Chapter XLI: Act I: SCENE 1. Page 397

SALAR. There, where your _argosies_, with portly sail
Like signiors and rich burghers _of_ the flood,
Or as it were the _Pageants_ of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers.

Argosies are properly defined to be "ships of great burthen," and so they are described almost wherever they are mentioned. Mr. Steevens has quoted Rycaut's _Maxims of Turkish polity_, to show that the term originated in a corruption of _Ragosies_, i. e. ships of _Ragusa_. However specious this may appear, it is to be observed that Rycaut, a writer at the end of the seventeenth century, only states it as _a matter of report_, not as a _fact_; and he seems to have followed the slight authority of Roberts's _Marchant's map of commerce_. If any instance shall be produced of the use of such a word as _ragosie_, the objection must be given up. In the mean time it may be permitted to hazard another opinion, which is, that the word in question derives its origin from the famous ship _Argo_: and indeed Shakspeare himself appears to have hinted as much; for the story of Jason is twice adverted to in the course of this play. On one of these occasions Gratiano certainly alludes to Antonio's argosie when he says,

"We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece."