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 of two hundred years; nor was it till many years afterwards that any material progress was made in the commerce of England with the East.

The number of ships employed by the Company varied now quite as much as in former years. In the "season" of 1809-10 they despatched to their different stations in Bengal, Madras, Bombay, China, Ceylon, and Penang forty-seven ships, measuring thirty-two thousand five hundred tons; and in the season of 1819-20 twenty-three vessels, measuring twenty-six thousand two hundred tons, besides twenty-one vessels which they had chartered, of ten thousand nine hundred and forty-eight tons; whereas, in 1829-30 they only despatched twenty ships belonging to or permanently engaged by the Company, and twelve which they had chartered.

On the following page we furnish an illustration of another of the largest and finest vessels belonging to the Company. This ship, the Earl of Balcarras, built in 1815, registered one thousand four hundred and seventeen tons, and was manned by a crew of one hundred and thirty men, consisting of the commander, six mates, a surgeon and his assistant, six midshipmen, purser, boatswain, gunner, carpenter, master-at-arms, armourer, butcher, baker, poulterer, caulker, cooper, two stewards, two cooks, eight boatswains, gunner's, carpenter's, caulker's, and cooper's mates, six quartermasters, one sail-maker, seven servants appropriated to the commander and leading officers, and seventy-eight seamen. The crews of