Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/201

 No doubt this vessel was built, like the English Indiamen of much more modern times, so as to be applicable for war when the necessity arose, as well as for the ordinary purposes of commerce; but neither England nor any other nation possessed at that period any vessel engaged in commerce which could be compared to her either in dimensions, construction, or equipment. Indeed the finish of the stern of one of the finest modern vessels of the English navy, The Asia, constructed towards the close of the first quarter of the present century, and of which this cut is an illustration, shows no very marked improvement during the two centuries which had elapsed.