href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@27745@[email protected]#fig3" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Fig. 3); but this cannot be considered an authority any more than Trumbull’s picture of the Battle in the Rotunda of the capital at Washington. He depicts the American flag carried in that battle as something which no one ever saw or even heard of, to wit: a red flag with a white union, having in it a green pine tree (see Fig. 4).

Fig. 1 Fig. 2

 

Fig. 3

 

Fig. 4 Fig. 5

Frothingham in his history of the siege of Boston says that there was a flag over Prescott’s redoubt having upon it the words “Come if you dare;” but there is no authority given for the statement. As a matter of fact, it might have been, for at that period flags were used as ensigns, with different sentences upon them, such as “Liberty and Union,” “An Appeal to Heaven,” “Liberty or Death,” “An Appeal to God.” Several such flags were captured by the British and mentioned in the English journals of that period (see Figs. 5, 13, 14 and 15). Also in Powell’s picture of the battle of Lake Erie in the national capital Perry is seen in a boat with a flag of thirteen stripes and thirteen stars; yet when the battle was fought the American flag consisted of fifteen stripes and fifteen stars, and had been so constituted since 1794, because under an act of Congress there was to be a stripe and a star added for the two States admitted after the thirteen colonies became States, to wit: Kentucky and Vermont. So Congress on the 13th day of January, 1794, passed an act fixing the number of stripes and stars at fifteen, and such was the Star-Spangled Banner that Key saw at Fort McHenry in the “dim morning’s light” when he wrote the words of our National Hymn, as a matter of fact, the war of 1812 was fought under a flag of fifteen stripes and fifteen stars. In 1878, at a fair in Boston, the flag of the United States brig “Enterprise,” that fought the English brig “Boxer” on September 15, 1813, was exhibited. It had fifteen stripes and fifteen stars. It belongs to a Mr. Quincy, of Portland, Maine. It was not until the 4th day of April, 1818, that Congress passed the act fixing the number of stripes, alternating red and white, at thirteen, to represent the thirteen original colonies, and a blue union with a white star for every State then in the Federal Union, and for those that would be admitted an extra star to be added on the 4th day of July after the admission of the State. Now, by a late act, the State is not admitted until the 4th day of July after the passage of the act admitting her to statehood. The act reads as follows:

The use of stars by the Colonies on their flags was first suggested by a little piece of poetry in a newspaper called the “Massachusetts Spy,” published in Boston on March the 10th, 1774. It was as follows:

“A ray of bright glory
Now beams from afar;
The American Ensign
Now sparkles a star.”

Fig. 6 Fig. 7

Fig. 10 Fig. 11

This piece of poetry was the cause of a flag being made in 1775 by a patriotic vessel owner of Massachusetts having thirteen white stars on it in a blue union, the body of the flag being white, with an anchor upon it having over the top the word “HOPE” (see Fig. 1), already mentioned. It was hoisted on the armed schooner Lee, Captain John Manley (see also Rhode Island Colonial Records, Vol. X, p. 14. A similar flag is now in the office of the Secretary of State. It was carried by a Rhode Island regiment during the Revolution). Either this or the stars on the Washington book plate, in the absence of any record, may be taken as reasons for the adoption of the stars in the union in place of the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George. I have also referred to the claim that the combination of the stars and stripes was probably adopted out of love and respect for Washington. If this claim is true, then we would have, according to the Ross claim the spectacle of Washington complimenting and honoring himself, when, as a matter of fact, his whole life disproves such conduct on his part. Now, let us see if this argument as to the origin of the combination is born out by facts. We find in a book printed in London in 1704 by J. Beaumont that the English East India Company had a flag of thirteen red and white stripes alternating (see Fig. 6) the same as ours, only it had the red cross of St. George in a white union. In 1705 they reduced the stripes to ten; but in another work on ship-building, published in 1705, by Carl Allard in Amsterdam, we find that he fixes the number of stripes at nine. Also in a book published by Le Haye in 1737 we find that the number of striped flags in existence in Europe were as follows: Bremen, nine stripes, red and white, with a union of four squares, same colors; Rotterdam, eleven stripes, red and green; North Holland, thirteen stripes, red and yellow; East India Company, thirteen