Biography john paul jones revolutionary war flags

1779 United States ensign

Serapis is a name given to an unconventional, early United Statesensign flown from the captured British frigate Serapis.

Biography john paul jones revolutionary war flags

At the September 23, 1779 Battle of Flamborough Head, U.S. Navy Captain John Paul Jones captured the Serapis, but his own ship, the Bonhomme Richard, sank, and her ensign had been blown from the mast into the sea during the battle.

Jones, now commanding the Serapis without having a U.S. ensign to fly on it, sailed to the island port of Texel, which belonged to the neutral Dutch United Provinces. Officials from Britain argued that Jones was a pirate, since he sailed a captured vessel flying no known national ensign.

A year earlier, Arthur Lee, U.S. commissioner in France, wrote in a letter to Henry Laurens that the U.S. ships' "colors should be white, red, and blue alternately to thirteen" with a "blue field with thirteen stars" in the canton.^[1]Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, ambassadors to Fra