On August 14th, 1777, Congress resolved "that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternately red and white, and that the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing {90} a new constellation."[59] This was the birth of the national flag, "the stars and stripes," and it would appear at first sight to be a final settlement of the device, though in practice the result did not work out at all uniformly, the number of stripes being unequal. If we commence at the top with a white one, we shall have seven white and six red, whereas if we begin with a red stripe we shall get seven red and six white. Each of these renderings was for some years in use, until it was authoritatively laid down that the latter was the arrangement to be adopted. It seems a minor point, but any of our readers who will re-draw Fig. 146 and transpose the colours of the stripes, so that the upper and lower edges of the flag are white instead of red, will be surprised to note how so apparently trivial a change will affect the appearance of the flag.[60] In like manner the stars were sometimes made with six points, and at others with five. Even so late as 1779, we find such a striking variation as a flag bearing stars with eight points, and its stripes alternately red, blue, and white. The coins issued during the presidency of Washington had five-pointed stars on them, but later on they had six points. Nobody seems now to know why this change was made. As nothing was said in this resolution of Congress as to the arrangement of the stars on the blue field, a further opening for variety of treatment was found. In some of the early flags they were arranged to represent the letters U.S., in others they were all placed in a circle, in others again they were dispersed irregularly, so as the better to suggest a constellation; and it was finally ordered that they should be placed in parallel horizontal rows, as we now see them. Though the stars did not appear in the American flag until 1777, we find in a poem in the _Massachusetts Spy_ of March 10th, 1774, on the outbreak of the rebellion, the lines-- "The American ensign now sparkles a star Which shall shortly flame wide through the skies." {91} This poetic and prophetic flight is the earliest suggestion of the stars in the national flag of the United States.