Although Du Simitière, as it would appear from John Adams’s letter, drew his designs for the committee, they were not preserved among the papers of Congress, a very slight pencil sketch of his proposed obverse found among Jefferson’s papers being all that remains. The committee’s report was laid upon the table, and for nearly four years the United States existed without a coat of arms and Congress did business without an official seal. II THE LOVELL COMMITTEE On June 14, 1777, Congress adopted the national flag of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, with a union of thirteen white stars upon a blue field, “representing,” as the law said, “a new constellation.” The flag had actually come into use in the army some months before it received legal sanction, its chief features probably suggested by the Dutch standard. The red denoted daring, the white purity, and the stars the States in union.[17] [Illustration: Reverse ] [Illustration: Arms DESIGNS OF THE SECOND COMMITTEE [Reduced one-half] Face p. 19 ] The American minister to France, Silas Deane, complained of the informality and impropriety of the representatives of the sovereignty of a nation being without a seal with which to authenticate their official acts, but the subject was treated with indifference. On January 23, 1777, a committee appointed to examine the files of Congress, William Ellery of Rhode Island, chairman, selected certain papers which it thought required the consideration of Congress—among them the “Report on a Device for a public seal”[18]—but it was not until March 25, 1780, that the report was taken up again, when James Lovell of Massachusetts, John Morin Scott of Virginia, and William Churchill Houston of New Jersey were appointed a committee to report a design for a great seal, and to them was referred the report of the first committee. The chairman of the committee and the most important member was Lovell. He was a Boston school-teacher and a graduate of Harvard College. Being imprisoned by the British after the battle of Bunker Hill, he was later exchanged and entered Congress in December, 1776, where he served till 1782, being for a long time on the Committee of Foreign Affairs. While serving on this committee he must have received Deane’s complaint that Congress had no seal. Lovell was regarded as a man of great learning, but was extremely eccentric in his manners and speech.[19] The committee reported May 10: The Com̃ittee to whom was referred on the 25^{th} of March last the report of a former Com̃ittee on the Device of a Great Seal for the United States in Congress assembled, beg Leave to report the following Description. The Seal to be 3 Inches in Diametre