<P> At the time of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, the Continental Congress would not legally adopt flags with "stars, white in a blue field" for another year . The flag contemporaneously known as "the Continental Colors" has historically been referred to as the first national flag . </P> <P> The Continental Navy raised the Colors as the ensign of the fledgling nation in the American War for Independence--likely with the expedient of transforming their previous British red ensigns by adding white stripes--and would use this flag until 1777, when it would form the basis for the subsequent de jure designs . </P> <P> The name "Grand Union" was first applied to the Continental Colors by George Preble in his 1872 history of the U.S. flag . </P> <P> The flag closely resembles the British East India Company flag of the era, and Sir Charles Fawcett argued in 1937 that the company flag inspired the design . Both flags could have been easily constructed by adding white stripes to a British Red Ensign, one of the three maritime flags used throughout the British Empire at the time . However, an East India Company flag could have from nine to 13 stripes, and was not allowed to be flown outside the Indian Ocean . Benjamin Franklin once gave a speech endorsing the adoption of the Company's flag by the United States as their national flag . He said to George Washington, "While the field of your flag must be new in the details of its design, it need not be entirely new in its elements . There is already in use a flag, I refer to the flag of the East India Company ." This was a way of symbolising American loyalty to the Crown as well as the United States' aspirations to be self - governing, as was the East India Company . Some colonists also felt that the Company could be a powerful ally in the American War of Independence, as they shared similar aims and grievances against the British government tax policies . Colonists therefore flew the Company's flag, to endorse the Company . </P>

What was the name of the first flag for the united states