The Van Diemen's Land Ensign is an unofficial merchant flag, which was used in the colony (later renamed Tasmania) prior to the adoption of the current Tasmanian Flag in 1875. The earliest known reference to the Van Diemen's Land Ensign is from an 1850s flag chart by Captain John Nicholson, Harbour Master of Sydney. The flag is similar in design to the New South Wales Merchant Flag, which is believed to also be the historical origin of the Murray River Flag.
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Famous quotes containing the words van, land and/or ensign:
“I please
To plant some more dew-wet anemones
That they may weep.”
—Unknown. The Thousand and One Nights.
AWP. Anthology of World Poetry, An. Mark Van Doren, ed. (Rev. and enl. Ed., 1936)
“The great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its sombre wastes. It was from facing this vast hardness that the boy’s mouth had become so bitter; because he felt that men were too weak to make any mark here, that the land wanted to be let alone, to preserve its own fierce strength, its peculiar, savage kind of beauty, its uninterrupted mournfulness.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquered. Beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)