In Fig. 144, one of the flags of the insurgents at Bunker's Hill, {88} June 17th, 1775, we see that the Cross of St. George is still preserved, and it might well fly in company with Fig. 67, a flag of the London Trained Bands, except that in the corner we see the pine tree. In Fig. 145 the English emblem has dropped out and the pine tree has become much more conspicuous, and in Figs. 147 and 148 all suggestion of St. George or of the red or blue Ensigns has disappeared. This arboreal device was not by any means a new one to the men of Massachusetts. We find a mint established at Boston as early as 1651, busily engaged in coining the silver captured from the Spaniards by the Buccaneers. On one side was the date and value of the coin, and, on the reverse, a tree in the centre and "In Massachusetts" around it. It must be remembered that at the time there was no king to resent this encroachment on the royal prerogative, and no notice was taken of it by the Parliament or by Cromwell. There was a tacit allowance of it afterwards, even by Charles II., for more than twenty years. It will be remembered that on his enquiry into the matter he was told by some courtier that the device was intended for the Royal Oak, and the question was allowed to drop. South Carolina adopted the rattle-snake flag at the suggestion of one Gadsden, a delegate to the General Congress of the South Carolina Convention in 1776. On a yellow ground was placed a rattlesnake, having thirteen rattles; the reptile was coiled ready to strike, and beneath was the warning motto, "Don't tread on me." The number thirteen had reference to the thirteen revolted States, as it was originally proposed that this flag should be the navy flag for all the States. As an accessory to a portrait of Commodore Hopkins, "Commander-in-chief of the American fleet," we see a flag of thirteen alternate red and white stripes. It has no canton, but undulating diagonally across the stripes is a rattlesnake. The idea was not altogether a new one, as we find the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, in commenting twenty-five years previously on the iniquity of the British Government in sending its convicts to America, suggesting as a set off that "a cargo of rattlesnakes should be distributed in St. James's Park, Spring Gardens, and other places of pleasure." At the commencement of any great struggle by a revolting people there is often a great variety of device, and it is only after a while that such a multiplicity is found to be a danger. Hence we find that prior to the yellow rattlesnake flag, South Carolina had, with equal enthusiasm, adopted the blue flag with the crescent moon that we have figured in No. 158.[58] {89}