When the evacuation by the British of the metropolis of New England was effected by the troops under the command of a Virginia soldier, General Washington, then for the first time did sectionalism and partisanship and divisions on narrow lines vanish; the patriots who had fought at Bunker Hill were now no longer to be known as the troops of Massachusetts, of Connecticut, or of Rhode Island, but henceforth it was the Continental Army. On the very day when the British were driven out of Boston, John Paul Jones, with that historic rattlesnake flag, and, floating above it, not the Stars and Stripes, but the Stripes with the Union Jack, entered the waters of Great Britain; and then it was seen that an American captain with an American ship and American sailors had the pluck to push out into foreign seas and to beard the British lion in his den. The same channel which had witnessed the victories of De Ruyter and Von Tromp, which was the scene of Blake's victory over the Dutch, and where the father of our great William Penn won his laurels as an admiral, was now the scene of the exploits of an American captain fighting beneath an American flag for American rights inherited from old mother England, who, in a moment of forgetfulness, had sought to deprive her offspring of liberty. I know of no more thrilling incident in revolutionary naval annals than the fight between the _Serapis_ and the _Bon Homme Richard_, when Paul Jones, on the burning deck of a sinking ship, lashed his yard arms to those of the enemy and fought hand to hand, man to man, until the British colors struck, and then, under the very cliffs of Old England, were run up for the first time the Stars and Stripes--with a field of blue into which the skillful fingers of Betsy Ross, of Philadelphia, had woven inextinguishable stars; the red stripes typifying the glory, the valor, and the self-sacrifice of the men who died that liberty might live; and the white, emblematic of purity, fitly representing those principles to preserve which these men had sanctified themselves by an immortal self-dedication. And there, too, in the Continental Navy was Richard Dale, the young "Middy," who fought beside Paul Jones; and Joshua Barney; and John Barry; and Nicholas Biddle of Philadelphia, who later, in the gallant little _Randolph_, in order to help a convoyed fleet of American merchantmen to escape, boldly attacked the battleship _Yarmouth_; and when it was found that he was doomed to defeat, blew up his vessel, perishing with all his crew, rather than strike the colors of the newly-born republic.