Flag of the United States John Trumbull. Despite the 1777 resolution, the early years of American independence featured many different flags. Most were individually crafted rather than mass-produced. While there are many examples of 13-star arrangements, some of those flags included blue stripes as well as red and white. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, in a letter dated October 3, 1778, to Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, described the American flag as consisting of "13 stripes, alternately red, white, and blue, a small square in the upper angle, next the flag staff, is a blue field, with 13 white stars, denoting a new Constellation."
Flag of Hawaii to various historical flags of the United Kingdom. The flag used at the first official flying of the flag of Hawaii mistakenly placed the stripes in the order white-red-blue, although it seems explorers to the island disagree about the exact order of colors and the number of stripes up to the late 1840s. There may have been possibly different versions of the flag with different numbers of stripes and colors. The number of stripes also changed: originally, the flag was designed with either seven or nine horizontal stripes, and in 1845 it was officially changed to eight stripes. The latter