ABSTRACT
Throughout the greater part of the eighteenth large for their day, were very small when compared with contemporary ships-of-war. There had been some very large Indiamen in the late seventeenth century. Sixteen of them, built during the period 1675-80, had measured anything up to 1300 tons and could mount as many as sixty guns. But after the amalgamation of the Old and New Companies, the ships became smaller. This change was mainly due to naval jealousy with regard to the supply of large timber. As a result of the change the Indiamen of the early eighteenth century measured from 350 to 400 tons. They tended to increase slightly in size as the years went on, so that ships of 480 and 490 tons burthen became common; and from about 1735 onwards the latter tonnage became the most usual.
