The United Empire Loyalists sought their loved two-crossed Union Jack in Canada. They found it not only flying on the flagstaff, but also impressed on the seals of the Grants of land which were made to them in recognition of their loyalty. On these it came to them as a sign of the surety of their legal rights under British law and their full protection under the administration of British justice.
The introduction of this Union Jack had been the result of an Act passed by the British Parliament, that "mother of parliaments," which continues to this day to have vested in it the ultimate political sovereignty of every local Parliament which it has created.
This Union Jack on the Great Seal is in this way the emblem of parliamentary union between Great Britain and Canada, and the sign of the spread of British constitutional government to the continent of America.
But the French Canadian has also an interest in this same Great Seal, for on its reverse side it bore the royal coat-of-arms of the reigning sovereign, and in this were still shown the three lilies of France, in the same way as in the arms of his predecessor, George II. (45). What the Union Jack on the one side was to the English-speaking Canadian, the "fleurs-de-lis" on the other was to the French-Canadian—a visible sign of his own personal connection with the glories of his forefathers, and the evidence of his glad allegiance to the Sovereign whose connection with the ancient realm of France was represented by these emblems, and with whose realm he was now reunited.
In drawings of the arms of the Province of Ontario (the new name given to the Province of Upper Canada at the time of Confederation, in 1867), the Jack has frequently been shown as containing three crosses. A reference to the impressions made by the seal itself upon the great pieces of white wax, four and a half inches broad by three-quarters of an inch in thickness, which were attached by bands of parchment or of tape to the official documents, shows, as is seen in the photograph, that the "Union" contained two crosses only, namely, the cross of St. George and the cross of St. Andrew.
This Union Jack of 1707 was also shown in the arms of the Department of Education of Upper Canada, from 1844 to 1876, during the régime of Dr. Ryerson as Superintendent. In these the design was the same as on the Great Seal, but the Union Jack was removed from the upper corner and placed upon a shield in the centre, upon which the two crosses of Queen Anne are plainly shown.
In earlier stained glass windows placed in the Normal School, Toronto, the head offices of the Department of Education of Ontario, the three-crossed flag had been shown, but this, on the suggestion of the writer, has been corrected in the new windows placed in the library in 1896.
A further adoption of the national emblem is shown in the design on the early currency, which was coined for use in the Province. The "penny" of the Bank of Upper Canada (47) shows on the one side St. George and the dragon, and on the other the arms of the Great Seal, having on it the Union Jack,[124] which good national emblem, no doubt, made the money that the Canadian Loyalist earned more acceptable to him. These must have been happy reminders to the patriot, for on the coins which passed current among his people, and on the seal of the deed of the grant of land which his Loyalist father or himself had received for his new home, was the imprint of the old Union Jack, placed there by an Act of the Union Parliament of Great Britain, as the sign of his parliamentary union with that United Empire which ever commanded his allegiance.
47. Upper Canada Penny.