PACIFIC STEAM NAVIGATION CO.

The proposed early flag used a Chilean star as a courtesy to the intended trading country. Loughran describes a tapered swallowtail, changed to a rectangle with a crown before the first June 1840 voyage following receipt of a Royal Charter. The charter is dated January in the red-duster account and February in Loughran. The red-duster illustration is presented as another original version.

The house flag is white with a blue St George’s cross, a central royal crown and red P, S, N and C in the quarters. Some sources add a raised o after C, sometimes with a dot. Lloyd’s 1904 omits letters, treated as an error or possibly a joint-service variant. Larousse’s crown has a white base in Rosanoski’s reading, although the contributor calls it yellow-and-red; a Brazilian source narrows the cross into a cross paty. The drawings largely follow a circa-1951 museum flag, 1397 × 1778 mm, whose very dark blue cross looks black. Crown details changed over time, but the accounts disagree: Loughran has a St Edward crown replaced under Edward VII and restored under Elizabeth II, while other passages reverse those labels. The pale-buff funnel was adopted after the 1910 Royal Mail takeover, though sources also call it yellow or golden and photographs sometimes suggest a darker shade.