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by António Martins
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The article reproduced below is from the Mariners Mirror dated October 1937
where Charles Fawcett published an article discussing the suggestion that the
flag of the East India Company influenced the design of the Grand Union Flag at
great length. The article is entitled :
The STRIPED FLAG of the EAST INDIA COMPANY, and its CONNEXION with the AMERICAN
"STARS and STRIPES"
The article discusses the many different possibilities and likelihoods for the design of the Grand Union flag. Although the article provides no definite proof of a connection it provides enough evidence and well formed argument to conclude that it is most likely that there is a direct connection.
Neil Kimber, 28 December 2002
THE MARINER'S MIRROR WHEREIN MAY BE DISCOVERED HIS ART, CRAFT & MYSTERY after
the manner of their use in all ages and among all Nations Vol. XXIII. No. 4
OCTOBER 1937 THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR NAUTICAL RESEARCH,
VOLUME TWENTY-THREE M-CM-XXXVII,
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
MCMXXXVII
The STRIPED FLAG of the EAST INDIA
COMPANY, and its CONNEXION with the
AMERICAN "STARS and STRIPES"
By Sir Charles Fawcett
As Editor of the India Office series The English Factories in India I have
become interested in the red and white stripes of the flag of the East India
Company and the question whether they are the origin of the similar stripes in
the American flag. I venture to give the result of my research on this topic in
these pages, as it will, I think, be of some interest to readers of The
Mariner's Mirror, and no one else seems to have written about it in previous
issues. Professor Geoffrey Callender, the Director of the National Maritime
Museum, Greenwich, has informed me that the late Mr W. G. Perrin contemplated
doing so, but had not completed his researches when he died. He has given a good
deal of the history of the flag in his book British Flags (Cambridge University
Press, 1922); but the only previous references to it in The Mariner's Mirror are
a few short notes on pp. 190 and 221 of vol. I and on p. 63 of vol. III, which
chiefly relate to the varying number of the stripes.
In the seventeenth century the flag had, as stated by Perrin (loc. cit. p. 130),
generally from nine to thirteen alternate red and white stripes, the odd numbers
being red; and it was to this that its nick-name of "John Company's gridiron" is
due. The top stripes were, however, broken by a canton at the upper corner next
the staff, containing the red cross of St George on a white field (see Perrin's
Plate IX, No. 6). Nothing about its use, or intended use, has been traced in the
early records of the Company, though special attention to this point was paid by
my predecessor, Sir William Foster, who has kindly helped me by putting his
notes on the subject at my disposal. This may, however, be due to the incomplete
state of the records or to usage rather than any formal order of the Company,
having led to the adoption of these colours (1). That they were only red and
white is shown by a document of 1668. In that year Bombay was transferred by
King Charles II to the East India Company, and in September commissioners were
sent down from Surat to take over the island. A new flag was required for the
Fort and they asked that some white, red and blue cloth should be sent for
making it, if the King's colours (the Union Jack) were to be kept there; "if
not, white and red will be sufficient"(2). That there were stripes on the flag
is indicated by Peter Mundy's drawing of it in a sketch of Swally Marine in
1656(3) and by Dr Fryer's reference to it in 1673 as "the East-India striped
Ancient"(4). There is also evidence that it had a cross on it, because in 1616
this was objected to by the Japanese as an emblem of Christianity, which had
been banned in 1614. In 1671, when the Company was sending the Return to Japan
in an effort to restart trade with that country, it decided not to alter its
usual flag; but in 1673, when the ship entered the port of Nagasaki, she
departed from this instruction on local advice and instead flew a striped white
and red flag without a cross; when subsequently she put out one with a cross,
the Japanese officials demanded an explanation(5). But all this is inconclusive
as to its exact appearance. Fortunately a precise description of it at this
period is afforded by extant coloured pictures of the four ships sent out to
India by the Company in 1670. These were drawn by Edward Barlow, a seaman on one
of them (the Experiment), who wrote an account of his various voyages and
illustrated it with coloured sketches. This is now in the possession of Mr Basil
Lubbock, who has edited it in his book Barlow's Journal (Hurst and Blackett,
1934). Three of his pictures showing the ships, or some of them, at Bombay, at
Calicut and near Surat, are reproduced in the latest volume of The English
Factories in India, recently published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford. These
depict the flag with alternate red and white stripes and the canton with St
George's cross, exactly as it has been described above. Similar illustrations
that show the flag clearly have been reproduced (though not in colour) in
Barlow's Journal opposite pp. 184, 190, 194, 198 and 200, while another one
facing p. 358 shows it on a ship in which he sailed to the East in 1683. The
number of stripes on his Bags is generally 9, 11, or 13, but there are instances
of 7 and even 19 (the latter being on the ship of 1683, the other flag on which
has 13 stripes), so obviously too much stress should not be laid on such
variations. All that can safely be said about it is that Barlow's pictures
support the view that the number varied and was generally from 9 to 13. They
also show that a ship would sometimes wear, in addition to the Company's usual
flag, the red ensign with a canton having a red St George's cross on a white
field (6), which was then commonly worn by merchantmen and their use of which
was expressly authorized by a proclamation issued by Charles II on 18 September
1674 (Perrin, loc. cit. pp. 68-9, 130).
In November 1676 Samuel Pepys drew the attention of the Company to the fact that
its flag continued to be flown by its ships in contravention of this
proclamation, which prescribed for "merchants' ships" the use of only two flags,
viz. the red ensign just mentioned and "the Flag and Jack white with a red cross
(commonly called Saint George's Cross) passing right through the same"(7). On 6
December of that year the Court of Committees, as the Company's directors were
then called, asked the Shipping Committee to confer -with the commanders of the
three ships that were then about to sail for the Coromandel Coast and the Bay of
Bengal 'touching the colours enjoined by Royal proclamation to be worn by all
merchant ships mentioned, and how far it may be useful or inconvenient to the
Company's affairs to have any alteration made in the ensign hitherto worn by
their ships, and report". Evidently as a result of this the Court of Committees
on 19 December instructed each of the commanders to note that between St Helena
and England in his homeward voyage, as also when going out, he was in obedience
to the King's proclamation "to wear only the usual English flag and ensign, and
no other, viz, a white flag with a red cross, and a red ensign with a white
cross in the upper corner"(8). The description of the red ensign's canton as "a
white cross" was an obvious error which was corrected by substituting the words
'a red cross in a white field" in subsequent similar instructions to
commanders.(9) These continued up to September 1688, after which the order in
question does not appear in them.(10)
This does not, however, mean that the order had been annulled or that it ceased
to be observed. Its restriction to home waters and those between St Helena and
this country was a compromise, which was undoubtedly acquiesced in by the
Admiralty; but that body would on the other hand be interested in the
enforcement of this arrangement and there is nothing to indicate that it
consented, in or about 1688-9, to any further relaxation of the terms of the
proclamation of 1674, except to the extent that I suggest below. The reason for
the omission of the usual clause after September 1688 is not on the records of
the Company, but I venture to put forward a possible explanation of it. When the
next ships were about to be dispatched in March-May 1689, William III was on the
throne and England was on the brink of war with France over Louis XIV's support
of the ex-King, James II. Under a royal warrant of 9 May 1689 the Company was
authorized to commission their commanders to seize French vessels as prizes(11);
in other words its ships were virtual privateers. In the seventeenth century the
latter were in the habit of wearing the Union Jack,(12) so that the order in
question might well be regarded as inappropriate.
This privateering lasted at any rate till January 1691(13), and the order,
having once been dropped from the instructions, would not ordinarily reappear,
in view of the natural tendency to copy instructions from the last one issued.
Its omission was immaterial and the white flag with St George's cross and the
red ensign authorized by the proclamation of 1674 continued to be used by the
Company's ships, as is for instance shown by Barlow's picture of the
East-Indiaman Sceptre, which he commanded in 1697-8 (Barlow's Journal, Vol. II,
opposite p. 500).(14)
The striped red and white flag with St George's cross in the canton also
persisted as the Company's special colours. Thus the third edition of The
Present State of the Universe by John Beaumont, Junior, which was published in
1701, contains an appendix entitled "The Ensigns, Colours or Flags of the Ships
at Sea, belonging to the several Princes and States in the World", and plate
eleven of these shows this flag with 7 red stripes and 6 white stripes. A
similar flag, but with only 5 red and 4 white bands, is shown as the Company's
flag in (a) Les Pavilions ou Bannieres que Ia plupart des Nations arborent en
Mer (Amsterdam, chez David Mortier, 1718), see pl. 7 and p. 6 of the text; (b)
La Connoissance des Pavillons (1737), which, however, is practically a mere
reissue of the 1718 book already mentioned; (c) the Flag plate at the end of Le
Rouge's Atlas nouveau portatif (c. 1748); (d) a coloured flag plate of about
1750, Flaggen a//er seefahrenden Potenzen. von J. B. Homann (in Nurnberg); and
(e) Bowles's Universal Display of the Naval Flags of all Nations in the World
(published in May 1783).(15)
The last five were published after the legislative union between England and
Scotland in 1707, and for reasons that I give below I think it is clear that
they incorrectly show the canton as containing St Georges cross, instead of the
union of that cross and the cross of St Andrew, which superseded the former in
that year. The mistake is one that might easily arise from copying previous
plates about flags that were not well known to the publishers, without their
making due enquiry whether there had been any alteration in the pattern.
It is, I think, of some significance that the book Les Pavillons, etc. (1718),
not only reduced the number of stripes in the Company's flag from 13 (the number
shown in The Present State of the Universe) to 9, but added a flag that was
exactly the same as the Company's, having 13 red and white stripes and St
George's cross in the canton-entitling it 'Pavillon de Rang ou de Division d'une
Escadre" (P1. IV, fig. 3). This supplies a possible reason for its reduction of
the number of stripes in the Company's flag. The same squadronal striped flag
appears in some of the other publications that have been mentioned above. I
speak with diffidence, but was there such a flag used by the English Navy in the
eighteenth century? Perrin's account of "Admiral's Flags" and "Flags of Command"
seems to me to contradict its existence. He says (p. 115) "the field of the
ensign had, since its introduction about 1574, been of striped design"; and the
illustrations on P1. IX that he cites in a footnote include one (fig. 6)
corresponding to the red and white striped ensign of the Company that he
mentions at p. 130. But according to Perrin (pp. 90-102, 115-17) this mode of
distinguishing squadrons was given up in 1625 and onwards, being superseded by
the division of the fleet into three squadrons, red, white and blue,
distinguished by ensigns and pendants of those respective colours. I am glad to
be supported in this by Mr Bonner-Smith, whose remarks I give below, being more
authoritative than any opinion of mine:
As regards Squadronal Colours, Perrin's main discussion on these is in his
chapter entitled "Admiral's Flags". You will see that he says on p. 90 that
Wimbledon's Cadiz Expedition of 1625 was the occasion when Squadronal Colours
were definitely allocated to the Fleet, which was divided into Red, Blue and
White Squadrons, the ships themselves wearing the appropriate coloured Pendant.
The change in 1653 that he deals with on p. 117 is the introducrion of Ensigns
(additional to Pendants) of the appropriate colour for each Squadron.
I think Perrin would have stated that from 1653 till Squadronal Colours were
abolished in 1864 the only Ensigns used in the Royal Navy for which record
material can be produced were the Red, White and Blue Squadronal Colours. We
have abundant material about Admirals of the Red, Admirals of the White, and
Admirals of the Elue but have never a word about 'Admirals of the Striped
Squadron''. The occurrence of a striped flag [in the plates of flags] as a Flag
of Rank or of Squadron Division about 1701-18 is evidence of a sort; against it
we set the fact that the flag that any Flag Officer was to wear is mentioned in
his appointment, and no trace has been found of any Flag Officer of that period
being ordered to wear a striped flag (and so be styled ''Admiral of the
Stripes").
There is another reason for the same conclusion. In 1676 in reply to the
Commander-in-Chief of the Downs, who drew attention to the Company's flag as
contravening the proclamation of 1674, Pepys remarked that that flag was "not of
any so near resemblance to the King's as to create any mistake"(16). It is
surely improbable that he would have said this if, in fact, the same flag was in
use by the Royal Navy for squadronal purposes.
It seems, therefore, clear that the book Les Pavillons, etc., is wrong in
showing this striped flag as a squadronal one, it having been abandoned neatly a
century before the date of its publication; and this adds to the probability-or
rather, as I hope to show, the certainty-that it is also wrong in showing St
George's cross in the canton of the Company's flag.(17)
On 21 July 1707 Queen Anne issued an Order-in-Council, under which the Union
flag of St George's and St Andrew's crosses was to be substituted for St
George's cross in the canton of the Royal Navy's ensign(18). Thereupon the
Admiralty ordered the Navy Board to cause all vessels to be supplied with
colours accordingly with all possible dispatch, and to have St George's cross
taken out of all the ensigns and a Union Jack flag put into them instead(19). A
proclamation of 28 July 1707, in promulgating the orders, also directed that the
Union should replace the St George in the canton of the red ensign and contained
a clause "strictly charging and commanding the Masters of all Merchant Ships and
vessels belonging to any of our subjects, whether employed in Our service or
otherwise, and all other persons whom it may concern, to wear the said ensign on
board their ships or vessels" and no other(20). As pointed out by Perrin (pp.
131-2), this was in stricter terms than any previous proclamation on the subject
and made the wearing of the red ensign with the union canton compulsory.
There is nothing in the Minutes or extant correspondence of the Company about
the change of canton, but such silence clearly favours acquiescence in, and
compliance with, its terms rather than the contrary. Compliance would merely
entail the issue of orders to subordinates to make the change, and these would
be contained in correspondence that later on was likely to be considered of
insufficient importance to justify its preservation(21), whereas any proposal to
disregard the proclamation would necessarily have had to come up for discussion
by the Court of Committees and would have found a place in their Minutes. Nor is
there any likelihood that the Company would desire to disobey the order. Such
disobedience would at once have brought it into conflict with the Admiralty,
which had taken immediate steps to alter its own ensign and had a duty to see
that merchantmen also flew the correct canton. The Company's interests at the
time of the proclamation were essentially opposed to its offending the Admiralty
in this way, for England was then at war with France over the Spanish
succession, and the Company was constantly asking the Lord High Admiral to
provide convoys for their ships, to give protection against the impressment of
their sailors, and for other favours. I give two specimens:
(General Records, Miscellanies, 1, 297-8, 320-1)
1. To the Honble. the Council of His Royal Highness Prince George, Ld. High
Admiral of Great Britain etc.
May it please your Honours,
The Court of Managers for the United Trade of the English Company trading to the
East Indies crave leave to represent that they understand 2 of their expected
ships from the East Indies of a considerable value are arrived in Holland in
company of the Dutch East India Fleet and do therefore humbly request that a
sufficient force of her Majesty's Ships of war may be appointed forthwith to
bring home their said Ships into the River of Thames. Dated at the East India
house the 12th September, 1707. Signed by order of the said Court of Managers,
Thos. Woolley, Secry.
2. (Address as in previous letter.)
May it please your Honours,
The Committee of the Court of Managers of the United East India Company do
represent to your Honours that they have Letters from the Captains of all their
Ships at the Nore advising them that by Admiral Jennings, order the greatest
part of all the able Seamen on board their severall Ships were taken away on
Saturday last.
That the time of the Year is already so far Advanced that the Ships are in
dai~ger of losing their Monsoons and if they should a whole year's trade is
certainly lost which will prove a very great prejudice to the Public as well as
the Company. That they may do what in them lyes to prevent so Generall an evill
they humbly pray that Protections may be immediately granted to their severall
Ships and for their complement of men as mentioned on the other side to the end
their Owners and Commanders may immediately set about getting of new Seamen to
supply the rooms of those so taken away and that the Protections may be of
sufficient force to preserve the men they shall so get as well as those left on
board. (The letter also asks for proper Protections for preserving the soldiers
on board, which are "extremely wanted for defence of their Forts and settlements
abroad".)
Dated at the East India house the 23rd February 1707/8.
(Signature as in the other letter.)
There was thus every reason for the Company to comply with the proclamation of
1707, and if the canton was altered in the red ensign, it is hardly conceivable
that it would not also be altered in the Company's striped flag. That the
cantons in both colours had in fact been changed accordingly by 1732 is, I
think, clearly proved by six pictures that are now in the Military Committee
Room (No. 197) at the India Office. As to their origin, I quote Sir William
Foster's remarks in his Catalogue of Paintings, Statues, etc., in the India
Office (p. 18):
This is. . .a set of pictures of the more important settlements in the East
Indies and on the route thither, as they were in the early part of the
eighteenth century.. . Their purchase in 1732 is recorded in the following
extract from the Court Minutes (1st November):-"Order'd That the Secretary do
pay Mr George Lambert £94. 10s, for Six Pictures of the Forts etc for the Court
Room at fifteen Guineas per Picture as per agreement." The paintings are not
signed, but it has been ascertained from other sources that the artists were the
aforesaid George Lambert (b. 1710, d. 1765, the first president of the Society
of Artists, founder of the Beefsteak Club, and for many years the principal
scene painter at Covent Garden Theatre) and Samuel Scott (b.1710?, d. 1772, a
friend of Hogarth's and a marine painter of some eminence). There seems little
doubt that Lambert painted the buildings and landscape in each picture, and
Scott added the ships. There is no record of either artist having been in the
Indies, and it may be concluded that they merely worked up materials already
existing. This of course detracts somewhat from the value of the pictures, but
the probability that they were based on reliable data is still sufficiently
strong to make them of importance for early Anglo-Indian topography.
The presumption stated in the last remark applies with particular force to the
flags shown in the pictures, which were painted specially for the East India
Company(22). Scott, as a marine painter, would be familiar with those flown on
East Indiamen, and it is very improbable that he would show the canton
incorrectly. To have depicted it as containing the union instead of St George's
cross, if the latter was still being flown, would have not only caused derision,
but also hazarded the Company's acceptance of pictures tainted with such a
misrepresentation. All of them include one or more of the Company's ships in the
foreground, and in every one the red ensign is painted with the union canton of
St George's and St Andrew's crosses. St George's cross on a white field (as in
the former canton) only appears in the long pennants flown at the masthead(23).
In the picture of Bombay there are no less than four red ensigns with the union
canton. That picture also shows the Company's striped flag with the same
canton(24). The flag is spread out as a prominent feature of the foreground, and
it is surely absurd to suppose that the artist would wrongly depict this
important part of it.
There is other pictorial evidence to the same effect, though not so strong. Thus
a picture of Fort St David in the India Office(25) shows a large ship flying the
Company's striped flag (11 stripes, of which the odd ones are red), with the
union of the two crosses in its canton. This was painted by Francis Swaine, some
time prior to his death in 1782. Though he was never in India, he was a marine
painter and would, therefore, be unlikely to make a mistake about the canton.
His companion picture of Fort William, Calcutta(26), shows the red ensign with
the union canton on the only ship that carries a flag. As remarked by Sir
William Foster, this view of Fort William is obviously based on Jan van
Ryne's(27) engraving of the same subject, published in or about 1754. A coloured
copy of this engraving is in my possession and shows the union canton both in
the red ensign and the Company's striped flag. Another picture of an East
Indiaman carrying the Company's striped flag with the union canton is the one of
the Ranger being attacked by a Mahratta fleet in 1783. The original picture,
painted by T. Butterworth, was exhibited by its owner, Sir William Robinson, in
the Earls Court Exhibition of 1895 and contains several examples of that flag on
boats accompanying the Ranger. It has been reproduced as the frontispiece to
Col. John Biddulph's Pirates of Malabar.(28)
Under a proclamation of 1 January 1801 the canton of the red ensign was again
altered, so as to incorporate the red saltire on a white ground that represented
Ireland (29). There is no doubt that the Company accordingly adopted the present
Union Jack in the canton, and its flag is shown with it in Heather's Flags of aII Nations (1807). Prior to that the new union is found in pictures of East
Indiamen: for instance those of The Earl of Abergavenny (painted by Thomas Luny,
1801) and The Warren Hastings in a fight with La Piemontaise on 21 June 1806,
which are Nos. 59 and 63 at p. 28 of Foster's Catalogue already cited. Though
there is nothing in the Minutes or extant correspondence of the Company about
the alteration, this (as in the case of the union of 1707) favours compliance
with the terms of the proclamation of 1801, especially as the change of canton
appears to have been carried out expeditiously.(30)
The end of the Company's flag as an ensign on its ships came in 1824, as shown
by the following proceedings of its Committee of Shipping:
24th February 1824. A letter being read from the Rt. Honble Lord Viscount
Melville, dated 19th and referred by the Court this day, stating in reply to a
letter written him by the Chairman on the 12th instant that he cannot propose to
the Board of Admiralty to issue a Warrant authorizing the Company's Ships to
wear as their distinguishing Colours the Ensign which has been in use in the
Forts etc. in India, but that he apprehends that it may be worn as a Jack or
Flag without any warrant or authority from the King or from the Board of
Admiralty.
Resolved That the Captains of the Company's Ships, the Pilot Sloops and the
Dispatch Cutter be acquainted that the red Ensign appointed to be used by all
Merchant Ships, is the only ensign which the Company's Ships can, by law, now
use: and that they are therefore in future not to hoist the Company's Colours as
an Ensign; but are at liberty to do so, as a Jack or Signal flag only.
At a subsequent meeting on 2 March 1824, it was resolved that "the Company's
Colours be not sent on board the Company's ships in future".(31)
There is, however, some evidence that in spite of these orders, the striped flag
continued to be worn by the Company's vessels in Indian waters, even after the
Company's trading Charter had been abolished in 1833, e.g. by surveying ships of
the Bengal Marine until 1861.(32) In the case of the Bombay Marine, an Admiralty
warrant of 1827 authorized its ships wearing "in addition to the Red Ensign,
which all ships belonging to His Majesty's subjects should legally wear, the
Union Jack and a long pennant" of a particular kind. Perrin remarks (p. 123)
that "the curious expression 'should legally wear' seems to have reference to
the fact that the legality of the old striped ensign of the Company had recently
been called in question, and its use, except as a Jack, had in consequence been
abandoned". This no doubt was due to the orders of 1824. The Indian Navy, which
existed from 1st May 1830 to 30 April 1863, in addition to the Red Ensign with
the Union canton, appears to have continued the use of the Company's Jack, i.e.
plain red and white stripes without a canton(33). And on the latter being
ceremonially hauled down in 1863, the history of the Flag may be said to have
come to an end.
For the sake of completeness I have given incidents in its history after 1800,
but they do not affect the main purpose of this article, which is to establish
that the Company's flag was identical with the one generally known in the United
States of America as "the Grand Union Flag". This was the first banner displayed
in the American War of Independence to indicate a union of the thirteen States
in revolt, each of which had previously used a flag of its own. It seems to be
established that it was first flown by Lieutenant Paul Jones on the Alfred, the
flagship of the Congress Navy, on 3 December 1775 (34). It was undoubtedly
hoisted on 1 or 2 January 1776 by Washington at Cambridge, Massachusetts,(35)
when he assumed command of the united forces of those States. The flag continued
to be used both at sea and on land even after the adoption by the Congress of
the "Declaration of Independence" on 4 July 1776, which made the union canton
inappropriate. It was not till nearly a year later that the Congress substituted
the Stars and Stripes in their first form by a resolution of 14 June 1777.
Before the end of the eighteenth century the number of stripes was increased to
fifteen on account of the admission of two more States to the Union, but in 1818
it was settled to go back to the original thirteen stripes and to show the
number of States by a separate star for each in the blue canton. Accordingly
since 1912 when the State of Arizona joined the Federation, there have been 48
stars, arranged in six horizontal rows of eight stars each.
The thirteen stripes of the National Flag are thus undeniably derived from the
Grand Union Flag. Their origin in the latter is more controversial, but the
position is at any rate clearer if that flag was exactly the same as the East
India Company's ordinary flag between 1707 and 1801. The adoption of an English
flag with the Union Jack in its canton gives rise to no difficulty. Though
hostilities began in 1775, it is indisputable that Washington and other leaders
of the revolt were still in hopes of a reconciliation with the Mother-country,
and the war was regarded as one against the unlawful acts of the King's Ministry
rather than one involving disloyalty to the King. Otherwise it is absurd to
suppose that a flag with the Union Jack on it would ever have been adopted.(36)
On the above basis, the assertion that the Grand Union Flag was copied from the
East India Company's flag has, prima facie probability. It is indeed stated that
Benjamin Franklin urged its adoption in a speech at a dinner-party on 13
December 1775, which he and Washington attended. The substance of this speech is
said to have been recorded at the time(37); but my efforts to trace any such
record have been unsuccessful, and the evidence that the Grand Union Flag was
flown by Lieutenant Paul Jones ten days previously goes against the story. It is
also asserted that in 1775 a committee was appointed to consider the question of
a single flag for the thirteen States and that it recommended the adoption of
the Grand Union Flag(38). Here again documentary proof of the statements appears
to be wanting, in spite of a thorough search(39). No doubt there are reasons for
supposing the flag to have been designed or recommended by such a committee(40);
but, in the absence of authentic evidence as to the ideas and motives of its
draughtsmen, we are necessarily thrown back on a consideration of the
probabilities. Some American writers on the Stars and Stripes have pointed out
the close resemblance between the two flags. Thus Admiral Preble in his Origin
and History of the American Flag (Philadelphia, 1917) says (p. 220):(41)
The flag adopted [in 1775] resembled, if it was not exactly the counterpart of,
the flag of the English East India Company then in use, and which continued,
with trifling variations until its sovereign sway and empire in the East for
over two hundred years was, in 1834, merged in that of Great Britain.
The American historian, Benson Lossing, LL.D., is also said to have written a
letter to Thomas Gibbons, Esquire, of the United States Navy, saying: "If they
[the stripes] were suggested by anything then existing, I think it may have been
the flag of the East India Company, with which the colonists in seaports
especially, were familiar."(42) That such statements were made by him or other
historians is corroborated by the first issue of Flags of the World by the
National Geographic Magazine (a reprint of the same article in its number for
December 1917), which (p. 400) said that the East India Company's "flag has
peculiar interest for America, as some historians declare that it was the parent
banner of our Stars and Stripes". It was added that the Company's flag, in 1775,
bore St Andrew's cross as well as that of St George.
I think I have sufficiently shown that the latter statement is correct. This is
of importance because other American writers reject the theory of any connexion
between the two flags on the ground that the Company's one then bore only the
cross of St George in white canton. Thus Peleg D. Harrison in The Stars and
Stripes and Other American Flags (Boston, 1918) says (p. 42):
The design of the continental flag was not original. It was similar to that of
the East India Company in every respect except one; the canton bore the
subjoined crosses of St George and St Andrew on a blue ground (the then British
Union Jack), instead of the cross of St George alone on a white ground. The
ships of this company as early as 1704 had worn a flag with thirteen horizontal
red and white stripes with the cross of St George in a white canton. In the
following year the number of stripes was reduced to ten, and in 1737 the flag
was pictured with thirteen stripes. The ships of this company were frequent
visitors to Boston Harbor; and their flag, which writers say at the time of the
Revolution contained thirteen stripes, precisely similar to those on the
continental flag, was a familiar sight to the colonists.
The same statement as to the Company's flag is made by Willis F. Johnson in The
National Flag-A History (pp. 31-2). He cites the three principal theories that
have been advanced as to the origin of the Grand Union Flag, the second of which
attributed the design to
"the banner of the British East India Company, which had thirteen stripes of red
and white, with St George's Cross in a white canton,"
but he rejects this view on the ground that
"the British East India Company's flag was scarcely known in America, save for a
few visits at two or three ports; besides which, American patriot were not in
1779 or in 1775 looking for British examples to follow."
The second objection may apply to the adoption of the Stars and Stripes in 1777,
when the union canton was replaced by thirteen stars, but it is certainly
unsound in regard to the Grand Union Flag of 1775 for reasons already given.
Even in May 1776 whole delegations in the Congress were hopeful of
reconciliation with England, as stated by General Washington in a letter to his
brother Augustine(43). The other objection has more substance, though I admit
that my preconceived ideas were against it. I thought that the Company would
surely have sent tea and other Eastern commodities to American colonies in ships
either owned by it or specially chartered by it for this purpose(44). But clear
evidence to the contrary has convinced me that I was wrong.
It is a well-known matter of history that the Company sent tea to America in
1773, with the resulting incident known as "The Boston Tea Party", which started
the American Revolution. I, therefore, first investigated the circumstances
under which this was done. In January of that year the Company was on the verge
of bankruptcy and its warehouses were overstocked with tea. The Court of
Directors was consequently seeking financial help from the Government and also
liberty to export tea to foreign parts free of duty. The Premier, Lord North,
told them that he did not think Parliament would agree to assist them, unless
they submitted definite propositions to remedy the errors and abuses that had
brought them into their then difficulties. Accordingly, in February, the
Directors discussed some draft propositions. Among these was one that the
Company should be "permitted to send from China directly to America two ships
with cargoes of tea and other China commodities, subject only to the American
duty" of 3d. a pound, which the Government were intent on retaining. This
proposal was dropped later on in that month,(45) but the fact of its being
suggested makes it practically certain that direct trading by the Company
between China and America had not hitherto taken place.(46) This is corroborated
by the records relating to the Company's trade with China, which were thoroughly
examined by H. B. Morse, LL.D., whose Chronicles of the East India Company
trading to China, 1635-1834 (g vols.) show that its ships were laden with tea at
Canton for London and make no mention of any ships being intended for America.
It was not till 1824 that an Act was passed authorizing the Company, or any
person licensed by it, to trade direct from China to the British colonies and
plantations in America.(47)
Next, how was this consignment of over 2000 chests of tea sent by the Company to
America? Owing to the opposition to their being landed in America and the
resulting inquiries and reports there is plenty of evidence on this point in
extant records. In regard to the tea that was destroyed in Boston Harbour, the
chests were consigned by the Company on three ships sailing from London, namely
the Dartmouth, the Beaver and the Eleanor. None of these were East Indiamen, as
has been stated;(48) nor were they chartered by the Company. It merely sent the
chests as freight-goods to consignees that it had selected, who were resident at
Boston(49). The Dartmouth carried oil and other merchandise, besides the tea,
and was engaged in regular trade with the colonies(50). The Beaver and the
Eleanor also carried other goods, and all three were to lade cargo at Boston for
different ports(51). The same appears to have been the case with the tea so
fruitlessly shipped to New York, Philadelphia and Charleston which was taken as
freight on the Nancy, the Poll2 and the London(52). There is no reason to
suppose that any of these six vessels would carry The Company's flag in
substitution for, or in addition to, the red ensign.
There may have been, however, special reasons for the tea being shipped in this
way in 1773, and this instance does not necessarily establish that previous
consignments of tea (if any) were sent to America in vessels that did not fly
the Company's flag. The Act of Parliament under which the Company had liberty to
export this tea, was passed in 1773, and it was not till 19 August that the
Company applied for the requisite licence.(53) A need for haste might have led
the Company to depart from its usual practice, so that this instance might be an
exceptional one.
I have not attempted to go through all the Company records for the period
1700-72 in order to ascertain what was the actual practice, but none of those I
have examined contains anything to suggest that it used to send its own vessels
to America or chartered them for such voyages from London. The Company's general
ledgers, for instance, during this period specify voyages to places within the
limits of the Company charter, like Borneo and Madagascar, as well as to India
and China, but contain no mention of America. The tea accounts in them refer
only to voyages to and from China. On 2 October 1721 an Order in Council was
made to prevent illegal trade being carried by ships coming to His Majesty's
Plantations from the East Indies, and a clause was inserted in the instructions
to Governors of the British colonies in America, enjoining the due observance of
the Trade and Navigation Laws, more particularly in regard to the trade from the
East
Indies.(54) If the Company was then itself exporting tea to America, the minutes
of the Court of Directors in this year might reasonably be expected to refer to
this Order or to events leading up to it, but nothing of the kind appears in
them; the only relevant topic in them is the seizure by Customs Officers of a
large parcel of tea that was being smuggled into England, in regard to which the
Customs Commissioners consulted the Company as to "the properest way to put an
effectual stop to such clandestine unlawful practices".(55) It is, however,
waste of time to recount further negative pieces of evidence like this, for
other considerations suffice to dispose of this point conclusively. The fact is
that, prior to the legislation of 1773 allowing the Company to export tea to
America from England, the Company-in the words used by Lecky in his England in
the Eighteenth Century (iii, 386)-"had been obliged to send, their tea to
England, where it was sold by public sale to merchants and dealers, and by them
exported to the colonies". As is to be expected in a work "distinguished by its
lucidity, reliability and scrupulous impartiality"(56), this statement is fully
substantiated by provisions in Acts of Parliament, of which I was previously
unaware. Thus the Act of 1699 (9 & 10 Will. III, c. 44), which authorized the
formation of the New
('English') Company, contained a provision (s. 69) obliging the Company ships to
bring all goods laden in them in the East without breaking bulk, to some port in
England or Wales for their unlading, and, to sell the goods openly and publicly
by "inch of candle".(57) Any breach of this provision entailed forfeiture of the
goods or their value. An Act of 1707 (6 Anne, c.3) increased the stringency of this obligation. On the union of the New Company
and the Old ('London") Company, the United Company became subject to it for the
original charter of the New Company then became the foundation of the powers and
privileges of the United Company(58). Accordingly an Act of 1711 (10 Anne, c.
28), while allowing the continuance of the United Company, makes this subject to
the restrictions imposed by the Act of 1698, or by the charter issued under it,
except in regard to a matter which does not affect this particular question.
Other enactments tend the same way. Thus we find Acts of 1745 (18 Geo. II, c.
26) and 1748 (21 Geo. II, c. 14) making the "proprietor or proprietors" of tea
intended for exportation liable to pay the duty on it or perform the other
requirements for its lawful exportation, and the context clearly shows that the
Company did not come under this expression. Acts of 1767 (7 Geo. III, c. 56) and
1772 (12 Geo. III, c. 60) required merchants exporting tea to do so in the same
packages in which they had been sold by the Company. A prior Act of 1748 (21
Geo. II, c. 14, s. 2) required the tea to be exported in the same package in
which it was originally imported into Great Britain, and not in less quantities
than the entire lot in which it was sold by the United Company, under penalty of
forfeiture of the tea and the package containing it. The last provision was
found to discourage merchants and traders from exporting tea to Ireland and the
American colonies, so the Act of 1767 (7 Geo. III, c. 56, s. 7) substituted a
requirement that the tea should not be exported in less quantities than the
whole of the contents of any chest or other package in which it had been sold at
the public sale held by the United Company.
There were also strict provisions regulating the Company's sale of tea, with a
view to its keeping the market supplied with a sufficient quantity to answer the
demand in Great Britain and to prevent prices rising above those prevalent in
neighbouring countries, which lasted well into the nineteenth century(59). Among
these provisions was one requiring the Company to keep a stock at least equal to
one year's consumption according to the demand of the preceding year, and in
1745 the Legislature (18 Geo. II, c. 26, ss. 10,
11) authorized the Company to import tea from Europe so as to supplement its
supply in case of a threatened deficiency, with a proviso that, if the Company
failed to keep the market supplied with a sufficient quantity at reasonable
prices, the Government might license others to do this importation. In view of
the large demand for tea that developed in the eighteenth century and the
difficulties that attended its export from China, it seems probable that, until
1770 and onwards, when the London market became overstocked(60), the Company had
enough to do in fulfilling its function as the sole legitimate importer, and
would not have wanted to export tea, even if it had been allowed to do so.
There is another reason for this view. As early as 1720, the shipping that
traded between England and the colonies in America was estimated to carry more
than one-sixth, and possibly even one-third, of the total tonnage from England
to all foreign countries(61). An Act of 1707 (6 Anne, c. 37) for the
encouragement of trade to America stipulated (ss. 15, 23) that none of its
provisions should prejudice the rights of British subjects to trade to America
as before; and those engaged in this trade would not welcome such a powerful
competitor as the East India Company. Similarly such a competition would have
incurred the opposition of the merchants and dealers who purchased the Company's
teas and took all the risks of their subsequent disposal. But such speculations
are superfluous in view of the clear fact that the Company was prohibited from
itself exporting tea to America until this was legalized by the Act of 1773.
I have been fortunate in discovering a contemporaneous statement which clinches
not only this conclusion, but also the assertion that the tea sent to Boston and
other American ports in 1773 was merely freighted by the Company on ships
trading between London and America. Dodsley's Annual Register for 1774 (XVII,
47) says as follows:
In consequence of this measure [viz. the Act of 1773] the Company departed in
some degree from its established mode of disposing of its teas by public sales
to the merchants and dealers, and adopted the new system of becoming its own
exporter and factor. Several ships were accordingly freighted with teas for the
different colonies by the Company, where it also appointed agents for the
disposal of that commodity.
In these circumstances the ships that carried the Company's teas to Boston,
etc., In 1773 would presumably fly the ordinary British mercantile flag, viz,
the red ensign. The same presumption applies a fortiori to ships carrying teas
sent not by the Company, but by "proprietors" to whom it had sold them. It
follows that the theory favoured by some English and American writers that the
Company's ships were frequent visitors to American ports and its flag a familiar
sight to the colonists is a pure myth.(62)
Though this undoubtedly weakens the case for the Company's flag being the source
that inspired the adoption of the Grand Union Flag in 1775, it by no means
disposes of it. Its striped flag had been flying for nearly two centuries, and
it would at any rate be familiar to Englishmen. It seems probable that it was
also well known to American seamen, who made voyages to Dutch and other European
ports for various purposes, including the large traffic in smuggling tea and
other heavily taxed goods into America(63). Thus Esek Hopkins (1718-1802), who
was commissioned in December 1775 as Commander-in-Chief of the new navy of the
thirteen States and on whose flagship the Grand Union Flag was first hoisted
would almost certainly be acquainted with it, for not only had he been one of
the leading colonial seamen, but also a privateer captain, who had made
brilliant and successful ventures during the Seven Years' War (1756-63). The
distinguished American leader, Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), was another who must
have known of it. He came to London as a young man to finish his education as a
printer (December 1724 to July 1726), and made two other long stays in England
from 1757 to 1762 and from 1764 to 1774. During the latter period he acted as
London agent for the opposition to the King's Government in four of the American
colonies. In 1761 he made a trip to Holland and during his third period of
residence he visited France and Germany. He thus had opportunities of seeing the
Company's flag;(64) and even if he did not himself see it, it did not need the
omniscience of Macaulay's schoolboy for him and hundreds of other English
settlers in America to know of it. He would naturally be interested in the East
India Company, for (in addition to its prominence as a mercantile body) it was
concerned in the agitation that was going on in the American colonies. Thus in a
letter of 5 January 1773 Franklin mentions a report that the Company had tea and
other goods to the value of four millions in its warehouses, for which it wanted
a market, and says that he had remarked on the imprudence of keeping up the duty
on tea, which had thrown that trade into the hands of the Dutch and others who
smuggled it into America(65). On this point the Company was in agreement with
Franklin, for in 1667 it had advocated an alteration of the duties to prevent
smuggling,(66) and in the beginning of 1773 it urged the abolition of the duty
of 3d. a pound on tea in America, which Lord North's ministry insisted on
retaining.(67)
Franklin, therefore, far from having reason to dislike the Company, could
properly regard it almost as an ally. Another thing that might dispose him to
favour its flag was that it symbolized independence, in the sense that the
Company's administration in India was not then directly controlled by the King's
ministers, for it was not till 1784 that the well-known "Board of Control" was
established. Franklin was Chairman of the "Committee of Conference", consisting
of himself and two others, which was appointed by the second continental
congress on 15 June 1775 to confer with General Washington on the organization
of the land forces.(68) He is likely, therefore, to have had an influential
voice in settling their flag. He is also said to have designed the Rattlesnake
flag of South Carolina.(69)
In the absence of due substantiation for the alleged speech of Franklin in its
favour, this is as high as I can reasonably put the case for the view that the
Company's flag was deliberately copied by the designers of the Grand Union Flag
in 1775. I have no desire, however, to overlook arguments, or suppress evidence,
that can be urged against the likelihood of its being followed in this way. Thus
Dodsley's Annual Register for 1774 (xvii, 48) says that the East India Company's
attempted export of tea to America in 1773 rendered it extremely odious to the
colonists, who said the Company was quitting its usual line of conduct and
wantonly becoming the instrument of giving efficacy to a law which they
detested. This odium no doubt existed, but it is open to question whether it
would not have subsided by the end of 1775, when the Grand Union Flag was
designed. The commencement of hostilities between British troops and the
colonists would tend to divert this odium and focus it on the King's ministers
and forces. The influence of Franklin may also, as already suggested, have been
able to overcome any objection of this kind to the adoption of the Company's
flag.(70)
Opinions are of course bound to vary as to the probabilities of the case. Apart
from the difficulty of weighing the pros and cons from the few relevant facts
available, differences of opinion may arise from preconceptions or proclivities
that can unduly influence not only the ordinary "man in the street", but also
the historian(71). If I have shown any bias in favour of the Company's flag, I
am at any rate justified in relying on one qualification that no other rival can
claim, viz. the fact of its being identical with the Grand Union Flag. That this
was due to mere coincidence, without the designers of the latter banner being
aware of it, seems to me improbable. But such a coincidence is of course
possible and in that case the most likely suggestion seems to be that the Grand
Union Flag was derived from another British flag, viz, the red ensign, which was
of course well known in America. The designers are said to have decided on
drawing six white stripes across the red field of this ensign to give thirteen
stripes and so signify the union of the thirteen states that were opposing His
Majesty's Government. This is favoured by at any rate two American writers on
the stars and stripes of the American flag(72). Some support may also be said to
be given to this view by a passage in Dodsley's Annual Register for 1776 (xix,
147). It states that the American forces in their lines before Boston during
1775 were enraged at a speech made by George III at the opening of Parliament
and at the rejection of a petition made to Parliament by the continental
congress, adding:
and they are said on this occasion to have changed their colours from a plain
red ground, which they had hitherto used, to a flag with thirteen stipes as a
symbol of the number and union of the colonies.
Colours with a plain red ground, based on the red ensign, do in fact appear to
have been flown by separate American forces in 1774 and 1775.(73)
A third suggestion is that the Grand Union Flag came from the signal flag of red
and white stripes that has already been mentioned. Thus P. D. Harrison
says(74):
A flag worn by American vessels during the early part of the Revolution,
composed of thirteen horizontal alternate red and white stripes alone, was an
exact copy of a signal used in the British Fleet. This flag cantoned with the
Union Jack of the United Kingdom would have been a counterpart of the
continental flag; and it is not impossible, some writers say, that the American
flag was formed in that way.
There is, however, reason to doubt whether this signal flag, as used in the
British Navy in the eighteenth century, ever had as many as thirteen stripes,
for the most that are mentioned by Perrin at pp. 162-6 is seven; but assuming
that it, and its American counterpart, had this number of stripes, one can only
say that, while it is "not impossible" that the Grand Union Flag was derived
from it, there is no strong probability shown in favour of such an origin.
Stripes were of course common in flags, and various other striped ones have been
suggested in this connexion, but with little plausibility. It has also been
thought that the stars and stripes of the American flag were suggested by the
Washington coat of arms, which were a white shield having two horizontal red
bars, and above these a row of three red five-pointed stars. This theory is,
however, now generally discredited.(75)
The present tendency in the United States is to treat the origin of the Grand
Union Flag as a mystery, which is unlikely to be solved(76). And in recent
publications about the "Stars and Stripes" no mention is made of the East India
Company's flag. Thus the reference to it that appeared in the 1917 edition of
Flags of the World by the National Geographic Society finds no place in the 1934
edition. This may be partly due to the doubt that has hitherto existed whether
the Company's flag was the same as the Grand Union Flag; but now that it seems
clear that the two flags were identical, I feel sure that better recognition
will be given to the claim of the former. Even if the identity of pattern is due
to mere coincidence, it is a fact which deserves to be noticed in any discussion
as to the origin of the American flag. And as the Company's flag had a long and
honourable history, no discredit can attach to the American flag from a
connexion between the two colours. In any case I think my research about it has
clarified some points that were previously obscure, or have been the subject of
erroneous statements; and I trust the publication of this article may result in
further light being thrown on the subject by others more competent than I am to
discuss points about flags.
Footnotes
(1)Sir William Foster has suggested to me that the flag may
possibly have been derived from that used by Portuguese merchant-vessels.
According to Alexander Justice, Dominions and Laws of the Sea (London, 1705),
this was one bearing alternate green and white stripes, with the Portuguese
royal arms superimposed. The Portuguese in India established a system of
granting passes to native vessels sailing under their protection, which was
copied by the English. The former may have permitted country junks to use their
commercial flag minus the royal arms, and the English may have adopted the
practice, merely substituting red for green. It would be natural for the Company
in that case to go one step further, and distinguish their own ships by the use
of the national emblem (St George's cross) in the canton.
(2)English Factories, 1668-9, p. 67
(3)The Travels of Peter Mundly, 1608-1667 (Hakluyt edition), v,
opp. p. 70. The sketch, which is in ink, clearly shows the stripes on the ensign
of one of the ships in the foreground.
(4)A new account of East India and Persia, edition 1698, p. 24;
Hakluyt edition, i, p. 74. Sir William Foster has pointed out to me that Fryer
here refers to the flag in question being flown, not by Company's ships but by
three country junks, which carried English passes, so that the flag they
displayed may not have been the one with St George's cross in a canton, which
would have been inappropriate for non-Christian vessels, but one with mere
stripes on it. This, however, does not affect the fact that, according to Fryer,
the Company's ensign was a ''striped" one.
(5) O.C. 104 and 147 reproduced in Letters received by the East
India Company,11, 21 and 52; Co.'s despatch to Bantam 21 September 1671, Letter
Book, iv, 478; Journal in O.C. 3902, under date 6 July 1673, referred to in Miss
Sainsbury's Court Minutes, 1671-3, p. x.
(6)See for instance the picture of the Experiment in the
frontispiece to English Factories, vol. I, new series.
(7) Catalogue of the Pepysian Manuscripts,III, 334; cf. Perrin,
loc. cit. pp. 130, 131.
(8) Miss Sainsbury, Court Minutes, 1674-6, pp. 385, 392. The
summary at p. 392 omits the important words "on this side of St Helena'', which
are contained in the original copy in Letter Book, v, 392-3.
(9) Letter Book, v, 431, 486, 488, etc.
(10) Court Minutes, 1674-6, p. viii. The last such order will
be found in Letter Book, v, 586
(11) Letter Book, ix, 52, 53, 55, 57.
(12) Cf. Perrin, loc. cit. p. 124. A red Jack, with a Union
Jack in the canton, was expressly authorized for them in 1694 (ibid. p. 125).
(13) A commission under the royal warrant was issued in this
month (Letter book, IX, 181). The above statement is corroborated by George
White, An Account of the Trade to the East Indies (1691), who says, ''The
commanders of the ships [i.e. East-Indiamen] had likewise the King's commission,
with leave to wear the Royal Ensigns" (Reprint of 1772, P. 24, in India Office
Library Tract, No. 174).
(14) Mr Basil Lubbock has kindly confirmed my statement as to
the two flags.
(15) I am indebted to Mr Bonner-Smith for my attention being
drawn to these plates.
(16) Tanner, Catalogue of the Pepysian MSS (N.R.S.), III, 325.
Cf. Perrin, p. 130
(17) A red and white striped flag was in use as a signal to
chase (Perrin, pp. 162-3), but this had no canton and would be hoisted only on
the special occasions for which it was designed. Pepys, of course, was fully
acquainted with the Navy's squadronal colours, red, white and blue, as shown by
the table he drew up, which is reproduced by Perrin at pp. 96-7.
(18) Cf. Perrin, loc. cit. P. 71.
(19) Admiralty Office Minute and letter of 29 July 1707, copies
of which are in Mr Perrin's notes now in the Admiralty Library. See also Perrin,
p. 118.
(20) London Gazette, 4356. Cf. Perrin, pp. 71, 132.
(21) Thus the Minutes and reports of the Committee of Shipping
(the records most likely to contain anything on the subject) previous to 1813
were recommended for destruction in 1860, and (except for some Minutes of 1685;
and 1686) no such records now exist prior to 1802. See also Foster's Guide to
the India 0ffice Records (1919), p.106
(22) The pictures
are those numbered 36, 37, 40, 45, 46 and 48 in Sir William Foster's
Catalogue already mentioned. They respectively show Cape of Good Hope; St
Helena; Tellicherry; Fort William, Calcutta; Fort St George,
Madras; and Bombay, Photographs of three of them are reproduced with this
article.
(23) These have the fly striped longitudinally red, white and
blue, so correspond to the Union Pendant mentioned by Perrin at p. 79. As stated
by him at p. 122, the Company had long been in the habit of using such pendants.
(24) It has thirteen red and white stripes, of which the odd
ones are painted white and the even ones red, instead of vice versa. This is not
necessarily a mistake, though it was undoubtedly unusual, for the order of the
stripes may have occasionally varied just as their number did, in the absence of
precise rules on the subject. Thus white stripes are shown at the top and bottom
of the flag in the pictures of it contained in Dominions and Laws of the Sea
(London, 1705) by Alexander Justice, in A. Rees's Cyclopedia (London, 1820) and
in Naval Flags of all Nations (London, 1827). The American "Stars and Stripes"
similarly varied for a considerable time in its early days, sometimes having
seven white and six red stripes, and at other times seven red and six white
(Encyclopaedia Britannica 14th ed. ix, 347). That the artist was aware of the
ordinary pattern, having red stripes at the top and bottom, is shown by the same
picture of Bombay containing the Company's Jack with nine such stripes, without
any canton, on a large boat, which also flies the Union Jack and the red ensign
with the union canton.
(25) No 317 at p. 68 of Foster's Catalogue.
(26) No. 318 in the same Catalogue.
(27) He was born in 1712 and in 1750 came to London, where he
practised engraving until his death ten years later: cf. H. D. Love, Vestiges of
Old Madras,11, 95n.
(28) My authority for these statements is Sir William Foster,
who saw the picture and has made a note about it to the above effect. See also
the Catalogue of the Home Miscellaneous Series in the India Office Records by S.
C. Hill, p. 121. He seems mistaken in saying there that the picture wrongly
showed only St George's cross in the canton, as the reproduction clearly shows
the union in it.
(29) Cf. Perrin, pp. 72, 132.
(30) There was the same inducement, as in 1707, for the Company
to be on good terms with the Admiralty, for in 1801 England was at war with
France and protection orders were being constantly asked for (Miscellanies, XLI,
341, 357, 360, 369, etc.).
(31) Marine Records, Miscellanies, XXXVII, 761-2, 783. Cf.
Perrin, p. 131.
(32) See the compilation Naval and Maritime Flags of British
India from 1600, by Commander A. Rowand, Indian Marine (Retired), which is in
the Records Department of the India Office, pp. 21, 22.
(34) Naval and Maritime Flags of British India from 1600, pp.
24, 34, 35;
Low, History of Indian Navy, 11, 570. Cf. Perrin, p. 123.
National Geographic
(1934), September 1934, pp. 340-2.
(35) Hence it is also known as "the Cambridge Flag".
(36) Cf.
National Geographic
(1934), September 1934, pp. 340. 345.
(37) Wheeler-Holohan,
A Manual of Flags
(1933), pp. 263-4; Flags of the World [National Geographic Magazine, December
1917], p.400. In the speech, however, as said to be reproduced by one ''Robert
Allan Campbell of Chicago", Franklin refers to the Company's flag as 'one...
having the cross of St George for a union", and said its design ''can be readily
modified, or rather extended, so as to most admirably suit our purpose".
(38) Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed. IX, 347.
(39)
National Geographic (1934), September 1934, pp. 340,345.
(40) Cf. H. S. Kerrick,
The Flag of the United
States (1925), pp. 15, 18.
(41) I am indebted to Mr Gilbert Grosvenor, the Editor of the
National Geographic Magazine, for this and other quotations from American
writers on the Stars and Stripes.
(42) ''The Star-Spangled Banner" by "P. B." in St James's
Gazette for 3 July 1903, pp. 5-6.
(43)
National Geographic (1934), September 1934, p. 345.
(44) The Company after 1652 ordinarily freighted vessels for
its voyages, cf. Peter Auber, Analysis of, the Constitution of the East India
Company (1826), P. 649.
(45) Court Minutes, LXXXI, 394-5, 414-16, 433-4, 445-6, 453-6,
471-6.
(46) Another circumstance against it is that an Act of 1720 (7
Geo. I, C. 21, s. 9) prohibited the importation of Eastern commodities into
Ireland or any colony in Africa or America, unless loaded and shipped in Great
Britain in ships that were navigated according to the laws in force. See also
Reflections on the present state of the East-Jndia Trade (1779), p. 12, where
the writer says, ''I wonder the Company's ships were never sent home from China
by the South-sea and Cape Horn" (India Office Library Tracts, No. 174).
(47) Auber, loc. cit. p.169.
(48) E.g. by V. Wheeler-Holohan,
A Manual of Flags
(1933). p 263.
(49) Miscellanies, XXI, 77-8 Co.'s general ledger, 1773-9, P.
77; Acts of the Privy Council of England, Colonial series, v, 391-2, 449-5O, and
vi, 550-5; P.R.O. Treasury papers, T-I (505), and C.O. 5/7; India Office file in
the Record department labelled ''Boston Tea Party". Also none of the ships
appears in Hardy's Register of ships employed by the East India Company,
1760-1810, as would probably have been the case if they were chartered by the
Company.
(50) Francis Rotch's letter of 6 January 1774 in P.R.O., C.O.
5/133, No. 42d.
(51) P.R.O. T-I (505). A fourth ship, the William, was also
sent with some tea to Boston, but was shipwrecked off Cape Cod (P.R.O., C.O.
5/1333, Pennsylvania Gazette of 24 December 1773 in No. 38c).
(52) Miscellanies, xxi, 75-6, 97-100; Court Minutes, LXXXII,
743, 756, 78o-1, 898, 949-50; Co.'s general ledger, 1773-9, p. 77; P.R.O., C.O.
5/7, papers relating to Philadelphia and Charleston.
(53) Miscellanies, xx, 340-3.
(54) Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and
West Indies, March 1720, December 1721, p. 57.
(55) Court Minutes, XLIX, 342, 362, 404.
(56) Encyclopaedia Britannica,14th ed. xiii, 857.
(57) This was then a common form of auction in London: under it
the last bidder, when the flame of the candle had burnt out, became the
purchaser.
(58) Ilbert, Government of India (1898), p. 32; Auber, p. 508.
The charter of 5 September 1698 to the ''English" Company contained a clause
requiring the Company to give security for its observance of the provisions in
question (India Office Library Quarto of Charters, p.217).
(59) Auber, pp. 616-17.
(60) Morse, loc. cit. v, 177-8, 186-8.
(61) Calendar of State Papers, loc. cit. March 1720-December
1721, p. 431.
(62) It is in any case extremely doubtful whether, supposing
vessels owned or chartered by the Company, had traded with American ports on the
Atlantic seaboard, they would have flown the striped flag, which, under the
arrangement of T676, could be used only below St Helena in that ocean. Moreover
the adoption of a similar striped flag by the Congress suggests it was never
seen in those ports, as otherwise it would obviously have been unwise to adopt a
flag whose exact similarity would be apt to cause confusion in American waters.
(63) Cf. Lecky, England in Eighteenth Century, iii, 302;
Trevelyan, The American Revolution, p6.
(64) Though the Company's flag could not properly be flown
during voyages between St Helena and England, it could be worn as a jack at the
bow in port. Barlow's pictures of 1670, for instance, show the red ensign at the
stern of one of the ships and the Company's flag at the bow.
(65) P.R.O., C.O. 5/118, pp. q8, 99.
(66) Court Minutes, LXXVI, 61-3 ~ 69-70, 75-8, 1OO.
(67) Court Minutes, LXXXI, 394-5, 402; Trevelyan, loc. cit. i,
107.
(68) H.S. Kerrick,
The Flag of the United
States, p. 15.
(69) W.F. Johnson's letter to The Spectator of 18 January 1913,
p. 98.
(70) He would probably be aware that "some active members in
that Company, and one gentleman of great consideration amongst them,
remonstrated against it [the provision permitting the Company to export tea to
America] as rather calculated for the establishment of the revenue law in
America, than as a favour or service to the Company'' (Dodsley's Annual Register
for 1774, p. 47).
(71) Cf. Hugh Taylor, History as a Science (1933), pp. 26-8.
(72) Willis F. Johnson, The National Flag-A History (1930), p.
32, and his letter to The Spectator of 18 January 1913, p. 98; Harrison S.
Kerrick, The Flag of the United States-Your Flag and Mine (1925), pp. 18, 52.
(73) E.g. the ''Continental Banner", with a pine-tree in the
canton instead of the Union Jack; the "Taunton Banner", in which the red ensign
is superscribed with the words ''Liberty and Union''; and the ''Westmorland
Flag", in which a rattlesnake is imposed on the red ground: see National
Geographic Magazine, September 1934, p. 370, Nos. 249, 259, 275.
(74) The Stars and Stripes and Other American Flags (1918), pp.
42-3.
(75) Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed. xx, 347
(76)
National Geographic (1934), September 1934, PP. 340, 345.