Serapis flag

Serapis is a name given to an unconventional, early United States ensign flown from the captured British frigate "Serapis".

At the Battle of Flamborough Head, US 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 an ensign, sailed to the island port of Texel, which was run by the neutral United Provinces. Officials from the United Kingdom argued that Jones was a pirate, since he sailed a captured vessel flying no known national ensign.

A year earlier, Arthur Lee, American 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. [Mastai, 64] Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, ambassadors to France, wrote a similar description of United States flags:cquote
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. [The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, Volume 2Available [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(dc002578)) online] courtesy of the Library of Congress.]

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, solving the legal problem of Jones' pirated ship. The Dutch records survive and provide us with the original sketch of the ensign. [See "Unfurling Paul Jones' Flag," below] 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 [Mastai, 59] .

There are five known illustrations of American flags with tri-color stripes. [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.] 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. [Znamierowski, 90] The Serapis flag is distinctive because of the four, irregularly placed blue stripes and 8-pointed stars. Although it was flown as a US Ensign and was recognized as such by a foreign nation, it did not meet the Congressional description of US flags under the Flag Resolution of 1777, which specified "alternate red and white" stripes.

The Serapis flag is also known as the "Franklin flag" due to the description given by Ambassador Franklin [The ship Jones had lost, the "Bonhomme Richard", was also named for Benjamin Franklin, aka "Poor Richard".] . It was featured on a 33¢ postage stamp issued in 2000, as a part of the US Postal Service's "Stars and Stripes" series. The stamp was titled "John Paul Jones flag."

This flag, along with the First Navy Jack, is featured on the crest of the USS|John Paul Jones|DDG-53. [See the patch and description on the official website at [http://www.john-paul-jones.navy.mil/ http://www.john-paul-jones.navy.mil/] ]

In spite of- or because of- its variation from more standard US "Stars and Stripes" flags, the Serapis design remains popular among historic US flag displays, and is offered by many flag vendors.

Notes and Links

*Mastai, Boleslaw and Marie-Louise D'Otrange "The Stars and the Stripes. The American Flag as Art and as History from the Birth of the Republic to the Present" ©1973. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 0-394-47217-9
*Robinson, J. Dennis [http://www.seacoastnh.com/arts/please092201.html Unfurling Paul Jones' Flag] 22 Sept 2001. ©2001, SeacoastNH.com.
*Znamierowski, Alfred "The World Encyclopedia of Flags" ©1999, 2002 Anness Publishing Limited, London, UK.