The charter of the East India Company provided that its ships should fly the long coach-whip pennant of the Royal Navy. During the last quarter of the eighteenth and first part of the nineteenth centuries, the ships were built, rigged, equipped, armed, manned, and handled like the frigates of the Royal Navy, though they were beautifully and luxuriously fitted for passengers, many of whom were personages of high social and official rank. They differed, however, from the frigates in one important particular. Whereas, the navy constructors, as we have seen, profited by the models of the French frigates, the builders of the Indiamen kept to the full-bodied, kettle-bottomed model, in order that these ships might carry large cargoes. They were of quite as bad a type as the ships of the more humble merchant marine. I have before me the particulars of one of the East India Company’s ships that carried four hundred and nineteen tons of general cargo, and required eighty tons of iron kentledge to keep her on her legs. They were nevertheless grand, stately-looking ships, and were well cared for. The crews were divided into the usual two watches, but the officers had three watches, four hours on and eight hours off. The watches were divided into messes of eight men each, who had a space allotted to them between the guns in the between-decks. Here their hammocks were slung and their chests, mess-kits, copper pots, kettles, and tin pannikins were stowed, clean and bright, under the inspection of the commander and the surgeon, who were assisted in their duties by wearing white gloves with which to test the appearance of cleanliness. The crews slept in hammocks which were stowed in nettings at seven bells in the morning watch, to the pipe of the boatswain’s whistle. The decks were washed and holystoned in the morning watch, and at eight bells all hands breakfasted. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, the between-decks were turned out, washed, and holystoned. On Sunday mornings the crew was mustered and inspected by the chief officer, and then assembled for Divine service, which was read by the commander, as the Court of Directors required the captains “to keep up the worship of Almighty God, under a penalty of two guineas for every omission not satisfactorily accounted for in the log-book.” The crews were drilled at the guns and with cutlass, musket, and boarding-pikes, and other small arms, Courts-martial were held on board and the rawhide cat-o’-nine-tails was freely used by the boatswain upon the naked backs and shoulders of triced-up seamen--one, two, three dozen, perhaps, with a bucket of salt water to rinse off the blood. This was not so brutal a form of punishment as may perhaps appear to landsmen, and was probably the best method of enforcing proper discipline among the reckless men who for the most part formed the crews of ships at that period.