No one can tell in the absence of a record the name of the vessel to first fly the Stars and Stripes. Paul Jones claimed it for the Alliance; but in Cooper's life of Paul Jones, page 31, occurs the following. Speaking of Jones' claim, he says: "He may have been mistaken. He always claimed to have been the first man to hoist the flag of 1775 (the Grand Union) in a national ship, and the first man to show the present ensign (the Stars and Stripes) on board of a man-of-war. This may be true or not. There was a weakness about the character of the man that rendered him a little liable to self-delusions of this nature; and while it is probable he was right as to the flag which was shown before Philadelphia on the Alfred (the Grand Union) the place where Congress was sitting, it is by no means as reasonable to suppose that the first of the permanent flags (Stars and Stripes) was shown at a place as distant as Portsmouth. The circumstances are of no moment, except as they serve to betray a want of simplicity of character, that was rather a failing with the man, and his avidity for personal distinction of every sort." To corroborate Cooper I have only to state that Jones' claim is absurd when, as a matter of fact, the Alliance was not launched until 1777, and Jones did not command her until 1779, when, as a matter of course, she must have carried the Stars and Stripes (see MacKensie's Life of Jones, Vol. 1, pages 252 and 253). Much to our regret, as lovers of our country, we must admit that the first American flag (the Grand Union) displayed on any of the lakes was by that arch traitor, Benedict Arnold, on the Royal Savage. He had command of the fleet on Lake Champlain in the winter of 1776-- A man who died without a flag, without a country, without love, without respect. The first British man-of-war to enter an American port after the Revolution was the Alligator, Capt. Isaac Coffin. He entered the harbor of Boston on the 2d day of May, 1791. He saluted the American flag on the fort by firing thirteen guns, which was returned. A full report of this occurrence is to be found in the _Columbian Sentinel_ of May 3d, 1791. The first ship to enter a British port after peace had been declared flying the American flag was the ship Bedford, of Nantucket, Capt. William Mooers. She entered the Thames in February, 1783, and proceeded up to London. She was loaded with whale oil. The first publication of the terms of the treaty of peace was on the 28th day of January, 1783, the treaty itself having been made in November, 1782.