naval officer to raise the first American flag to the peak
of his vessel and capture the first prize, we only have to quote
ex-President John Adams, who wrote from Quincy in 1813 to Vice-president
Gerry as follows:

"Philadelphia is now boasting that Paul Jones has asserted in his
journal that his hand first hoisted the first American flag, and
Captain Barry has asserted that the first British flag was struck
to him. Now, I assert that the first American flag was hoisted by
Captain John Manley and the first British flag was struck to him on
the 29th day of November, 1775."

As Captain Barry did not go to sea in the Lexington until February,
1776, therefore this claim of President John Adams is undeniably true so
far as regards Barry, for the records show that Manley, in a schooner
called the Lee, captured the British vessel Nancy, bound to Boston,
loaded with munitions of war for the use of the British troops besieged
there, and among the articles captured was a mortar, which afterwards
was used on Dorchester Heights by Washington's troops in shelling the
British in Boston. This same captain on the 8th of December, 1775,
captured two more British transports loaded with provisions.

The Paul Jones claim rests upon not that his was the first vessel to
hoist an American flag, but that the Alfred was the first commissioned
United States war vessel to hoist the Grand Union Flag; but there is no
record anywhere of the date, and as no naval commission was issued to
Jones until December 7, 1775, the Manley claim made by Adams stands
alone as regards the first American flag distinct from the English
standard as changed by the Colonists; and it is also corroborated by a
letter sent by General Howe on December 13, 1775, while he was besieged
in Boston to Lord Davenport, complaining about Manley's capture of the
Nancy with four thousand stands of arms. Now, I claim that Adams could
not have meant the Grand Union Flag, as it was not agreed upon until
December, 1775, but the one I have described as having a blue union with
white stars, a white ground with an anchor and the word "Hope" over the
anchor (see Fig. 1). The Lee was an armed privateer. In a letter to
Robert Morris, October, 1783, Jones, in speaking of the flag, made the
claim that "the flag of America" was displayed on a war vessel for the
first time by him, he then being a lieutenant on the Alfred; but there
is no record as to whether it was