John Paul Jones did not hoist the first
stars-and-stripes aboard the Ranger on July 4,1777, because he wasn"t in command
of the Ranger at the time. Jones did hoist the first Grand Union flag on board
the Alfred in 1776. "I had the honor to hoist with my own hands the flag of
freedom," he wrote, "the first time it was displayed on the Delaware." It has
been recently discovered that the stars-and-stripes was first flown in a British
port aboard the whaler Bedford, Captain William Mooers, at Horsefly Down in the
Thames on February 3, 1783 - directly in the shadow of the Towers of London.
"This is the first vessel which displayed the thirteen rebellious stripes of
America in any British port," the London Gentleman's magazine reported somewhat
bitterly.