with the purchase of an American Flag
“I have not yet begun to fight.”
—John Paul Jones when Asked to Surrender by the British Captain at the Battle of Flamborough Head
America’s Largely Forgotten Banner of Defiance
In the blackened waters off Flamborough Head in 1779, amid the thunder of cannon fire and the screams of men, a new American flag rose defiantly above the captured British ship Serapis. It was not the familiar Stars and Stripes of Philadelphia’s workshops, nor one sanctioned by the Continental Congress. Instead, it was a makeshift banner of necessity designed in exile, born from courage, and sanctified in blood. This was the Serapis Flag: a symbol of an America still defining itself, even as it fought for survival.
[The Serapis Flag]
The Serapis Flag is one of the most unusual and misunderstood flags in early American history. Its story begins far from the thirteen colonies—not in Boston or Philadelphia—but in Europe’s ports and naval yards, where American diplomats, privateers, and revolutionaries struggled to represent a nation that barely existed on paper. Out of this uncertainty, the Serapis Flag became both a creative improvisation and a powerful assertion of identity at a moment when the United States had few ways to announce itself to the world.
The Origin: A Nation Without a Flag
By the late 1770s, the American Revolution had spread beyond the shores of North America. The newly formed Continental Navy and dozens of privately commissioned vessels roamed the Atlantic, harassing British shipping, protecting American commerce, and seeking European allies. Yet these ships faced a strange and dangerous problem: what flag could they fly?
The official flag adopted by Congress on June 14, 1777—thirteen stars and thirteen stripes—was barely known outside the colonies. European ports, wary of British retaliation, often refused entry to American ships for lack of recognized symbols of nationality. American captains improvised with variations of the Stars and Stripes, the “Grand Union” flag, or even personal designs. Among these seafaring patriots was the Scots-born American naval hero John Paul Jones, whose daring exploits against Britain made him a legend in his own time.
[John Paul Jones]
In 1778, Jones sailed to Europe commanding the Ranger, flying one of the earliest forms of the U.S. flag. When he returned to sea in 1779, he took command of a converted French merchant ship renamed Bonhomme Richard in honor of Benjamin Franklin’s popular “Poor Richard’s Almanack.” Franklin himself, then serving as American commissioner in France, helped Jones secure both the vessel and its crew—an international mix of Americans, Scots, Irish, French, and even Swedes. But when the Bonhomme Richard put to sea, it carried no standard American flag recognizable to foreign allies.
To solve this diplomatic dilemma, Franklin and his fellow commissioner John Adams authorized the creation of a flag that could identify American vessels in European waters. The design varied from the American flag established by Congress but retained its spirit—thirteen red, white, and blue stripes and a field of stars. French authorities and Dutch merchants soon recognized this version as the flag of the fledgling United States. One of these variants, sewn in France and brought aboard the Bonhomme Richard, would later become immortalized as the Serapis Flag.
[The Bonhomme Richard]
The Battle of Flamborough Head: The Flag Baptized in Fire
The Serapis Flag achieved immortality on September 23, 1779, when John Paul Jones confronted the British warship HMS Serapis off the coast of England. The Bonhomme Richard was battered, slow, and heavily outgunned, but Jones refused to yield. When the British captain shouted across the smoke-filled water to ask if he would surrender, Jones gave his immortal reply:
“I have not yet begun to fight.”
The battle that followed was one of the most savage in naval history. Cannon fire tore through both ships, setting the Bonhomme Richard ablaze. Dozens of sailors were killed or maimed. Jones lashed his vessel to the Serapis to prevent escape, and the two ships fought side by side in the night, the decks slick with blood and burning powder. Finally, after hours of brutal combat, the British crew surrendered.
[The Battle of Flamborough Head]
When the Sun rose the next morning, Jones’s own ship was sinking beneath him. He transferred his surviving crew—and the American flag—to the captured Serapis. It was atop this conquered British frigate that the Serapis Flag first flew victoriously over English waters, an unthinkable sight that sent shockwaves through Europe. The flag’s image spread quickly in prints and engravings, cementing it as one of the great symbols of the Revolution.
The Design: A Striking Variation of the Stars and Stripes
The Serapis Flag’s appearance immediately distinguishes it from other early American banners. It consists of thirteen horizontal red, white, and blue stripes, arranged differently from the traditional red-white pattern. Its canton—a deep blue field—bears thirteen eight-pointed white stars, organized in irregular rows rather than a precise geometric formation. The result is a flag both unmistakably American and unmistakably unique.
The arrangement of blue, white, and red stripes may have been intended to parallel the colors of France, the young republic’s crucial ally. The use of eight-pointed stars, uncommon among American flags, reflected European stylistic influence. And the inversion of stripe colors set the Serapis Flag apart visually from the British Red Ensign or any European maritime emblem, ensuring that American ships could be identified at sea by friend and foe alike.
No precise record survives of who designed or sewed the flag, but it was almost certainly produced in Europe under Franklin’s oversight. Its purpose was diplomatic as much as military: to assert that these rough wooden ships, manned by rebels, represented a sovereign nation entitled to respect.
[Benjamin Franklin]
The Diplomatic Effect: Recognition Abroad
The aftermath of the Serapis victory was not just a triumph of arms but of diplomacy. Jones sailed his captured prize to the neutral Dutch port of Texel, seeking refuge and supplies. The British government demanded that the Dutch arrest him as a pirate and return the Serapis. But when Dutch officials saw the flag flying from her mast, they hesitated. This was no pirate banner—it was the recognized flag of the United States.
Dutch authorities ultimately treated Jones and his men as representatives of a sovereign power, despite British protests. This moment, seemingly bureaucratic, was deeply symbolic: the Serapis Flag had earned for America the international recognition it desperately needed. For the first time, a European power implicitly acknowledged the legitimacy of the new republic’s maritime flag. As Jones himself wrote to Franklin, “The colors of America have been respected where they have never been seen before.”
Legacy: A Largely Neglected Banner of Freedom
Though the Serapis Flag was never adopted officially by Congress, its influence lingered long after the smoke cleared from Flamborough Head. In a sense, it was the first “international” flag of the United States—a practical and visual assertion of national identity at a time when America was still an idea more than a nation. It represented both improvisation and resolve, the capacity of the Revolution to adapt and endure even when cut off from home.
In later years, the flag became a symbol of John Paul Jones himself—the “Father of the American Navy.” Jones’s relentless determination, his insistence on fighting against overwhelming odds, mirrored the character of the flag he flew. Both were unorthodox, controversial, and unforgettable. When Jones died in 1792 and was buried in France, his coffin was draped not with the standard American flag, but with a version of the one he made famous: the Serapis Flag.
Today, the Serapis Flag continues to be flown by the U.S. Navy’s ceremonial ships and by descendants of Jones’s maritime legacy. It appears in naval museums and historical reenactments as a reminder of a time when American identity was still fluid, shaped by necessity and courage. Its unusual stripes and radiant stars evoke an era when every banner hoisted at sea could mean the difference between liberty and the gallows.
[Famous Painting Featuring the Serapis Flag]
Ultimately, every ripple of that blue, red, and white cloth upon the sea whispered a message that still echoes through the centuries: freedom may change its shape, but it never lowers its colors.
