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.

[98] New York Colonial manuscripts, Vol. V., p. 137.

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.

[99] Practically our present Nova Scotia.

In 1745, an expedition, entirely colonial, organized by General Shirley, of Massachusetts, and William Vaughan, of New Hampshire, sailed from Boston under General Pepperell. After a siege of forty days Louisbourg surrendered. In 1748, the fortress was again restored to the _fleur-de-lis_ by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, but only to be retaken by Wolfe, in 1758, and the Queen Anne Jack, which the United Colonies had before placed above it, was restored and is shown again in the Louisbourg medal,[100] used to commemorate Wolfe's victory (38).

[100] Bourinot: "Island of Cape Breton."

On yet another field the United Colonists carried the Union Jack. In 1762, when Havana was captured from the Spanish by Lord Albemarle, there were in his fleet of 203 vessels, and among his land forces of 12,000 men, alongside the men from across the sea, colonial contingents sent by the colonies of Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Maine.[101]

[101] _Graham's Journal_, published by the Society of the Colonial Wars, in New York.

When Cuba was thus gained for the Union Jack the colonists of America were joined with their British brothers from the Old Land in lowering the flag of Spain, but the island was restored to Spain by the Treaty of Paris, February 10th, 1763.[102]

[102] When, in the Spanish-American war of 1899, the forces of the United States placed the American ensign, containing the thirteen stripes of the old colonies, above the flag of Spain, in Cuba, Great Britain stood by the descendants of her men of 1762 and kept the field clear from interference by other nations.

Thus for over two and a half centuries (1497-1762) had the English Jacks wrestled with the forests and battled along the shores of America, carried first by the merchant adventurers, and afterwards by the several and the United Colonies, as sign of their origin and allegiance. For yet another long period was the two-crossed Jack to be carried by those who had so manfully won competence and glory beneath it, so that at length, even when joining for contest with their parent realm, the Thirteen Colonies held its past and record in such esteem that they placed the Union Jack of Queen Anne in their new Union Ensign as a sign and remembrance of their common history.