These facts illustrate not only the manner in which the ships of the East India Company were officered and manned, but also the extravagant scale upon which the affairs of the Company were administered. Of course, a gross monopoly like this, legalized though it was by Acts of Parliament, could not continue indefinitely among a free and intelligent people. For many years mutterings of discontent, gathering in force and volume, had been heard from all parts of Great Britain, indicating the disapproval of the people concerning the methods of the Company. At last, in 1832, these mutterings burst into a storm of indignation from the people through their representatives in Parliament, which swept the frigates of the Honorable John Company off the face of the deep; for in that year commerce to the Orient was thrown open to all British ships, and knowing their utter inability to compete successfully with free and intelligent personal energy, the East India Company condemned or sold their entire fleet. Sixteen ships were broken up for their massive copper fastenings and other valuable material, while forty-six were sold, and no finer tribute can be offered to the excellent construction of these vessels than the figures which they realized at what may justly be called a forced sale. Naturally these ships were not all sold at the some moment, as some of them were on their way to China and India when the crash came; in fact, it required about three years to close them all out; still, it was well known that the Court of Directors had decreed that they must all be sold, and this gave bargain hunters a chance to practise their wiles. At first two or three of the ships were put up at public auction; the bids were few and meagre, indicating an assumed and perhaps preconcerted apathy. Negotiations of a less public nature ensued, which resulted as follows: The _Buckinghamshire_, of 1369 tons, then eighteen years old, was sold to Thacker & Mangels for £10,550. The _Canning_, 1326 tons, seventeen years old, sold for breaking up to Joseph Somes at £5750. The _Minerva_, 976 tons, eighteen years old, ready for sea, to Henry Templer, at £11,800; this ship, after thirty-seven years of service in the India trade was wrecked off the Cape of Good Hope in 1850. The _Earl of Balcarras_, 1417 tons, nineteen years old, to Thomas A. Shuter for £15,700; this ship after fifty-two years’ service, became a receiving hulk on the west coast of Africa. The _Bombay_, 1246 tons, twenty-two years old, sold to Duncan Dunbar for £11,000, was wrecked after fifty-nine years of service. The _Lowther Castle_, 1408 tons, nineteen years old, went to Joseph Somes for £13,950. The _Waterloo_, 1325 tons, eighteen years old, was sold for breaking up at £7200. The _Thames_, 1360 tons, thirteen years old, went to James Chrystall at £10,700. The remaining ships of the fleet brought equally good prices. Thus ended the maritime exploits of the “United Company of Merchant Venturers of