The pine tree flag which was a favorite with the officers of the American privateers, had a white field with a green pine tree in the middle and bore the motto, “An appeal to heaven.”
This flag was officially endorsed by the Massachusetts council, which in April, 1776, passed a series of resolutions providing for the regulation of the sea service, among which was the following:
Resolved, That the uniform of the officers be green and white, and that they furnish themselves accordingly, and that the colors be a white flag with a green pine tree and the inscription, “An appeal to heaven.”—Harper’s Round Table.
COPYRIGHT 1898, BY ADDIE G. WEAVER.
The striped Continental flag opposite the pine tree flag was of red and white stripes without a field.
THE RATTLESNAKE FLAG.
The device of a rattlesnake was popular among the colonists, and its origin as an American emblem is a curious feature in our national history.
It has been stated, that its use grew out of a humorous suggestion made by a writer in Franklin’s paper—the Pennsylvania Gazette—that, in return for the wrongs which England was forcing upon the colonists, a cargo of rattlesnakes should be sent to the mother country and “distributed in St. James’ Park, Spring Garden and other places of pleasure.”