"that whensoever the subjects of either king shall be forced to enter with their ships into the other's ports, they shall be obliged at their coming in to hang out their flag or colours of their nation, and give notice of their coming by thrice firing a cannon, and if they have no cannon by thrice firing a musket, which if they shall omit to do, and, however, send their boat on shore, they shall be liable to confiscation."[89]
Governor Andros brought out with him from England, in 1686, his official flag as Governor of New England. A drawing of this in the British State papers office[90] shows it to have been a large St. George Jack, having on the centre of the red cross a royal crown, and underneath the initials of the King, I.R. (Jacobus Rex), in gold. This Governor's flag was officially used by Governor Andros in the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
The united colonies of New England, moved, no doubt, by the necessities of the Treaty of Whitehall, passed an Order-in-Council, in 1686, directing the cross to be restored to their Colours. In this way the red cross of St. George came back into the blank white space which had been left in the upper corner of the Ensign Red.
We get some glimpse of the mental difficulties of the times from the diary of Samuel Sewall, an officer in the colonial forces. On August 20th, 1686, he writes:
"I was and am in great exercise about the cross to be put into the colours, and afraid that if I should have a hand in it whether it may not hinder my entrance into the Holy Land."
He even contemplated the necessity of retiring from the service, and enters:
"Sabbath day, August 22.
"In the evening seriously discoursed with Captain Eliot and Frary signifying my inability to hold, and reading Mr. Cotton Mather's arguments to them about the cross, and say'd that to introduce it into Boston at this time was much, seeing that it had been kept out more than my lifetime, and now the cross much set by in England and here; and it scarce could be put in, but I must have a hand in it. I fetch home the silk Elizur Holyoke had of me to make the cross, last Friday morn, and went and discourse Mr. Mather. He judged it sin to have it put in, but the captain not in fault, but I could hardly understand how the command of others could wholly excuse them, at least me who had spoken so much against it in April, 1681, and that summer and forward, upon occasion of Captain Walley's putting the cross in his colours."[91]
36. Medal of Louis XIV., "Kebeca Liberata," 1690.