It soon became apparent in 1776 that we were fighting for more than mere Parliamentary representation, and when the culmination was reached by the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on the 4th day of July, 1776, the conclusion was also reached that we could not consistently fight under a standard containing in its union the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George, devices that belonged to the enemy, but which we had used, to express our loyalty to the king up to that time while fighting for a principle. The want of a change in our emblem as originally adopted can be best appreciated by the contents of a letter dated October 15, 1776, sent by William Richards to the Committee of Safety, published in the Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. 5, page 46, wherein, _inter alia_, he said: "The Commodore was with me this morning, and says that the fleet has no colors to hoist if they should be called on duty. _It is not in my power to get them until there is a design fixed on to make the colors by._" Yet this letter was written four months after the time fixed in the alleged Betsy Ross claim. Thus it is shown conclusively by the record that we had dropped the old Grand Union or Continental Flag, to wit: the Crosses and the Stripes, but had not yet, October, 1776, adopted a new design, and it was not until June 14, 1777, one year after the time fixed as to the Ross claim, that a new design was adopted, and a resolution was passed wherein Congress said "that the Flag of the Thirteen United States be thirteen stripes alternate red and white, that the union be thirteen stars white on a blue field, representing a new constellation." In the rough Journal of Congress the word "of" occurs before the words "thirteen stripes;" in the record it appears to have been changed, thus corroborating the former use of the thirteen stripes.