Page:The history of yachting.djvu/448

 216 1360 tons, with a crew of 130 men. Built at London in 1819, this was the largest, and one of the last, ships built in England by the Company; for in 1832 the commerce of India and China was opened to free trade; whereupon the East India Company passed out of existence.

The Navy of Great Britain also steadily developed and increased. In 1757 the Augusta, 60 guns, Dreadnought, 60 guns, and Edinburgh, 64 guns, fought a battle with a squadron of seven French line-of-battleships off Cape François, in which the French ships were defeated. In this year also the Southampton and Diana were launched. These ships were of 671 tons, and mounted twenty-six 12-pounders on the main deck, four 6-pounders on the quarter-deck, and two 6-pounders on the forecastle,—and James remarks that "these vessels may be considered as the first genuine frigates built in England; that is, the first English ships constructed to carry guns on a single whole-deck, quarter-deck, and fore-castle." In 1761 copper was first used for sheathing upon the 32-gun frigate Alarm, but it was not until 1764 that a second ship the Dolphin, was coppered, and nine months later the Jason, and in 1776 the Daphne, also four others; and by 1783 nearly every ship in the British Navy was sheathed with copper. In 1780-82, five 38-gun frigates, of 950 tons each, were launched: the Minerva, Arethusa, Latona, Phaeton, and Thetis. In 1779 the carronade was invented by General Robert Melville, its name being derived from Carron in Scotland,