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
every State then in the Federal Union, and for those that would be
admitted an extra star to be added on the 4th day of July after the
admission of the State. Now, by a late act, the State is not admitted
until the 4th day of July after the passage of the act admitting her to
statehood. The act reads as follows:

"An Act to establish the flag of the United States. Sec. 1. Be it
enacted, etc., that from and after the fourth day of July next the
flag of the United States be thirteen stripes alternate red and
white; that the union have twenty stars white in a blue field.

"Sec. 2. And be it further enacted that, on the admission of every
new State