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having been the first men of this country who endeavoured to apply the principles of science to the designing and building of ships, and the wooden vessels built by them served as models for several succeeding generations to copy, without alterations or attempts at improvement, until the early part of the present century. Our naval commanders constantly complained of the inferior qualities of their vessels as compared with the sailing capabilities of the ships of the French Navy; and vessels captured by our ships from the French often proved of service as models to imitate in the construction of vessels for our own Navy.

"The almost entire absence of any knowledge in this country of the very first principles of the art of shipbuilding, both in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, has often been referred to, and it has been stated by a competent authority that there was scarcely a single person in the country who then knew correctly even the first element of the displacement of a ship. The French had been far more enterprising and systematic with respect to their vessels, for they applied scientific principles to practice with a large amount of success in the construction of their ships. Their fleet was largely developed in the seventeenth century under the able administration of Colbert, who encouraged men in the investigation of the principles of the strength and the construction of ships, and of their behaviour when at sea. Bouguer, a celebrated French writer, led the way in 1746, by publishing a treatise on the stability and the rolling of ships; and several other French writers contributed important researches on the science of naval architecture long before the English had given any attention to such matters; and to the French, therefore, must be given much of the credit due to the improvements in the building of British ships during the last century."

* George Stanbury, Esq., Surveyor to Lloyds' Register.

CHAPTER VI.

Outline of the history of the East India Company-Trade with the East-The Venetians and the Genoese-The Spaniards and the Portuguese-The Dutch-The English-Attempts to reach the Indies by the North-West Passage-John Davis-First Charter of the English East India Company, 1600-The first East Indiamen-Disputes with the Dutch-Fresh charter from James I.-The Trades Increase-Value of the trade with the East -Losses of the English East India Company-The French East India Company-The charter granted to the English Company by Charles II. -Success of the Company-Opposition-A new Company-Rival traders -Amalgamation of the two Companies-The East India Company of 1708-The ships-Heavy losses in the company's fleet-The Earl of Balcarres-The officers of the ships-Life on board an East Indiaman— End of the Company-Sale of the ships.

THE history of the English Mercantile Marine during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is so intimately connected with the East India Company that it will be well to give a brief account, although it must necessarily be the merest outline, of the history of that vast commercial corporation which at one time directed and controlled our present Indian Empire.

Successively the Egyptians, the Romans, and later on the rich and enterprising merchants of the Adriatic, carried on an ever-increasing trade with the East. In the eighth and ninth centuries the commerce of Europe had centred itself at Constantinople; but later on, the trade with the East was the almost exclusive monopoly of the Venetians and the Genoese. The commercial centre of the world was again shifted when first, in 1487, Bartholomew Diaz, and afterwards, in 1498, Vasco da Gama, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and so reached by sea Calcutta and Malabar. To the astonishment and to the grief of the Italian maritime traders, they

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suddenly found themselves eclipsed in their pursuits, and in a very short time totally excluded from all commerce, save that of the Mediterranean itself; whilst the countries bordering the Atlantic began to occupy the place hitherto so proudly held by the cities of Italy and of the Adriatic, the ships of Spain and Portugal rapidly spreading over the face of the Atlantic, and along the shores of India.

When Pope Alexander the Sixth issued his famous Bull, dividing the whole undiscovered heathen world between Spain and Portugal, he awarded India to the latter power, and the Portuguese, who already possessed extensive settlements along the Western coasts of Africa, began immediately to cultivate the trade with India. As time passed on, by 1580, the power of Portugal in the East was already on the wane, and the Spaniards were rapidly taking her place.

Commerce with India was, however, manifestly of far too profitable a nature to allow such an enterprising nation as the Dutch for any great length of time quietly to acquiesce in a monopoly by Spain and Portugal, and by 1597, Dutch ships were rounding the Cape of Good Hope, bent on acquiring a share of the spoil. These ships were fiercely handled by the Spanish, and at once stronger fleets, and more formidable, were equipped and sent out by the Dutch, with the distinct object of expelling the Spanish-Portuguese from the Spice Islands and from the Indian coasts.

At last so lucrative a trade engrossed the attention of England, and a number of merchants in London, being of opinion that sooner or later a north-west passage to India would be discovered, so that both the Spanish and the Dutch might be circumvented, fitted out two small vessels-the Sunshine, of 50 tons, with twenty-three hands, and the Moonshine, of 35 tons, and nineteen men. The command of the

expedition was placed in the hands of John Davis, a mariner of considerable repute, who embarked in the Sunshine; and the two vessels sailed from Dartmouth on the 7th of June, 1585, reaching as far north as 66° 40', and discovering the straits now known as Davis's Straits.

The following year a second voyage was tried, but with no further result. In his third voyage Davis sailed up the same

F

straits, with open water in Baffin's Bay as far as 73° north latitude, attaining the point on the western coast of Greenland, which he named Sanderson's Hope, from a wealthy merchant who had largely contributed to the funds of the expedition. He tried a fourth voyage, but it was equally unsuccessful, so that the owners of the ships gave up all idea of the northwest passage, and determined to send Davis, in 1589, to the East Indies by way of the Cape of Good Hope; the destruction of the Spanish Armada, and the consequent weakening of the maritime power of Spain, having made a passage to India by way of the Cape a less perilous undertaking than it had heretofore been. Davis made five voyages to India, but on his fifth voyage he was unfortunately killed by pirates off the coast of Malacca in December, 1605.

In the year 1589 certain English merchants memorialized Queen Elizabeth to grant them license and encouragement to open a trade with the East Indies, adducing as a reason for her granting their request that such a trade would by degrees add to the shipping, seamen, and naval force of the kingdom, in the same manner that it had increased the Portuguese fleets; but the project gave great offence to the Spanish and the Portuguese Governments, and in order not to offend Spain, it was a long time before the queen would grant their request. In the year 1600, however, and the forty-second year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, on the petition of Sir John Hart, Sir John Spencer, Sir Edward Micheburn, William Cavendish, and more than two hundred merchants, shipowners, and citizens of London, a charter was granted to the London Company for fifteen years, and this Deed of Incorporation was the commencement of the English East India Company, and of British rule in India.

The stipulated capital of £72,000 having been raised, the Company despatched five ships to open the trade. They were the Dragon, of 600 tons, her commander, according to the custom of the time, being styled "Admiral of the Squadron;" the Hector, of 300 tons; two ships of 200 tons each; and a store-ship of 130 tons. The men employed in the expedition were 480, all told; and the cost of the vessels and their equipment £45,000. They had on board twenty

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merchants as super-cargoes, and the vessels were all well armed. The voyage proved a success, and the ships returned to England with valuable cargoes.

At this time Spain claimed the exclusive right of trading with the East Indies;—indeed, they claimed the whole of the Indian seas as their own exclusive property, and permitted no European nation whatever to obtain any footing on the coast of India, threatening with the severest penalties any but their own nation who should presume to trade in any way with that country-a line of conduct which resulted in the sharpest conflicts between the Spanish and the Portuguese on the one side, and the English and the Dutch on the other, the earlier records of the English East India Company abounding in accounts of the fiercest contests between the English ships and those of the Spanish and the Portuguese.

Although the Dutch, when opposing Spain, strongly asserted that all nations had an equal right to trade with India, yet they had no sooner succeeded in partially ousting the Spaniards than they at once deliberately endeavoured to establish the strictest monopoly for themselves; and although England and Holland were on terms of peace in Europe, yet in India they so seriously disagreed upon the question of the East India trade, that in 1611, the London merchants were praying for protection and redress, representing that the Hollanders were driving them out of all places of traffic in the East Indies, they having far better ships than the English.

In 1603, Sir Walter Raleigh, in a report he made to King James I., says that the merchant ships of England were not to be compared with those of the Dutch, and that while an English ship of one hundred tons required a crew of thirty men, the Dutch would sail a ship of the same size with onethird of that number.

Upon obtaining a new Charter from James, in May, 1609, also for fifteen years, the Company set about constructing a better and a larger ship than they had ever had before, named the Trades Increase, of one thousand two hundred tons, the largest English merchant ship yet built, together with a pinnace of 250 tons, called the Peppercorn. These two