22. Ships were built in India for the China trade, and banned from British ports
The EIC used Indian labor and design under the supervision of British officers to build many of the ships used for the China trade. The vessels were built and crewed by Indian sailors, out of mostly teak hulls and decks. The trade between India and China was dominated by such ships for the century between the mid-17 and mid-18th. The ships were built to be fast while carrying large cargoes, and sturdy enough to mount guns for protection against pirates. It was in these vessels that the opium smuggling into China began, and the vessels returned bearing Chinese silks, tea, and other commodities for trade.
The great tea clippers which had their heyday in the first half of the 19th century were built to support the tea trade, when speed was of the essence. Clippers were built by all maritime nations, but their hulls, designed for speed, were unable to carry enough cargo to make them profitable, other than in the tea and spices trades. The EIC built ships to carry its goods in India and Great Britain, though the vessels built in India were banned from entering British and European ports, limiting their use to the Indian Oceans and the South Pacific.