LYCOS RETRIEVER 
British East India Company: Grand Union Flag
built 651 days ago
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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 ... 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.
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At the time of the American Revolution the East India Company flag would have been identical to the Grand Union Flag. The flag probably inspired the Stars and Stripes (as argued by Sir Charles Fawcett in 1937). [9] Comparisons between the Stars and Stripes and the Company's flag from historical records present some convincing arguments. The John Company flag dates back to the 1600s whereas the United States adopted the Stars and Stripes in 1777.[10]
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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 :
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