The East India Company's first ships were vessels of from 300 tons to 600 tons. They were all heavily armed, and only conveyed the cargoes belonging to the Company. The "John" Company was highly successful, and at the close of the eighteenth century had not only a large fleet of ships, but also possessed a large portion of the continent of India. The ships of the Company were remarkable vessels; they were frigate built, large carriers, and stately looking, but badly designed, very slow, required a large quantity of ballast, and their cost was about £40 per ton. Improvement in design and equipment was very slow; there existed no incentive to improvement; the profit made was derived mainly from the cargoes they carried; and it has been said that the improvements made in British shipping from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to the Victorian era were so gradual as to be perceptible only when measured by centuries. When we speak of the ships of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, we cannot but be surprised to find how slight were the improvements made during these three hundred years. During the latter half of the eighteenth century the finest ships were constructed in France, and at that period the best ships in the British navy were those captured from the French. The treaty of peace between the United States of America and Great Britain, signed in 1814, marks the beginning of a new era in the history of shipping. The progress, however, for some years was slow; design and construction were hindered by our obsolete tonnage laws, which encouraged the building of a very undesirable type of ship. Meanwhile America was going ahead. Not only did she produce more ships, but they were well designed and equipped, and it was the general opinion that the American ship was superior to the British ship. When, in 1832, the monopoly of the East India Company came to an end, and the commerce of the Orient was thrown open to all British ships, there was at once an effort made to establish British shipping on a broader and more substantial basis. The opening of the China and East India trades gave rise to that competition which had been so long dormant, and without which there can be little incentive to improvement.