At the outbreak of our Revolutionary struggle the different colonies had flags of their own design, which, if grouped together, would have reminded one of Joseph's coat, embellished with Latin and other mottoes. At the battle of Bunker Hill the Americans fought without a flag, although Botta in his history of the American Revolution says that there was one with the words "An Appeal to Heaven" on one side, and the Latin inscription "Qui transtulit sustinet" upon the other (see Fig. 2). In Lossing's field book of the American Revolution, Vol. 1, page 541, he states that an old lady named Manning informed him that the Americans did have a flag at the battle, of which the field was blue and the union white, having in it the Red Cross of St. George and a green pine tree (see Fig. 3); but this cannot be considered an authority any more than Trumbull's picture of the Battle in the Rotunda of the capital at Washington. He depicts the American flag carried in that battle as something which no one ever saw or even heard of, to wit: a red flag with a white union, having in it a green pine tree (see Fig. 4). [Illustration: Figs. 1-5] Frothingham in his history of the siege of Boston says that there was a flag over Prescott's redoubt having upon it the words "Come if you dare;" but there is no authority given for the statement. As a matter of fact, it might have been, for at that period flags were used as ensigns, with different sentences upon them, such as "Liberty and Union," "An Appeal to Heaven," "Liberty or Death," "An Appeal to God." Several such flags were captured by the British and mentioned in the English journals of that period (see Figs. 5, 13, 14 and 15). Also in Powell's picture of the battle of Lake Erie in the national capital Perry is seen in a boat with a flag of thirteen stripes and thirteen stars; yet when the battle was fought the American flag consisted of fifteen stripes and fifteen stars, and had been so constituted since 1794, because under an act of Congress there was to be a stripe and a star added for the two States admitted after the thirteen colonies became States, to wit: Kentucky and Vermont. So Congress on the 13th day of January, 1794, passed an act fixing the number of stripes and stars at fifteen, and such was the Star-Spangled Banner that Key saw at Fort McHenry in the "dim morning's light" when he wrote the words of our National Hymn, as a matter of fact, the war of 1812 was fought under a flag of fifteen stripes and fifteen stars. In 1878, at a fair in Boston, the flag of the United States brig "Enterprise," that fought the English brig "Boxer" on September 15, 1813, was exhibited. It had fifteen stripes and fifteen stars. It belongs to a Mr. Quincy, of Portland, Maine. It was not until the 4th day of April, 1818, that Congress passed the act fixing the number of stripes, alternating red and white, at thirteen, to represent the thirteen original colonies, and a blue union with a white star for