In the year 1775 a committee was appointed to consider the question of a single flag for the thirteen States. This ensign, though it went far towards moulding these different sections into the United States, was a curious illustration of that reluctance that we have already referred to, to sever themselves finally from the Old Country, as the Committee recommended the retention of the Union in the upper corner next the staff, but substituted for the broad red field of the rest of the flag thirteen horizontally disposed stripes, alternately red and white, the emblems of the union into one of the thirteen colonies in their struggle against oppression. We have this represented in Fig. 57. It was also the flag of the East India Company. On the final declaration of Independence, when the severance from the Old Country was irrevocable, and the colonists became a nation, the question of a national flag was one of the points awaiting solution; but it was not till about a year afterwards that a decision was come to. The vessels commissioned by Washington flew the flag we have figured in No. 147; this was approved in April, 1776, and remained in use some little time, as did also the one represented in Fig. 149. Sometimes we find the cross and pine-tree removed and the whole flag nothing but the red and white stripes. This flag composed of stripes alone was not peculiar to the American navy, as a flag of similar design was for a long time a well-known signal in the British fleet, being that used for the red division to form up into line of battle. Anyone looking over a collection of the common pottery made from about a hundred and fifty years ago up to comparatively recent times will find that stirring contemporary events are very freely introduced--sea-fights, portraits of leading statesmen, generals, and so forth. These are often caricatures, as, for example, the hundreds that may be seen in our various museums and private collections derisive of "Boney," while others are as historically correct as the potter's knowledge and skill could compass. Anyone visiting the Corporation Museum at Brighton will find a jug bearing the head of Zebulon M. Pike, an American general; trophies of flags are grouped around this, but the only flag with any device upon it is a plain striped one. Another that bears the head of Commodore Decatur, U.S.N., has below it a cannon, on the left a trophy of flags and weapons, and on the right a ship; and a very similar jug may be seen in honour of Commodore Parry. In each of these cases the flags in the trophies and on the ships are simply striped.