June 14, 1777, one year after the time fixed as to the Ross claim, that a new design was adopted, and a resolution was passed wherein Congress said “that the Flag of the Thirteen United States be thirteen stripes alternate red and white, that the union be thirteen stars white on a blue field, representing a new constellation.” In the rough Journal of Congress the word “of” occurs before the words “thirteen stripes;” in the record it appears to have been changed, thus corroborating the former use of the thirteen stripes.

There is no record as to how this resolution got before Congress—whether a member introduced it, or whether it was the outcome of the report of a committee. No official proclamation of this resolution was made until September, 1777; but it was printed in the papers previous to that time as an item of news; so, therefore, from June to September, 1777, private enterprise may have made many of them. The Ross claim is ridiculous when it contends that Washington, Col. Ross and Robert Morris, in June, 1776, one month before the Declaration of Independence had been adopted, called on Betsy Ross, and that Washington drew with a pencil a rough drawing of the present American flag, she making the stars five-pointed. The statement is without any documentary or record proof. As a matter of fact the six-pointed star was not adopted because of its use in English heraldry, while in Holland and France, our allies, five-pointed stars were used. Now, as to the claim that “Old Glory” was thus made in 1776 by Betsy Ross, what became of it? Preble says of Canby: “I cannot agree with his claim, and neither does the record support it” ... and besides it is practically charging Washington and the rest of the committee with seeking to establish and set up a national ensign before we had even declared ourselves a free people with an independent national government, and without any delegated authority to do so, the record of Congress being silent on the subject; so therefore we have: First. On October 15, 1776, the letter of William Richards to the Committee of Safety already quoted shows that the Ross claim cannot be true. In fact, at the time the letter was written we had no colors nor was any designed. Second. That at the time it is alleged the committee called on Mrs. Ross we had no national existence. We were still simply revolting colonies, not yet having declared our independence. Third. As a climax I have found in the Pennsylvania Archives, 2d series, Vol. 1, page 164, the following extract from the Pennsylvania (not the Colonies) Navy Board’s minutes, May 29, 1777, being the first bill for colors for the fleet on record: