Wikipedia
East Indiaman was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India Companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. The term is therefore used to refer to vessels belonging to the Danish, Dutch (Oostindiëvaarder), English, French, Portuguese, or Swedish (ostindiefarare) East India companies.
Some of the East Indiamen chartered by the British East India Company were known as "tea clippers".
In Britain, the Honourable East India Company held a monopoly granted to it by Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1600 for all English trade between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, which was progressively restricted during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, until the monopoly was lost in 1834. English (later British) East Indiamen usually ran between England, the Cape of Good Hope and India, where their primary destinations were the ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The Indiamen often continued on to China before returning to England via the Cape of Good Hope and Saint Helena. When the company lost its monopoly, the ships of this design were sold off. A smaller, faster ship known as a Blackwall Frigate was built for the trade as the need to carry heavy armaments declined.
Usage examples of "east indiaman".
He knew the name of the East Indiaman in which Mrs Villiers had sailed, the position of her cabin, the names of her two maids, their relations and background (one was French, with a soldier brother taken early in the war and now imprisoned at Norman Cross).
You wish me to procure you a situation in an East Indiaman as third or fourth mate.
Swift, handy, and full of men, with a length of experience at sea only equalled by that of the British navy, they would court any danger to make a prize of a fat East Indiaman.
There is a Rear-Admiral on the passenger list of the East Indiaman that anchored in the bay yesterday.
The second lieutenant, however, a man named Stepkyne, had qualified as a master's mate aboard an East Indiaman and had found his way in the King's service when appointed to a cumbersome storeship.
He was almost a skeleton when they put him on board the Ramchunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, from Calcutta, touching at Madras.
Well, thinks I, this is better than riding the gridiron*(* Travelling on an East Indiaman.
I shipped out in an East Indiaman, something I swore never to do, and was lucky to get it with the best part of the Navy paid off and kicking their heels on the beach.
Miss Mills had sailed, and Dora and I had gone aboard a great East Indiaman at Gravesend to see her.