6 



PARENTAGE. 



underneath the following motto : Novus Or do Soeculorum ("A 

 New Series of Ages "), denoting that a new order of things had 

 commenced in the Western World or freely translated, "A 

 new era/' 



The Great Seal of the United States. 



This design of Sir John Prestwich's, which was 

 adopted as being the simplest and most significant 

 of any submitted, still remains the arms of the 

 United States. " It was strange " (as the writer of 

 the paragraph in an American paper observed) " that 

 after six years spent in deliberation, Congress should 

 have finally adopted a design by one of a nation with 

 whom America was then at war." 



But all our interest centres in the Prestwich whose 

 life we shall now attempt to trace. His father, Joseph, 

 after whom he was named, was one of a firm of wine 

 merchants in Mark Lane, who imported, and supplied 

 the trade in the provinces as well as in Scotland and 

 Ireland. Joseph Prestwich, senior, was the only son 

 of Elias Prestwich of Broseley in Shropshire (whose 

 grandparents had migrated there from Ireland, one 

 of the family having taken refuge and settled there 

 during the Civil Wars) ; and his wife was Catherine, 



