shall hoist my flag on your ship and give you command
of her!"

"Thank you, Commodore," and Paul bowed, "when your flag is hoisted on
the _Alfred_, I hope a flag of the United Colonies will fly at the peak.
I want to be the man to raise that flag on the ocean."

The commodore laughed and replied: "As Congress is slow, I am afraid
there will not be time to make a flag after it actually decides what
that shall be."

"I think there will, Sir," answered Paul Jones.

It seems he knew almost for a certainty that the Continental Congress
had planned their first flag of the Revolution. It was to be of yellow
silk, showing a pine tree with a rattlesnake under it, and bearing the
daring motto: "Don't tread on me." Paul Jones had bought the material to
make one, out of his own pocket, and Bill Green, a quarter-master, sat
up all night to cut and sew the cloth into a flag.

Captain Saltonstall arrived in time to take command, but Paul Jones kept
his disappointment to himself and faithfully did the lieutenant's
duties. He had been drilling the men, and when the commodore came again
to inspect the ship, some four hundred, with one hundred marines, were
drawn up on deck. Bill Green and Paul Jones were very busy for a minute,
and just as the commodore came over the ladder at the ship's side, the
flag with the pennant flew up the staff, under Paul Jones's hand. Every
man's hat came off, the drummer boys beat a double ruffle on the drums,
and _such_ cheers burst from every throat!

The commodore said to Paul Jones: "I congratulate you; you have been
enterprising. Congress adopted that flag but yesterday, and this one is
the first to fly."

Bill Green was thanked, too, and the squadron sailed for the open sea,
the _Alfred_ leading the way.

Paul Jones was very daring, but his judgment and knowledge were so
perfect that in the twenty-three great battles which he fought upon the
seas, though many times wounded, he was never defeated. He made the
American flag, which he was the first to raise, honored, and he kept it
flying in the Texel with a dozen, double-decked Dutch frigates
threatening him in the harbor, while another dozen English ships were
waiting just beyond to capture him. He was offered safety if he would
hoist the French colors and accept a commission in the French navy, but
he never wavered. It was his pride to be able to say to the American
Congress: "I have never borne arms under any but the American flag, nor
have I