In 1643, the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut formed themselves for defence against the French and the Dutch into an alliance as the "United Colonies of New England." That their forces had continued to use the two-crossed "King's Jack" of Charles I. is proved by the fact that they found it necessary, owing to the change of sovereignty in the Mother Country, to pass an order authorizing a change in their own flag. The Commonwealth of England had, in 1648, abolished the use of the two-crossed Jack. In 1651, the fleet of Cromwell which crossed the Atlantic was to be seen flying the single English Jack of St. George and the new Commonwealth Ensign at Barbadoes and in Virginia. Following the action of the Home Government, the General Court of Massachusetts overcame their local scruples and passed an order adopting the English ensign: "Forasmuch as this Court conceives the old English colours now used by the Parliament of England to be a necessary badge of distinction between the English and other nations in all places in the world, till the State of England shall alter the same, which we much desire, we being of the same nation, have therefore ordered that the Captain of the Castle shall presently advance the aforesaid colours of England upon the Castle upon all necessary occasions."[87] [87] Massachusetts Records, Vol. I. Order of General Court at Boston, May 7, 1651. So the English Jack took the place of the Jack of James in America. Under this St. George Jack, with its red cross and white ground, the colonists not only organized and defended their own territories, but also carried on active operations against the French. As in its earlier years, so also throughout the century, the extensions southward of the French settlements in Cape Breton and Acadia had been a menace to the colonies. The colony of Massachusetts itself took the matter in hand, and organized an expedition which it sent out under the leadership of Major Sedgwick, in 1654, when Port Royal was taken from the French, but, much to the chagrin of the colony, only to be restored to France, in 1667, by the peace of Breda. The old controversy about the cross in the flag had by no means been settled by the decision of the General Court of Massachusetts, in 1651, and although it was so displayed officially, yet many individuals still held to the original religious objections. In 1663, the "Ensign Red," with the plain red cross of St. George in the upper corner, had been ordered by Charles II. to be used. Thomas Singleton, master of the ship _Charles_, notes (when off Boston) in his diary of a voyage to the American coast in 1679-80: "_I observed that while the English flag or colour has a red ground with a small white field in the uppermost corner where there is a red cross, they have here dispensed with this cross in their colours and preserved the rest_."[88]