Meantime some merchant ships were purchased and collected at Philadelphia, from which city, one morning in January, 1776, a fleet of eight vessels set sail. As they were about to weigh anchor, John Paul Jones, a lieutenant on the flagship, flung to the breeze a yellow silk flag on which were a pine tree and a coiled rattlesnake, with this motto: "Don't tread on me." This was the first flag ever hoisted on an American man-of-war. Ice in the Delaware kept the fleet in the river till the middle of February, when it went to sea, sailed southward to New Providence in the Bahamas, captured the town, brought off the governor, some powder and cannon, and after taking several prizes got safely back to New London. Soon after the squadron had left the Delaware, the _Lexington_, Captain John Barry in command, while cruising off the Virginia coast, fell in with the _Edward_, a British vessel, and after a spirited action captured her. This was the first prize brought in by a commissioned officer of the American navy.[1] [Footnote 1: John Barry was a native of Ireland; he came to America at thirteen, entered the merchant marine, and at twenty-five was captain of a ship. At the opening of the war Barry offered his services to Congress, and in February, 1776, was put in command of the _Lexington_. After his victory he was transferred to the twenty-eight-gun frigate _Effingham_, and in 1777 (while blockaded in the Delaware) with twenty-seven men in four boats captured and destroyed a ten-gun schooner and four transports. When the British captured Philadelphia, Barry took the _Effingham_ up the river; but she was burned by the enemy. In 1778, in command of the thirty-two-gun frigate _Raleigh_, he sailed from Boston, fell in with two British frigates, and after a fight was forced to run ashore in Penobscot Bay. Barry and his crew escaped, and in 1781 carried Laurens to France in the frigate _Alliance_. On the way out he took a privateer, and while cruising on the way home captured the _Atalanta_ and the _Trepassey_ after a hard fight. As Barry brought in the first capture by a commissioned officer of the United States navy, so he fought the last action of the war in 1782; but the enemy escaped. When the navy was reorganized in 1794, Barry was made senior captain, with the title of Commodore. In 1798 he commanded the frigate _United States_ in the war with France. He died in 1803.] In March, 1776, Congress began to issue letters of marque, or licenses to citizens to engage in war against the enemy; and then the sea fairly swarmed with privateers.