Thus early, too, the Scotts had entered upon the construction of that long series of yachts, sailing and steam, which has brought them considerable repute, and even more pleasure, since they were in successive generations noted yachtsmen. In 1803 they launched the 45-1/2-ton cutter for Colonel Campbell, of the Yorkshire Militia, which was pronounced one of the completest of the kind ever built in Scotland up to that time. It may be incidentally mentioned, that the Scotts also showed thus early their practical sympathy with the auxiliary forces of the Crown by being at the head of the volunteer Sea Fencibles formed on the Clyde in the stormy years of the Napoleonic wars. As soon as the monopoly of the East India Company was removed in 1814, private shipowners entered the lists, and the Scotts were early occupied in the construction of Indo-China clippers. In 1818 they built the _Christian_, and in 1820 the _Bellfield_, the latter, of 478 tons register, for the London and Calcutta trade. She was one of the first of a long series. The _Kirkman Finlay_, of 430 tons, built in 1834, suggests the name of a firm long and honourably associated with the development of trade in our great Eastern dependency. The effect of competition was a reduction in the average rate of freight per ton from India to Britain from £32 10s. about 1773 to £10 in 1830. The East India Company about the year 1813 paid £40 per ton for their ships, as against about £25 per ton by other traders; the latter sum was about the same as that paid in America. The East Indiaman had a crew in the ratio of one to 10 or 12 tons, while one to 25 tons sufficed for the West Indiaman. The speed of the western ship was greater, largely by reason of the difference in proportions and lines. The clipper built on the Clyde and in America had a length equal to five or six times the beam, against four times the beam in the case of the East India Company's ships. In the design of these clippers the Scotts took an important part. Charles Cuningham Scott was then at the head of the concern. An ingenious method of making model experiments in the graving dock at the works was evolved in the 'forties, whereby the firm were able to arrive at the most satisfactory form of hull to give the minimum of resistance, and at the same time a large capacity for cargo per registered ton. In this latter respect they were more successful than the designers of the East Indiamen, notwithstanding the bluff form of the latter.