5. The flag of the floating batteries.--Colonel Joseph Reed to Colonel Glover and Stephen Moylan, says: "Head-quarters, October 20, 1775: Please to fix upon some particular color for a flag, and a signal by which our vessels may know one another. What do you think of a flag with a white ground, a tree in the middle, the motto, 'Appeal to Heaven?' This is the flag of our floating batteries."[12] [12] American Archives, 4th series, vol. iii. p. 1126. 6. The flag called _The Great Union Flag_, hoisted January 2, 1776, the day which gave being to the new army.--General Washington's letter of January 4, 1776, to Joseph Reed.[13] This flag, which we shall designate in this way, was the basis of our National Flag of the present day. [13] Ibid. vol. iv. p. 570. 7. The flag presented by Colonel Gadsden, a member of the Naval Committee of the Continental Congress, to the Provincial Congress of South Carolina, February 9, 1776, as the standard to be used by the Commander-in-chief of the American Navy, "being a yellow field, with a lively representation of a rattlesnake in the middle, in the attitude of going to strike; and the words underneath, Don't tread on me."[14] [14] American Archives, 4th series, vol. v. p. 568. 8. The flag of the cruisers of the colony of Massachusetts.--"And the colors to be a white flag with a green pine-tree, and an inscription, 'Appeal to Heaven.'"--Resolution of Massachusetts Provincial Congress, April 29, 1776.[15] [15] Ibid. vol. v. p. 1299. 9. The National Flag of the United States, "The Stars and Stripes," adopted as such by a Resolution of Congress, passed June 14, 1777.--"_Resolved_, That the flag of the Thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white, in a blue field, representing a new constellation."[16] [16] Journal of Congress, vol. ii. p. 165. This Resolution, though passed June 14, 1777, was not made public until September 3, 1777.[17] [17] Boston Gazette and Country Journal, Sept. 15, 1777. With this Table before us, we shall proceed to consider certain badges intimately connected with the devices on the national flag of England, afterwards embodied in the national flag of Great Britain, a modification of which we shall show was, for a time, the flag of the United States, and the basis of the "Stars and Stripes." "In the first crusade, the Scots, according to Sir George Mackenzie, were distinguished by the Cross of St. Andrew; the French, by a white cross; and the Italians, by a blue one. The Spaniards, according to Columbiere, bore a red cross, which, in the third crusade (A.D. 1189), was appropriated by the French, the Flemings using a green cross, and the English a white one. The adherents of Simon Montfort, the rebellious earl of Leicester, assumed the latter as their distinguishing mark, thus making the national cognizance the badge of a faction. [Illustration: Pl. I.]