But the crosses were restored, and it was under this single cross Ensign Red that, during the war between William III. and Mary and Louis XIV., the nine colonies[92] united together, and, in 1690, of their own motion and at their own expense,[93] sent out a naval expedition from Boston, under Admiral William Phips, against the French in Canada. The fleet successfully attacked and again captured Port Royal,[94] but arriving before Quebec, above whose ramparts was flying the white flag and fleur-de-lis of France, was repulsed by the redoubtable Count Frontenac. The records of the expedition, and of the episode of the capture of the flag of the Admiral, which, being shot away from its halliards and falling into the water, was swum after and brought to shore by the venturesome French,[95] attest that this fleet of the United Colonies was sailing under the cross of St. George. A copy of the medal (36), issued by Louis XIV. of France in commemoration of the event, is given in the narrative,[96] showing three fleur-de-lis of France, and the cross of St. George on a flag reversed.
While the forces of the United Colonies thus used, in common, the English ensign, some of the colonies had distinctive flags. Massachusetts at times displayed the red ensign with a "pine-tree" on the white ground in the upper corner instead of the cross to which so much objection had been made. The flag of New England (37) was the English red ensign with the pine-tree, or else a globe signifying the New World, in the upper corner of the white canton bearing the cross of St. George. The instance given is taken from the old Dutch publication of 1711.[97]
This New England ensign was in continuous local use from 1686 to 1775.
37. New England Ensign.
(From a Dutch publication of 1711.)
The change in the English flag, made under Queen Anne, from the cross of St. George to the two-crossed Jack, brought a corresponding change in the union flag in America.
The narrative of the change in Massachusetts, in 1701, is given in Chapter XXVII. (page 280). In 1709, similar instructions were sent out to Governor Hunter for the Province of New York, and the drawing of the flag[98] which is attached to the documents is the same in 1709 as in the instructions of 1701.
Under this Queen Anne Union Jack, Port Royal was once more taken by the forces of the United Colonies, sent out from Boston under General Nicholson, in 1710, and its name changed in honour of their Queen to Annapolis, where both Royal name and British ensign have ever since remained.
The colonists had in all these expeditions stoutly proved their share in the prowess of the British Jacks. Acadia,[99] by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), had been ceded to Britain, but Cape Breton had remained in the hands of the French, and Louisbourg having been created by them the strongest fortress in the New World, the British colonists determined upon its reduction.