and copies of it were circulated in the camp. It was announced there also that the first petition of congress had been rejected. The whole army manifested the utmost indignation at this intelligence, the royal speech was burnt in public by the infuriated soldiers. They changed at this time, the red ground of their banners, and striped them with thirteen lists, as an emblem of their number, and the union of the colonies."

We have here contemporary evidence enough as to the time and place when "the grand union striped flag," was first unfurled, but it will be observed there is nowhere mention of the color of the stripes that were placed on the previously red flag, or the character of its union, or other than presumptive evidence that it had a union.

Bancroft, in his recent History of the United States, describes this flag as "the tricolored American banner, not yet spangled with stars, but showing thirteen stripes alternate red and white in the field, and the united crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, on a blue ground in the corner;" but he fails to furnish his authority for this statement. Fortunately we are able to furnish corroborative evidence of his being correct. Since the publica

tion of Bancroft's History, Mr. Benson J. Lossing, the eminent American historian, has found among the papers of Major Gen. Philip Schuyler, and has in his possession, a water-color sketch of the Royal Savage, one of the little fleet on Lake Champlain, in the summer and winter of 1776, commanded by Benedict Arnold. This drawing is known to be the Royal Savage from its being endorsed in the hand writing of General Schuyler as Captain Wynkoop's schooner, and Captain or rather Colonel Wynkoop is known to have commanded her at that time. There is no date on the drawing, but nevertheless it may be considered as settling what were all the characteristic features of the new flag. At the head of the main topmast of the schooner, there is a flag precisely like the one described by Bancroft, and it is the only known contemporaneous drawing of it extant. Through the kindness of Mr. Lossing I am able to give a facsimile in size, form and color from the original of this interesting drawing.1 (Plate VII).

'Mr. Lossing informs me in his forthcoming life of Schuyler, he intends reproducing a fac simile drawing of the whole schooner.

In Gen. Arnold's sailing orders for the fleet, he prescribes the ensign at the main topmast head as the signal for speaking with the whole fleet. The same at the fore for chasing a sail.

The old red union ensign had been familiarly known for nearly seventy years, and nothing could be more natural, or likely to suggest itself to a people not yet prepared to sever entirely their connection with the parent government, than to utilize the old flag and distinguish in this simple manner, this emblem of the new union, from the old, rather than seek further for new devices.

The flag adopted closely resembled, if it was not exactly like the flag of the English East India Company then in use, and which continued to be the flag of that company with but trifling variation, until its sovereign sway and empire in the east, exercised for over two hundred years, was in 1834 merged in that of Great Britain.'

THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S ENSIGNS. This company, whose first charter was granted Dec. 31, 1600, by Queen Elizabeth to "George, Earl of Cumberland, and 215 knights, aldermen and merchants, that at their own costs and charges might set forth one or more voyages to the East Indias," &c., bore as a crest to their armorial ensigns, a sphere without a frame bound with a zodiac in bend or, between two split florant argents, each charged with a cross gules; on the sphere the words Deus indicet; on the shield with other devices were three ships rigged under full sail, pennants and ensign being argent, and each charged with the same cross gules. The pennants were long tapering and split at the end while the ensigns were perfectly square.

That the East India Company were entitled to bear on their ships any particular distinguishing flag in the early years of its history does not seem probable since we read that a royal proclamation of James I, was issued April 12, 1606, ordering all subjects of the isle and kingdom of Great Britain, and the members thereof to bear in their maintop the union flag, being the red cross of St. George and the white cross (saltiere) of St. Andrew, joined upon a blue ground according to a form made by our heralds, and sent by us to our admiral to be published to our said subjects." At what time the striped flag was adopted by the East India Company is not evident. A contemporary print preserved in the British Museum representing the Puritans in 1644, under Sir Robert Harlow or Harley, destroying the cross in Cheapside, depicts several flags, one of which bears two red stripes on a white field, and the St. George's cross on a white canton which extends over the first two stripes.

Flag destroyed at
Cheapside, 1644.

In 1681, the renewal of the charter of the company by Charles II, vested in it the power and authority to make peace or war with any nation not being Christians, and six years later it was ordered the king's union flag should be always used at the Fort St. George.

In 1698, a new company was established by act of parliament, which soon however became incorporated with the former. Its arms were argent a cross gules in the dexter chief quarter, an escutcheon of the arms of France and England quarterly,

THE GRAND UNION OR CONTINENTAL FLAG OF THE UNITED COLONIES.

1776-1777.

It has been conjectured the idea of the stripes as a symbol of union may have been derived from the flag of the Netherlands, adopted for the national ensign as early as 1582, and which then as now consisted of three equal horizontal stripes symbolic of the rise of the Dutch republic from the union at Utrecht.'

The stripes of this flag at first were orange, white and blue, the orange in chief. In 1650, after the death of William II, a red stripe was substituted for the orange, and the flag so remains

crest, two lions rampant, gardant or, each supporting a banner crest argent, charged with a cross gules.

The Present State of the Universe, 4th edition, London, 1704, by J. Beaumont, Jr., gives as the East India Company's ensign, a flag with thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white, with a St. George's cross on a white canton which rests upon the fourth red stripe.

In the Dominion and Laws of the Sea published in London in 1705, the East India Company's flag is pictured with but ten stripes.

In a Dutch work on ship building by Carl Allard published in Amsterdam the same year, the East India Company's flag has but nine stripes.

1 A correspondent of London Notes and Queries, vol. XII, 2d series, 1861, writes:

He has a French work on flags published 1737, which describes

Ist. Pavillon de Nouvelle Angleterre in Amerique," as azure on a canton argent,

the red cross of St. George having a globe in the first quarter [see ante.]

2d. A DUTCH FLAG " Deuchese en Norte Hollande," which has thirteen stripes, yellow and red.

3d. "Pavillon de Rangon de Division d'escadre" [English] has thirteen stripes, red and white with St. George's cross in a canton argent.

4th. The East India Co.'s flag has nine stripes red and white with the canton and cross like number 3.

On the left hand corner of the membership certificate of the society of the Cincin

without other change to this day. Hudson, the first to display a European flag on the waters of New York and explorer of the river that bears his name, sailed up the river in 1609, under the Dutch East India flag, which was the same as above described,

Dutch East India Flag.

with the addition of the letters A. O. C. Algemeene Oost Indise Compagnie, in the centre of the white stripe. This was the flag of the colony of Manhattan established under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company, until 1622.

When the government fell into the hands of the Dutch West India Company the letters G. W. C. (Geoctroyeerde West-Indische Compagnie), were put in the white stripe in place of the letters A. O. C. This was the dominant flag (with the change of the orange stripe for a red one in 1650), until 1664, when the island was surrendered to the English, and the union jack of England supplanted the tri-color of Holland, and the name of New Amsterdam was changed to New York.'

"From Holland," argues a writer on the subject, "came the emigrants who first planted the seeds of civil and religious liberty and popular education in the empire state, and from Holland more than any other land came the ideas of a federal union,2 which binds together the American states. From Holland whither persecution had driven them, also embarked the Pilgrim fathers

nati, issued in 1785, there is represented a strong armed man, bearing in one hand a union flag, and in the other a naked sword. Beneath his feet are British flags, a broken spear, shield and chain. Hovering by his side is the eagle, our national emblem from whose talons the lightning of destruction is flashing upon the British lion, and Britannia with the crown falling from her head is hastening to make her escape in a boat to the fleet.

The union flag of this certificate is composed of thirteen alternate red and white stripes and a white union in which is painted the present arms of the United States adopted three years previous, in 1782. A flag of this kind may have been in use in the army earlier.

1 Valentine's Manual Common Council, N. Y., 1863. In the month of July, 1673, the Dutch again took possession of the city, which they occupied until Nov. 10, 1674, when by virtue of a treaty of peace between England and Holland, the English color, the cross of St. George, was rehoisted over the city.

The united provinces of the Netherlands on their independence devised for their standard the appropriate device of the national lion of Flanders [rampant gu], borne by the counts from the 11th century, grasping in his paws a sheaf of seven arrows or, to denote the seven provinces, and a naked sword. The shield of the arms, was azure billetée, and the whole achievement was charged upon the white of the flag.

to land upon our winter-swept and storm and rock-bound coast. The rights for which Holland so long struggled, so ably portrayed by our Motley in his History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic, are identical with those which the old thirteen colonies so successfully maintained. What more likely then," continues this reasoner, "that in adopting a device for a union flag our fathers should derive the idea from a country to whose example they were already so much indebted."

A more common place origin for the stripes has been suggested by a recent writer. The continental army of 1775 was without uniforms, and the different grades were distinguished by means of a stripe or ribbon. The writer thinks that the daily view of these, the only distinguishing marks of rank, would naturally suggest the same device for representing the United Colonies.1

Without wandering far seeking for the origin of the stripes upon our flag, it may have been that the stripes on his own escutcheon suggested them to the mind of Washington. They seem also to have been one of the devices on the flag of the Philadelphia troop of light horse, which accompanied Washington from Philadelphia to New York, when proceeding to assume command of the army at Cambridge, where they were first shown; and, it is possible, these stripes, or lists as they were sometimes called, were adopted as an easy expedient for converting the ensigns of the mother country by an economical method into a new flag, representing the union of the American colonies against the ministerial oppression, when they were not yet quite

1 Sarmiento's History of our Flag, 1864. The orders to which he refers are to be found in American Archives, 4th Series, vol. 11, p. 1738, viz:

Parole, Brunswick.

Head Quarters, Cambridge,
July 23, 1775.

Countersign, Princeton.

As the continental army have, unfortunately, no uniforms, and consequently many inconveniences must arise from not being able always to distinguish the commissioned officers from the non-commissioned and the non-commissioned from the privates, it is desired that some badges of distinction may be immediately provided; for instance, the field officers may have red or pink cockades in their hats, the captains yellow or buff and the subalterons green. They are to furnish themselves accordingly. The sergeants may be distinguished by an epaulette or stripe of red cloth sewed upon the right shoulder; the corporals by one of green."

Head Quarters, Cambridge,

Parole, Salisbury. Countersign, Cumberland.

July 24, 1775.

It being thought proper to distinguish the majors from brigadiers general by some particular mark, for the future major generals will wear a broad purple ribbon.