This is the proportion of size which is given to it in heraldic drawings, and the way in which it is usually drawn in later representations, the white saltire cross of St. Andrew being thus shown broader than the white border to St. George; but the earlier practice in the actual making of flags appears to have been different.
In the allotment of the proportions in the new three-crossed Jack of 1801, when the cross of St. Patrick was added to the flag, it has been pointed out that the white border to St. George was continued in its full width, as in the previous flag of 1707, and was given the same width as each of the two national crosses, which were then first placed side by side, and between which the saltire space was then divided.
It will be interesting to show, by reference to early original documents and flags, that this was the same equality as had previously existed between the cross of St. Andrew and the border of St. George in the old two-crossed Jacks of James I. and of Queen Anne.
In the time of William III. it appears that objections had been raised in England to the using of the King's two-crossed Jack by merchant ships of the American colonies, permission to do this having been granted to the colonial ships by the Governors of the colonies.
The English Lords Justices in Council at Whitehall, on 31st July, 1701, considered these objections to the using of what their report termed "the King's Colours," and thereupon issued an order that the ships of the colonies shall
"wear no other Jack than that hereafter mentioned, namely, that worne by His Majesty's ships, with the Distinction of a White Escutcheon in the middle thereof, and that the said Mark of Distinction may extend itself to one-half of the depth of the Jack, and one-third part of the Fly thereof, according to the sample hereunto annexed."
The Lords Commissioners of Trade were accordingly instructed to write to the Governors of His Majesty's plantations,
"that they do oblige the commanders of such merchant ships to which they grant commissions to wear no other Jack than according to what is proposed."
An exact tracing of the "sample hereunto annexed," taken from the original manuscript report,[141] which was sent to the then Governor of the colony of Massachusetts, is shown in fig. 56, and in colours in Pl. [III.], fig. 3.
This flag is the Jack of James I., which is still described in this report of July, 1701, as it had been of old, as the "King's Colours." It will be noted that the white cross of St. Andrew is a narrow cross, and that the white border to St. George is of the same width as the St. Andrew's cross.