There had been similar phrases used preceding Henry's speech. The 1713 play, "Cato, a Tragedy", was popular in the American Colonies and well known by the Founding Fathers, who quoted from the play. George Washington had the play performed for the Continental Army at Valley Forge. It contains the line, "It is not now time to talk of aught/But chains or conquest, liberty or death" (Act II, Scene 4). The phrase "Liberty or Death" also appears on the Culpeper Minutemen flag of 1775.