In some respects these Indiamen were remarkable ships, and they should, like men, be judged by the standards of the times in which they existed. They were owned by a company which for more than two centuries held a monopoly of the British China and East India trade without the spur of competition urging them to perfect their vessels and to exact vigorous service from the officers and crews who sailed them. Under such a system there could be no marked progress in naval science. It would, of course, be an exaggeration to say that there had been no improvement in British shipping from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to the Victorian era, but it was so gradual as to be perceptible only when measured by centuries. Thus we speak of the ships of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and upon examination are surprised to find how few and slight were the improvements made during these three hundred years in the design and construction of hulls or in spars, rigging, and sails. The only striking improvement was a modification of the really beautiful ornamentation which embellished and at the same time lumbered up the lofty hulls of the earlier ships. Some of the Indiamen were built in Wigram’s famous yard at Blackwall on the Thames, which was in existence for more than two centuries. Indeed, some of the first ships owned by the East India Company, the _Dragon_, _Susannah_, and _Merchants’ Hope_ were launched there. During the reigns of Elizabeth, James, Charles I., Charles II., and the Georges, this yard turned out many of the ships owned in the Royal Navy, and through all these years it had in time of need been a faithful standby of the British Government. Some of the ships of the Company were, however, built in other yards and in their own building establishment at Bombay.