Parliamentary representation, and when the culmination was reached by the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on the 4th day of July, 1776, the conclusion was also reached that we could not consistently fight under a standard containing in its union the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George, devices that belonged to the enemy, but which we had used, to express our loyalty to the king up to that time while fighting for a principle. The want of a change in our emblem as originally adopted can be best appreciated by the contents of a letter dated October 15, 1776, sent by William Richards to the Committee of Safety, published in the Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. 5, page 46, wherein, inter alia, he said: “The Commodore was with me this morning, and says that the fleet has no colors to hoist if they should be called on duty. It is not in my power to get them until there is a design fixed on to make the colors by.” Yet this letter was written four months after the time fixed in the alleged Betsy Ross claim. Thus it is shown conclusively by the record that we had dropped the old Grand Union or Continental Flag, to wit: the Crosses and the Stripes, but had not yet, October, 1776, adopted a new design, and it was not until