2'x3' Don't Tread on Me Yellow Gadsden including Congress chose, as the commander-in-chief of the Navy, a Rhode Island man named Esek Hopkins. The flag that Hopkins used, on the Alfred, as his personal standard is the one we, as Americans, would today recognize. It is likely that, it was ran up the gaff, by John Paul Jones who was the first lieutenant on the Alfred. Wholesale price.

It's accepted that Hopkins' flag was given to him by Christopher Gadsden, who felt it was especially important for the commodore to have a distinctive personal standard. To his state legislature in Charleston, Gadsden, also presented a copy of this flag. In the South Carolina congressional journals the description is recorded as follows:

"Col. Gadsden presented to the Congress an elegant standard, such as is to be used by the commander in chief of the American navy; being a yellow field, with a lively representation of a rattle-snake in the middle, in the attitude of going to strike, and these words underneath, "Don't Tread on Me!"