From the foregoing account, it will be perceived that the first flag adopted by the army of the colonists before Boston, was a red flag, with the mottoes, _Qui transtulit sustinet_, and "An Appeal to Heaven." By the combination of these mottoes, the union of Massachusetts and Connecticut, in defence of their outraged liberties, was doubtless intimated; and, taken in connection with those mottoes, the color of the flag indicated that, trusting in the God of battles, they defied the power of the mother country. About this time, too, the floating batteries, the germ of the navy subsequently organized, bore a white flag, with a green pine-tree, and the motto, "Appeal to Heaven." These flags were adopted before the union of the _thirteen_ colonies was effected. After that union, and upon the organization of the army and fleet, these flags were supplanted by one calculated to show to the world the union of the North American colonies among themselves, and as an integral part of the British Empire, and as such demanding the rights and liberties of British subjects. And a flag combining the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew united (the distinctive emblem of the United Kingdom of Great Britain), with a field composed of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, the combination of the flags previously used in the camp, on the cruisers, and the floating batteries of the colonies, was adopted for this purpose, and called THE GREAT UNION FLAG. The union implied both the union of the colonies represented in the striped field, which was dependent upon it, and the nationality of those colonies. The thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, constituting the field of the flag, represented the body of that union, the number of the members which composed it, as well as the union of the flags, which had preceded this Great Union Flag. We assume that the colors of those stripes were alternate red and white, inasmuch as those were the colors in the first flag of the United States, and we presume no change, not absolutely necessary, was made, in altering the flag of the United Colonies to that of the United States. There is no evidence of their being of that color, except the universally received tradition that such was the case. The colors of those stripes, alternate red and white, indicated on the part of the colonies, thus represented as united, the defiance to oppression, symbolized by the red color of the flag of the army, and red field of the flag of the continental cruisers together, with the purity implied by the white flag of the floating batteries, of which the motto was, "Appeal to Heaven."