Hand-coloured.; No.35. When the British surrendered Fort George to the forces of General George Washington in 1783, at the end of the War of American Independence, one of their final insults was to cut away the halliards of its flagpole and grease the mast to make it impossible for the American flag to be hoisted without taking it down. The 'stars and stripes' was instead hung over the seaward bastion in sight of the departing British ships. The British also sent the most junior naval representative possible to surrender the keys of the city to Washington. This was John Simpson, then a midshipman in a storeship there. He rose to captain and died as one of the four Captains of Greenwich Hospital in 1849. His monument, by Thomas Milnes, including a low-relief profile portrait in later life still stands in the old Hospital burial ground adjacent to the National Maritime Museum. [PvdM 7/16]