Serapis is a name given to an unconventional, early United Statesensign flown from the captured British frigate Serapis.
At the 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 France, wrote a similar description of United States flags:
It is with pleasure that we acquaint your excellency that the flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen stripes, alternately red, white, and blue; a small square in the upper angle, next the flagstaff, is a blue field, with thirteen white stars, denoting a new constellation.[2]
Apparently based upon this description, a recognizable ensign was quickly made to fly aboard the Serapis, and Dutch records edited to include a sketch of the ensign to make it official. The Dutch could, therefore, recognize the flag and avoid the legal controversy of Jones' captured ship. The Dutch records survive and provide the original sketch of the ensign.[3] The sketch is labeled "Serapis" and dated 5 October 1779, just one day after the Francis Hopkinson style flag, labeled "Alliance" (a ship in Jones' fleet), was entered.[4]
There are five known illustrations of U.S. flags with tri-color stripes.[5] Tri-colored stripes appeared in various European almanacs into the 19th century, featuring stars with 4, 5, or 6 points and arranged in various patterns.[6] The Serapis flag is distinctive because of the four, irregularly placed blue stripes and 8-pointed stars. Although it was flown as a U.S. Ensign and was recognized as such by a foreign nation, it did not meet the Congressional description of U.S. flags under the Flag Resolution of 1777, which specified "alternate red and white" stripes.
A painting, currently at the Chicago History Museum, depicting a sketch of the flag flown from prize HMS Serapis
The Serapis flag is also known as the "Franklin flag" due to the description given by Ambassador Franklin.[7] It was featured on a 33¢ postage stamp issued in 2000, as a part of the U.S. Postal Service'sStars and Stripes series. The stamp was titled "John Paul Jones flag."[8] The Franklin Flag is also recognized by the United States Army as the official flag of the 111th Infantry Regiment, which is known as "The Associators", and was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1747. The flag was carried into battle during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2009 by 1-111th Infantry, 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division. The 111th Infantry Regiment is the only U.S. Army unit authorized to carry the Franklin (aka "Serapis") flag.[9]
↑ Matstai, 59. Mastai includes photos of the Texel records on page 59, as well as a Berlin almanac dated 1784 which shows a flag with regularly spaced red-blue-white stripes. A flag sheet on page 61 includes more examples of tricolor-striped American flags.
The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton, referred to as the union and bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 U.S. states, and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence from Great Britain, which they obtained in their victory in the American Revolutionary War.
John Paul Jones was a Scottish American naval captain who was a naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. Often called the "Father of the American Navy", a title sometimes also credited to John Barry, John Adams, and sometimes Joshua Humphreys, Jones is highly regarded as one of the greatest naval commanders in the history of the United States.
The national flag of Romania is a tricolour. The Constitution of Romania states that "The flag of Romania is tricolour; the colours are arranged vertically in the following order from the flagpole: blue, yellow, red". The flag has a width-length ratio of 2:3; the proportions, shades of colour as well as the flag protocol were established by law in 1994, and extended in 2001.
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HMS Serapis was a Royal Navy two-decked, Roebuck-class fifth rate. Randall & Brent built her at Greenland South Dockyard, Rotherhithe and launched her in 1779. She was armed with 44 guns. Serapis was named after the god Serapis in Greek and Egyptian mythology. The Americans captured her during the American War of Independence. They transferred her to the French, who commissioned her as a privateer. She was lost off Madagascar in 1781 to a fire.
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Bonhomme Richard, formerly Duc de Duras, was a warship in the American Continental Navy named for Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. She was originally an East Indiaman, a merchant ship built in France for the French East India Company in 1765, for service between France and Asia. She was placed at the disposal of John Paul Jones on 4 February 1779, by King Louis XVI of France as a result of a loan to the United States by French shipping magnate Jacques-Donatien Le Ray.
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