Serapis flag

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Serapis is a name given to an unconventional, early United States ensign flown from the captured British frigate Serapis. At the September 23, 1779 Battle of Flamborough Head, U.S. Navy Captain John Paul Jones captured the Serapis, but his own ship, the Bonhomme Richard, sank, and her ensign had been blown from the mast into the sea during the battle. Jones, now commanding the Serapis without having a U.S. ensign to fly on it, sailed to the island port of Texel, which belonged to the neutral Dutch United Provinces. Officials from Britain argued that Jones was a pirate, since he sailed a captured vessel flying no known national ensign. A year earlier, Arthur Lee, U.S. commissioner in France, wrote in a letter to Henry Laurens that the U.S. ships' "colors should be white, red, and blue alternately to thirteen" with a "blue field with thirteen stars" in the canton. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, ambassadors to France, wrote a similar description of United States flags: It is with pleasure that we acquaint your excellency that the flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen stripes, alternately red, white, and blue; a small square in the upper angle, next the flagstaff, is a blue field, with thirteen white stars, denoting a new constellation. Apparently based upon this description, a recognizable ensign was quickly made to fly aboard the Serapis, and Dutch records edited to include a sketch of the ensign to make it official. The Dutch could, therefore, recognize the flag and avoid the legal controversy of Jones' captured ship. The Dutch records survive and provide the original sketch of the ensign. The sketch is labeled "Serapis" and dated 5 October 1779, just one day after the Francis Hopkinson style flag, labeled "Alliance" (a ship in Jones' fleet), was...