utterly destroyed them on August 16. Meanwhile St.
Leger, as planned, had landed at Oswego, and on August 3 laid siege to
Fort Stanwix, which then stood on the site of the present city of Rome,
N.Y. On the 6th the garrison sallied forth, attacked a part of St.
Leger's camp, and carried off five British flags. These they hoisted
upside down on their ramparts, and high above them raised a new flag
which Congress had adopted in June, and which was then for the first
time flung to the breeze.

[Illustration: Flag of the East India Company]

%144. Our National Flag.%--It was our national flag, the stars and
stripes, and was made of a piece of a blue jacket, some strips of a
white shirt, and some scraps of old red flannel.[1]

[Footnote 1: The flags used by the continental troops between 1775 and
1777 were of at least a dozen different patterns. A colored plate
showing most of them is given in Treble's _Our Flag_, p. 142. In 1776,
in January, Washington used one at Cambridge which seems to have been
suggested by the ensign of the East India Company. That of this company
was a combination of thirteen horizontal red and white stripes (seven
red and six white) and the red cross of St. George. That of Washington
was the same, with the British Union Jack substituted for the cross of
St. George. After the Declaration of Independence, the British Jack was
out of place on our flag; and in June, 1777, Congress adopted a union of
thirteen white stars in a circle, on a blue ground, in place of the
British Union. After Vermont and Kentucky were admitted, in 1791 and
1792, the stars and stripes were each increased to fifteen. In 1818, the
original number of stripes was restored, and since that time each new
state, when admitted, is represented by a star and not by a stripe.]

[Illustration: Flag of the United Colonies]

[Illustration: British Union Jack]

%145. Capture of Burgoyne.%--When Schuyler heard of the siege of
Fort Stanwix, he sent Benedict Arnold to relieve it, and St. Leger fled
to Oswego. Then was the time for the expedition from New York to have
hurried to Burgoyne's aid. But Howe and his army were then at sea. No
help was given to Burgoyne, who, after suffering defeats at Bemis
Heights (September 19) and at Stillwater (October 7), retreated to
Saratoga, where (October 17, 1777) he surrendered his army of 6000 men
to General Horatio Gates, whom Congress, to its shame, had just put in
the place of Schuyler. Gates deserve