Complete and unabridged, with 60 full-page plates by Willem van de Velde the Younger, Willem van de Velde the Elder and Ludolf Bakhuizen. The ships of the East India Company - how they were built, manned, armed and sailed, and what a voyage to China actually involved. Chatterton wrote three dozen books on sailing ships and worked from the company's own records. This edition adds a gallery of 60 plates of maritime painting, among them works by J. M. W. Turner, Ivan Aivazovsky and Edwin Lord Weeks, alongside three illustrations restored and coloured for this printing.