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![]() flag are those in the coat of arms of Valais of 1618, where seven mullets stood for seven districts. Mullets were comparatively rare in early modern heraldry, but an example of mullets representing territorial divisions predating the U.S. In any case, both the stripes (barry) and the stars (mullets) have precedents in classical heraldry. On the other hand, the resemblance is obvious, and a number of the Founding Fathers of the United States were aware of the East India Company’s activities and of their free administration of India under Company rule. However, the theory that the Grand Union Flag was a direct descendant of the flag of the East India Company has been criticised as lacking written evidence. ![]() Colonists therefore flew the Company’s flag, to endorse the 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. 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. 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. Benjamin Franklin once gave a speech endorsing the adoption of the Company’s flag by the United States as their national flag. However, an East India Company flag could have from nine to 13 stripes, and was not allowed to be flown outside the Indian Ocean. 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. 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. ![]() The name “Grand Union” was first applied to the Continental Colors by George Preble in his 1872 history of the U.S. 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. The flag contemporaneously known as “the Continental Colors” has historically been referred to as the first national flag. Flag of the British East India Company, 1707–1801Īt 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.
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