no charge, nor received any recompense. I now submit it to your Honours' consideration whether a quarter cask of the public wine will not be a proper and a reasonable reward for these labours of fancy and a suitable encouragement to future exertions of the like nature.

Subsequently Hopkinson rendered another account to the government for the various designs mentioned above, together with numerous others, the first item on the list being "the great naval flag of the United States." On this occasion he asked for $2,700 compensation. Later he rendered a third account, itemizing the charge for each design, and followed this with an explanatory note which throws an interesting light on the financial status. of the nation at that time, for he says: "The charges are made in hard money, to be computed at 50 for one in Continental."

not

This claim was never paid, a board which passed on accounts reporting that it appeared that Hopkinson "was not the only person consulted on those, exhibitions of Fancy, and therefore cannot claim the full merit of them and is entitled in this respect to the full sum charged." Also the board was of the opinion that "the public is entitled to those little assistances given by gentlemen who enjoy a very considerable salary under Congress without fee or further reward."

ADMIRAL CHESTER'S ACCOUNT OF A
COLONIAL FLAG-BEE

Rear Admiral Colby M. Chester, U. S. Navy, has suggested that John Paul Jones may have had a share in the design. He says:

"This young officer of the Continental Navy had just returned from a successful cruise at sea in command of war ships, during which he had captured a number of the enemy's vessels, and was in Philadelphia at the time Congress was considering the question of a national flag, as a member of a Board of Advisers to the Naval Committee of the House of Delegates upon matters relating to the country's sea forces, of which the question of a suitable distinguishing mark to

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be worn by war vessels was one of the most important.

"Possessing a most attractive personality, Paul Jones was lionized by the ladies of the city and patronized by some of the leading delegates to the Convention, who called upon him to advise the legislators regarding the design for the flag; he thus had much to do with securing the passage of the act of Congress fixing its characteristics.

'Soon after this event took place, Captain Jones received his appointment to command the Ranger, one of the Continental frigates about to proceed abroad, and with the act of Congress containing his commission in his hands he proceeded with all haste to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in which port the Ranger was fitted out. Here he was received with more distinction, even, than at Philadelphia, for Portsmouth being one of the principal seaports of the country, its inhabitants were more interested in ships which were to fly the flag and the men who were to man them than were those living in the capital of the colonies.

"At Portsmouth Paul Jones attracted about him a bevy of girls who formed a so-called "flag-bee," who with much patriotic enthusiasm and many heart thrills wrought out of their own and their mothers' gowns a beautiful Star Spangled Banner, which was thrown to the breeze in Portsmouth Harbor on July 4th, 1777, less than three weeks after Congress had so authorized."

NEW ENSIGN'S FIRST ACTION AT SEA

The story of the first time in history that the Stars and Stripes went into action at sea is told in the picturesque language of the American officer who commanded the ship which displayed the new ensign-Captain Thomas Thompson. In command of the Raleigh and the Alfred, Captain Thompson sailed for France from Portsmouth, and on September 2, 1777, captured the slow Nancy of the Windward Island fleet, which had outsailed her. Having possessed himself of the Nancy's signal book, Thompson, on sighting the fleet two days later, determined to attack with the Alfred, but as

at Fort Schuyler, which stood on the site of the present city of Rome, N. Y. On August 2 a force composed of British and Indians attacked the fort, which was defended by Col. Peter Gansevoort with some 600 men. In the afternoon reinforcements—200 men of the Ninth Massachusetts Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Mellon-arrived by way of the Mohawk River from Albany, bringing ammunition and supplies.

They also brought with them newspaper accounts of the newly enacted flag resolution, and immediately the fort was ransacked for material with which to make the new national emblem. The ammunition shirts of the soldiers furnished the white stripes; a red petticoat belonging to the wife of one of the men supplied the red stripes, and Captain Abraham Swartwout's blue cloth cloak was requisitioned to provide the blue field of the union.

In Avery's History it is set forth that the flag was made on Sunday morning and was displayed the same afternoon from a flagstaff raised on the bastion. nearest the enemy. Then the drummer beat the assembly and the adjutant general read to the defenders the congressional resolution "particularizing the insignia of the flag of the new republic."

There are vouchers extant showing that the Continental treasury reimbursed Captain Swartwout for the loss of his cloak, but the red petticoat remained a gift of the humble soldier's wife to the first of the Stars and Stripes to undergo fire. FIRST SALUTE TO THE STARS AND STRIPES

All Americans recall with especial pleasure and pride that the first official salute to the Stars and Stripes was accorded by that nation to which, more than to any other, the United States owes its existence-France, the blood-ally of our darkest days, now, in turn, valiantly succored by us in her hour of sorest need. Again John Paul Jones figures as the chief actor in this flag episode. He sailed from Portsmouth on November 1, 1777, as a bearer to France of the glad tidings of the surrender of Burgoyne. Here is the officer's own account, contained in a

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report to the Marine Committee of Congress, of how the salute was obtained:

"I am happy in having it in my power to congratulate you on my having seen the American flag for the first time recognized in the fullest and completest manner by the flag of France. I was off their bay (Quiberon) that day, the 13th (of February), and sent my boat in the next day to know if the Admiral (Admiral La Motte Picquet) would return my salute. He answered that he would return me, as a senior American Continental officer in Europe, the same salute which he was authorized by his court to return to an Admiral of Holland, or of any other republic, which was four guns less than the salute given. I hesitated at this, for I had demanded gun for gun; therefore I anchored in the entrance of the bay, at a distance from the French fleet, but after a very particular inquiry on the 14th, finding that he had really told the truth, I was induced to accept his offer, the more so as it was an acknowledgment of American independence. The wind being contrary and blowing hard, it was after sunset before the Ranger got near enough to salute La Motte Picquet with thirteen guns, which he returned with nine. However, to put the matter beyond doubt, I did not suffer the Independence to salute until the next morning, when I sent word to the Admiral that I should sail through his fleet in the brig and would salute him in open day. He was exceedingly pleased and returned the compliment with nine guns" (see page 290).

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OUR COLORS

America's most gifted poets and orators have vied with one another in setting forth the significance of the red, the white, and the blue of the Star Spangled Banner. In the words of Henry Ward Beecher: "A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag, but the nation itself. And whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truths, the history, that belong to the nation that sets it forth. The American flag has been a symbol of Liberty, and men rejoiced in it.