Editing Francis Hopkinson (section)

==United States Flag==
[[File:Hopkinson Flag of the United States.svg|thumb|Francis Hopkinson's flag for the U.S., an interpretation, with 13 six-pointed stars arranged in five rows<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Williams | first1=Earl P. Jr. |title=Did Francis Hopkinson Design Two Flags? |journal=NAVA News |date=October 2012 |issue=216 |pages=7–9 |url=https://www.flagguys.com/pdf/NAVANews_2012_no216.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306083443/http://www.flagguys.com/pdf/NAVANews_2012_no216.pdf |archive-date=2016-03-06 |url-status=live}}</ref>]]
[[File:Hopkinson Flag of the United States Navy.svg|thumb|Hopkinson Flag for the U.S. Navy, an interpretation<ref>Williams (2012), p.7.</ref>]]
On June 14, 1777,  the Second Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the first official national flag of the newly independent United States (later celebrated as [[Flag Day (United States)|Flag Day]]). The resolution creating the flag came from the Continental Marine Committee. Hopkinson became a member of the committee in 1776. At the time of the flag's adoption, he was the chairman of the Navy Board, which was under the Marine Committee. Today, that office has been transferred to the [[United States Secretary of the Navy]].<ref name=Zall>{{cite book|last1=Zall|first1=Paul M.|title=Comical Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Humor of Francis Hopkinson|date=1976|publisher=Huntington Library|location=San Marino, California|page=10}}</ref>

Hopkinson is recognized as a designer of the [[Flag of the United States]], and the journals of the [[Continental Congress]] support this.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Furlong|first1=William Rea|last2=McCandless|first2=Byron|title=So Proudly We Hail|url=https://archive.org/details/soproudlywehail00furl|url-access=registration|date=1981|publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press|location=Washington, D.C.|page=[https://archive.org/details/soproudlywehail00furl/page/101 101]}}</ref> On May 25, 1780, Hopkinson wrote a letter to the Continental Board of Admiralty mentioning several patriotic designs he had completed during the previous three years.<ref>Hastings, p. 240.</ref> One was his Board of Admiralty seal, which contained a shield of seven red and six white stripes on a blue field. Others included the [[Symbols of the United States Department of the Treasury|Treasury Board seal]], "7 devices for the Continental Currency," and "the Flag of the United States of America."<ref>Leepson, p. 33</ref> Hopkinson noted that he had not asked for any compensation for the designs but was seeking a reward: "a Quarter Cask of the public Wine." The board sent that letter on to Congress.

Hopkinson submitted another bill on June 24 for his "drawings and devices." In this second letter, Hopkinson did not mention designing the flag of the United States.  Instead, the first item listed was "the great Naval Flag of the United States" along with the other contributions.<ref name="Williams 2012, pp. 7–9.">Williams (2012), pp. 7–9.</ref> This flag with its red outer stripes was designed to show up well on ships at sea.<ref name="Williams 2012, pp. 7–9."/> A parallel flag for the national flag was most likely intended by Hopkinson with white outer stripes<ref name="Williams 2012, pp. 7–9."/> as on the Great Seal of the United States and on the [[Bennington flag]], which commemorated 50th anniversary of the founding of the United States in 1826.<ref name=Joint>{{cite book|last1=Joint Committee on Printing|first1=U.S. Congress|title=Our Flag|date=2007|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|location=Washington, D.C.|isbn=978-0-16-076598-8|edition=Rev. ed.109th Congress, 2nd Session}}</ref> Ironically, the Navy flag was preferred as the national flag.

For the various designs, Hopkinson asked for cash in the amount of £2,700.  Auditor General James Milligan commissioned an evaluation of the request for payment.  The report from the commissioner of the Chamber of Accounts said that the bill was reasonable and ought to be paid. Congress asked for an itemized bill for payment in cash. Hopkinson requested £9 for the naval flag.  A committee investigated Hopkinson's charges that his payment was being delayed for arbitrary reasons.  The Treasury Board turned down the request in an October 27, 1780, report to Congress. The Board cited several reasons for its action, including the fact that Hopkinson "was not the only person consulted on those exhibitions of Fancy [that were incidental to the Board (among them, the U.S. flag, the Navy flag, the Admiralty seal, and the Great Seal with a reverse)<ref>Hastings (1926), p. 241-242.</ref>], and therefore cannot claim the sole merit of them and not entitled in this respect to the full sum charged."<ref>Williams (1988), p. 47.</ref> The reference to the work of others is most probably a reference to his work on the Great Seal.<ref name="Williams1">{{cite journal|last1=Williams |first1=Earl P. Jr.|title=The 'Fancy Work' of Francis Hopkinson: Did He Design the Stars and Stripes?|journal=Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives|date=Spring 1988|volume=20|issue=1|page=48}}</ref> Therefore, he would not be eligible to be paid for the Great Seal.<ref name="auto" /> Furthermore, the Great Seal project was still a work in progress. No known committee of the Continental Congress was documented with the assignment to design the national flag or naval flag.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Canby|first1=George|last2=Balderston|first2=Lloyd|title=The Evolution of the American Flag|url=https://archive.org/details/evolutionameric01baldgoog|date=1909|publisher=Ferris & Leach|location=Philadelphia|page=[https://archive.org/details/evolutionameric01baldgoog/page/n61 48]}}</ref> Hence, there was no evidence of collaboration with others on Hopkinson's flag design.

There is no known sketch of a Hopkinson flag—either U.S. or naval—in existence today.<ref name="Williams 2012, p. 7">Williams (2012), p. 7.</ref> However, he incorporated elements of the two flags he designed in his rough sketches of the Great Seal of the United States and his design for the Admiralty Board Seal.<ref name="Williams 2012, pp. 7–9."/> The rough sketch of his second Great Seal proposal has 7 white stripes and 6 red stripes.<ref>Patterson and Dougall, p. 37.</ref> The impression of Hopkinson's Admiralty Board Seal<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Moeller|first1=Henry W., Ph.D.|title=Two Early American Ensigns on the Pennsylvania State Arms|journal=NAVA News|date=January 2002|issue=173|page=fn. 41 & 42}}</ref> has a chevron with 7 red stripes and 6 white stripes. The Great Seal reflects Hopkinson's design for a governmental flag, and the Admiralty Board Seal reflects Hopkinson's design for a naval flag. Both flags were intended to have 13 stripes. Because the original stars used in the Great Seal had six points, Hopkinson's U.S. flag might also have intended the use of 6-pointed stars.<ref>Williams (2012), p. 8.</ref> This is bolstered by his original sketch for the Great Seal that featured a U.S. flag with six-pointed asterisks for stars.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/TheEagleAndTheShield/The+Eagle+and+the+Shield#page/n81|title=The eagle and the shield : a history of the great seal of the United States|website=archive.org|year=1978 }}</ref> The stripe arrangement would have been consistent with other flags of the period that had seven stripes below the canton, or blue area with stars. For example, two of the earliest known examples of Stars and Stripes flags were painted by a Dutch artist who witnessed the arrival of Navy Lieutenant John Paul Jones' squadron in Texel, The Netherlands, in 1779. The two flags have seven stripes below the canton.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Furlong |first1=William Rea |last2=McCandless |first2=Byron |title=So Proudly We Hail: The History of the United States Flag |date=1961 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |location=Washington |pages=130}}</ref>