It is fine to read of the resource, the able seamanship and great gallantry of these wonderful old ships right through two centuries until well into a third. But there was a new era coming, and the final link with Tudor romance and mediæval shipping ideas was just about to be severed. Looking back on events, it seems to us moderns perfectly amazing that the East India Company should have enjoyed so rich and enormous a monopoly so long, and in the year 1814 they lost this privilege so far as India was concerned. The result was that a new impetus was given to shipbuilding and shipowning, and the element of competition was introduced with free trade and no favour. In the task of making the Mercantile Marine of Britain such a solid, dignified, stately and honourable service for all those years the company did much; nor is this influence by any means dead, for it set a high standard for subsequent independent shipowners to follow, and it permeates the big shipping lines of to-day. What the Orient had meant in a small way to the Tudor and Stuart seamen and merchants, it was to mean on a much bigger scale to the traders of the nineteenth century, and the wealth of Great Britain was to benefit thereby. From 1814 the owners of the Blackwall yard began to build East Indiamen for themselves to own and manage. In 1824 they built the _Carn Brae Castle_, 570 tons, which was the first ship expressly built for the passenger trade to Calcutta, and the finest ship of her day. She was lost rather unnecessarily by the officer of the watch allowing her to stand too close into Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, one day when the captain and passengers were at dinner. In that same year Mr. Green had purchased the _Sir Edward Paget_, which was the first of the well-known passenger ships to India and Australia. She was elaborately fitted and made quite a sensation. She was commanded by Captain Geary, R.N., and in this connection the following true anecdote is recorded. The house flag which she wore was a white ground with a red St. George’s cross through the centre. One day, after arrival at Spithead, the Admiral at Portsmouth sent his lieutenant off to inquire what ship was wearing an admiral’s flag, and on learning that she was a merchant ship, at once ordered it to be hauled down. A blue handkerchief was then sown on the centre of the flag, and as this satisfied the lieutenant it was allowed to be hoisted again, and continued to be the distinguishing flag of the Wigram and Green ships until, some years later, the partnership in the firm was dissolved.