The country ships were rigged with rot-resistant rope turned from the fibers of coconut shells, and they carried sails cut from Bombay canvas - a coarse, golden hued material akin to dungaree. Many of the lighter booms and spars were made of bamboo. These colorful touches blended with banks of hand carved gilded molding to make the country traders as beautiful as they were seaworthy. One Englishman, witnessing a flotilla of country ships setting off on a voyage ... was moved to exclaim, "Behold the finest fleet of merchant shipping in the world."

In an article "An old East Indiamen-The JAVA" (by H. Fildes) the author quotes from Lieutenant W.H. Coates, R.N.R., in "The Good Old Days of Shipping" that

"the 'JAVA" carried thirty guns, twelve on the upper deck and twelve on the main. The guns were not for show for at the time the ship was built, Britain was at war with France and such fine and valuable merchant ships when voyaging to and from England were liable to molestation from enemy frigates.

Unless they were beaten off in what was often as not a sanguinary fight, there was every chance of capture and duress in a French prison, of crew and passengers."

Coates, again in his "The Good Old Days of Shipping" records what Fildes called "a romantic and interesting anecdote", another unnamed writer said, "had the sound of a fairy tale." The story, as told by Coates is said to have been related by a French Naval captain and was the story of how the "JAVA" came to be built.

"A girl of birth and position was so circumstanced that she was carried off by savage islanders, and a British naval party, landing to effect her rescue, found her taking refuge in a bush and bereft of her clothes. As the party approached she covered the upper part of her body with her hands. Her father, allegedly a Governor, showed his gratitude for her restoration to him by building and equipping the "JAVA", providing her with a figure-head of the nude bust of a woman with her hands crossed over her breast, and gave the vessel to the gallant naval officer, the rescuer of his daughter."

Fildes states that

" in 1816 the "JAVA", was owned by Parton and Company, and was in the service of the East India Company, but following the extinction of John Company's commercial monopoly in 1834 she was owned by Mr. Joseph Somes, M.P. Somes was a ship owner of fame, in fact he was a member of the East India Company, and is said to have been one of the leading British ship owners of the period, his fleet encompassing most trades from the East Indiaman to the South Sea whaler and Australian convict transport.

For several years the British Government chartered the "JAVA”, besides several other of Somes' ships, as a transport for troops and ordnance at the rate of seventeen shillings and eleven pence per month, per ton."

"JAVA" also sailed to North America, the West Indies, South Africa and New Zealand as well as ports closer to England.