By this flag the thirteen colonies testified that, though in arms, they still claimed to be Britons, and were demanding for themselves all the rights of citizenship which such relation conferred.
It was, as one of their orators has well said, "the flag of the British colonies in arms to secure the rights and liberties of British subjects."[108]
[108] General Schuyler Hamilton: "Addresses on the Flag," p. 18.
The first Union flag raised by Washington over the armies of the united colonies thus displayed the British Union Jack.
Another flag (40) bearing the Union Jack is still extant.[109] It is a crimson red flag, having a rattlesnake painted upon it, and in the upper corner is the Union Jack of 1707. This was carried by a regiment of the colony of Pennsylvania, and was used at the Battle of Trenton, December 26th, 1776, and in subsequent engagements with the British regular forces.
[109] Preble: "The Flag of the United States."
[Illustration: 40. THE PENNSYLVANIA FLAG, 1776.]
The intention to cure the troubles by constitutional means had become unhappily merged in the appeal to arms.[110] As the hostilities proceeded rancour grew, and then a new flag was sought for, which should typify the changed conditions. The source from which arose the idea of this final design we shall presently see.
[110] Benjamin Franklin's only son bitterly resented his father's abandonment of peaceful and constitutional methods, and himself left the country in 1782, and died a U. E. Loyalist in 1813.
On July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence followed,[111] but the "Grand Union" still continued to be used by the thirteen colonies, which had now become thirteen States. It was not until June 14th, 1777, or almost a year after the Declaration, that a new national flag was fully developed.
[111] Carried in Congress only by the casting vote of the chairman.
The Congress of the United States, then in session at Philadelphia, approved of a report made by a committee[112] which had been appointed to consider the selection of a Union flag, and enacted,
"That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation."