On the 4th of July, 1818, the flag of the United States of America, which, during the war of 1812, bore fifteen stripes and fifteen stars in its cluster, returned to its old form. The number of stripes, representing the original thirteen states, remained as the standard, not to be added to or subtracted from. In the blue field the stars could increase with the growth of the nation. In the American flag are happily blended the symbols of the old and the new, of history and prophecy, of conservatism and progress, of the stability of the unchanging past with the promise and potency of the future. ----- [3] Roosevelt’s “Naval History of the War of 1812.” CHAPTER VI. FIRST VOYAGE TO THE DARK CONTINENT. AN act of Congress passed March 3, 1819, favored the schemes of the American Colonization Society. A man-of-war was ordered to convoy the first company of black colonists to Africa, in the ship _Elizabeth_, to display the American flag on the African coast, and to assist in sweeping the seas of slavers. The vessel chosen was the _Cyane_, an English-built vessel, named after the nymph who amused Proserpine when carried off by Pluto. One of the pair captured by Captain Stewart of the U. S. S. _Constitution_, in his memorable moonlight battle of February 20, 1815, the _Cyane_ mounted thirty-four guns, and carried one hundred and eighty-five men. Rebuilt for the American navy, her complement was two hundred sailors and twenty-five marines. Captain Edward Trenchard, who commanded her, was a veteran of the Tripolitan and second British war. From the Mahometan pirates, when a mere lad, he had assisted to capture the great bronze gun that now adorns the interior gateway of the Washington Navy Yard.