The Atlantic was not the only scene of steam-ship enterprise in the early part of the nineteenth century, for merchants and shipowners recognised the importance of a faster and more regular communication between England and the Far East, and began to consider the desirability of employing steam-ships as soon as these vessels had shown that they could be used for sea voyages. At a meeting held in London in 1822 and attended by a number of merchants engaged in the Eastern trade, it was decided to form a steam-ship company to establish regular communication with India via the Cape of Good Hope, and to send Lieutenant Johnston to India to endeavour to interest merchants there in the scheme. The meeting naturally was in favour of the all-sea route by the Cape, but Johnston went to India via Suez, and became so convinced of the superiority of the latter route for mails and passengers and light merchandise that he became an enthusiastic advocate for its adoption. His mission to Calcutta was so successful that, in December 1823, Lord Amherst, the Governor, officially signified approval of steam-ship communication between the two countries, and recommended the Council to make a grant of 20,000 rupees to any British person or company who should, before the end of 1826, “permanently establish steam communication between England and India, either by the Cape of Good Hope or the Red Sea, and make two voyages out and two voyages home, occupying not more than seventy days on each passage.”[67]

Thanks to the generosity of the Rajah of Oude a sum of 80,000 rupees was subscribed in India. The enthusiasm shown in the East for the project induced the promoters in London to charter the Enterprise, which was then being built by Messrs. Gordon and Co. at Deptford. Johnston returned to England, and when the Enterprise was completed he was appointed her captain. She was a wooden paddle-steamer, 122 feet on the keel, and 27 feet beam, and of 479 tons register. Her engines of 120 horse-power were estimated to give her a speed of eight knots per hour in good weather. Her boiler, which was of copper in one piece, cost £7000 and weighed about 32 tons. She sailed from London on August 16, 1825, and arrived at Calcutta on December 7. Her stoppages to replenish her bunkers occupied ten days, so that her actual travelling time was ninety-three days. She depended largely on sail. This voyage is of importance as it was the first made to India by a vessel built for ocean navigation and fitted with an auxiliary engine.

The Enterprise cost £43,000, and soon after her arrival, as the first Burmese war was then in progress, the Indian Government gave £40,000 for her.

The Falcon, a sailing ship of 176 tons, and having steam auxiliary, went to Calcutta in 1825, but it is to the steamer Enterprise that the honour belongs of having first reached Calcutta as a steamer. All that the voyage of the Falcon proved was that she arrived safely; her engines were not much used and her small size shows that even if she had been filled with coal she could not have steamed all the way to Calcutta, nor were there sufficient coaling stations to enable her to do so.

The pilot of the Enterprise at Calcutta was Thomas Waghorn, then in the Bengal pilot service. The Calcutta Steam Committee, on behalf of the Indian Government, consulted him in 1827 on the question of the establishment of steam navigation between England and India, but though he visited a number of towns in England, his project of establishing a regular line of steamers via the Cape of Good Hope was not carried out. This, however, was not his only scheme.

One of the difficulties in the way of establishing steamers on the Red Sea route was the high price of coal at Suez. Waghorn ascertained that coal could be brought to Suez by camel from Cairo at a reasonably cheap rate, and he therefore urged the adoption of this route. While he was still in England he heard that the East India Company intended to send the Enterprise from India to Suez, and he then offered to make a trial voyage. He was appointed courier to the East, and left London in 1829, undertaking to carry despatches to Bombay and return with the reply in three months, a time which was usually occupied by sailing ships in voyaging one way. When he reached Suez he found that the Enterprise had broken down on the way, and he accordingly took an open boat and began the journey down the Red Sea. Fortunately, the company’s sloop Thetis, which had been sent to look for him, picked him up and took him to Bombay, and he returned to London in the appointed time. A steamer service down the Red Sea was then established. The Hugh Lindsay made the voyage from Bombay to Suez and back once a year until 1836, when two large steamers, the Atalanta and Berenice, took her place. During these years Waghorn devoted himself to overcoming the difficulties and dangers of travel across the desert from Alexandria to Suez.

“He associated with the Arabs, he lived in their tents, and gradually taught them that pay was better than plunder. He established a regular service of caravans, built eight halting-places between Cairo and Suez, and made what had been a dangerous path beset with robbers a secure highway. Before he left Egypt in 1841 he had a service of English carriages, vans, and horses to convey travellers.”[68]

Meanwhile the service on the Cape route had been steadily improving.

By 1840, Messrs. Green of Blackwall owned a fleet of splendid East Indiamen fitted with auxiliary steam. One of them, the Earl of Hardwicke, which may be taken as typical of the others, had a steam-engine of 30 horse-power, working paddle-wheels intended to propel her in light airs and calms, such as are common in the region of the tropics. These paddles could be disengaged in one minute from the engine whenever it was desired to use sails alone. Although the Earl of Hardwicke was of 1600 tons, the space occupied by her boilers and engine was only 24 feet in length and 10 feet in width of the main deck, no part going into the hold or above deck. This engine in calm weather could give the ship a speed of five knots an hour on a coal consumption of three tons in twenty-four hours. In August 1840, in steaming from London to Spithead on her way to Calcutta, she beat the Wellington by twelve hours, the steam-engine working for upwards of forty hours. The ship was expected to make the voyage in 75 days, which, considering that she would have to go round the Cape, was quick work. She was a sister ship to the famous Vernon, with which the experiment of auxiliary steam for a regular East Indiaman was first made. The Vernon went from Calcutta to Spithead in 86 days, and for the first eight days and nights, in going down the Bay of Bengal, the wind was so light that she had to use her engines all the time. On the run from the Cape to Spithead she made the then shortest passage on record of 32 days, during which she used her steam nine days. The engines of the Vernon were constructed by Messrs. Seaward and Capel, of the Canal Ironworks, Limehouse, who were also builders of many other marine engines, some of large size, including that of the Nicholai, the largest steamer then belonging to Russia.

When the Vernon left Blackwall on her trial trip her engines gave her a speed of about three and a half miles an hour, against a strong wind. Both these vessels, like all the rest of the Indiamen, were full-rigged ships. They were built to be sailing ships with steam auxiliary, and therefore were necessarily very differently constructed from the vessels which were launched about the same time for the North Atlantic trade, such as the Great Western, the President, and the British Queen, all of which were steamers with sail auxiliary. The interdependence of the two means of propulsion must not be lost sight of in considering the naval architecture of the period. The Indiamen of Messrs. Green illustrated the adaptation of steam as an aid to sailing vessels, which even then had not attained their full magnificence and power, but which showed continual improvement in speed as fresh ones were built. This improvement was partly forced upon sailing-ship builders by the opinion, universally held at that time, that steam could never supersede sail for long voyages, owing to the difficulty of carrying enough coal. The steamers designed for the North Atlantic trade, on the other hand, were only intended for a short voyage—short, that is, in comparison with those made by the Indiamen. Consequently, the North Atlantic liners have developed as steamers first and foremost with sail auxiliary, and the latest flyers on this ocean would be of little use as flyers if trading to the Far East or Australia, because they could not carry enough coal and would have to stop frequently to replenish their bunkers, while the liners of the southern and eastern oceans would be equally unable to compete on the North Atlantic routes.

Some sailing ships with steam auxiliary were, however, seen on the Atlantic. One of the most remarkable boats of the time was the Massachusetts. She arrived at Liverpool after a run of thirty days from New York, which she left on November 17, 1845. She had an Ericsson screw-propeller, which could be lifted when it was desired to run her under sail only. Her screw was merely an auxiliary and was only intended to be of use in calms or against light head winds. She was confessedly an experiment. Her engine-space meant one-tenth less cargo-space, but it was the owner’s idea that, if the voyage were accomplished with so much greater rapidity than the ordinary packet ships could achieve as to recompense them for the loss of tonnage, the experiment would be a success. Her owner was Mr. R. B. Forbes of Boston, and she cost altogether about £16,000. She sailed from Liverpool for New York, beating such well-known sailing ships as the Shenandoah and Adirondack by thirteen days, and the Henry Clay by five days.

The United States Nautical Magazine in 1845 said: “Let it be distinctly understood that we do not call her a steamer or expect her to make steamboat speed except under canvas; her steam-power is strictly auxiliary to her canvas.” The Massachusetts was the first ship of a line intended to run between New York and Liverpool under the American flag. Her length on deck was 161 feet, and her beam 31 feet 9 inches, with 20 feet depth of hold, and she was about 751 tonnage. Her full poop extended as far forward as the main-mast, and contained accommodation for thirty-five passengers. Her bow was very sharp. She carried what is known as a false bow, which increased her sharpness, and was filled in on somewhat original lines. In her equipment everything that could be devised was provided. She carried lensed lights on each bow, and also aft between the main and mizzen masts. Her ventilators were similar to those on the Cunard steamers. Each stool, chair, and settee had airtight compartments, so that it could be used as a lifebuoy; she was well supplied with boats in case of accidents. The fact that she had an engine did not interfere with her sail equipment, for she was square-rigged throughout and carried skysails on all three masts. Her sail area was 3833 yards. A peculiarity of her rig was that all the masts were fidded abaft the lower masthead; but the advantages of this innovation were not found, in this or any other ship in which they were tried, to be very great, and it was not commonly adopted. It was thought that by fidding the masts in this fashion a vessel might be kept more steadily on her course when it became necessary for the sailors to reef or take in sail. She carried a condensing engine with two cylinders, working nearly at right angles, of 26 inches diameter with a stroke of three feet. She had two “waggon” boilers, each 14 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 9 feet high, with a furnace to each, and a blowing engine and blower for raising steam quickly. The diameter of the propeller was nine and a half feet. It was made of wrought copper and composition metal, and could be raised out of the water when the steam-power was not required. This was effected by means of a shaft from the engine-room through the stern, above and parallel to the propeller shaft. The upper shaft revolving raised the propeller and placed it close against the flat of the stern, where it was secured with chains. The propeller shaft passed close to the stern-post on the larboard side, and rested in a socket bolted to the stern-post, and was further supported by a massive brace above. Messrs. Hogg and Co. of New York constructed the engines to Captain Ericsson’s design. The rudder had the peculiarity of a “shark’s mouth” cut across it. This is an opening or gap extending a considerable distance across the rudder so that the rudder itself shall not be impeded by the screw-shaft which extends beyond it, the upper and lower portions of the rudder passing above and below the shaft when turned in that direction. Several steam auxiliary vessels were thus fitted, but it was not long ere the plan was adopted of cutting away the dead wood in front of the rudder-post and placing the screw before the rudder instead of behind.

This enterprise was short-lived, as the vessel made but two round voyages and thereafter remained in American waters. A sister boat, the Edith, was purchased by the United States Government before she had made a voyage. The Massachusetts was chartered to carry American troops to Mexico in 1846, and continued in the United States Navy until 1870, when she was sold and converted into the sailing ship Alaska, under which name she made some good passages.

The Vanderbilt, also an auxiliary steamer, built by Simonson of New York for his uncle, Commodore Vanderbilt, in 1855, was 331 feet in length, and had a gross tonnage of 3360. She was probably the first and perhaps the only American-built vessel with two overhead beams to cross the Atlantic; certainly her appearance attracted no small amount of attention. Her two cylinders were each 90 inches diameter and 12 feet stroke; her indicated horse-power was 2800 and her boiler-pressure was as high as 18 lb. The engines were built at the Allaire works. She ran on the New York, Havre, and Cowes route until November 1860, besides going once to Bremen in 1858, and on the outbreak of war was presented by the Commodore to the United States Government. She was afterwards laid up and bought in 1873 by a San Francisco firm, who removed the engines and turned her into the full-rigged three-masted ship The Three Brothers; she was next bought by a British firm to end her days as a hulk at Gibraltar.

One of the last of the vessels carrying steam for admittedly auxiliary purposes only was the clipper Annette, built by Messrs. Russell and Co. in 1863. She was fitted with a screw and a small oscillating engine with cylinders 3 feet in diameter and 3 feet stroke, and a tubular boiler 9¹⁄₂ feet long by 13 feet high gave steam at 20 lb. pressure. Her screw was 11 feet in diameter with 22 feet pitch, and a universal joint connected it to the engine-shaft so that it could be lowered or raised as desired. The masts carried 1418 square yards of canvas.

The full-rigged, fast-sailing clipper ships, fitted with auxiliary screw propellers, found one of the finest representatives of their class in the Sea King, which was built at Glasgow for the trade with China, where several splendid vessels, fast under sail and carrying powerful auxiliary engines, were engaged. They were peculiarly suitable for those waters, for the coaling stations were few and far between, and coal was expensive, and their engines consumed a great deal more fuel in proportion to results than do those of modern steamers. The Sea King was composite built; that is, she had an iron frame with wood planking. Her screw could be lifted when the wind was favourable, and her ability to show a clean pair of heels to most sailing craft afloat is proved by her making the passage home from Shanghai in seventy-nine days, or, after allowing time for coaling en route, seventy-four days. She was of 1018 registered tonnage, and her engines were of 200 nominal horse-power; she was 220 feet in length by 32¹⁄₂ feet beam, and 20¹⁄₂ feet depth.

Her career for a time was exciting. She was one of the many vessels bought by the agents of the Confederate States in 1864, nominally as a blockade-runner, but she became a privateer—pirate the Northerners called her—and as such she had the distinction of being the only vessel which carried the Confederate flag round the world. Her name was changed to Shenandoah when she was purchased; she was neither the first nor the last famous sailing vessel of that name. The last Shenandoah, the biggest wooden sailing vessel ever built in America, a four-masted barque, returned the fire of a Spanish gunboat in the recent Spanish-American War, and then out-sailed her. The commander of the Shenandoah of the ’sixties was James Tredell Waddell, whose record justified his appointment. He was formerly an officer in the United States Navy, and was wounded and lamed for life in a duel in 1842. He nevertheless served in the Mexican War and then commanded the American storeship Release at the building of the Panama Railway. All his officers and crew were down with yellow fever, but with a few convalescent seamen he sailed his vessel to Boston. He declined, in 1862, the offer to command one of the vessels in the bomb fleet then being fitted out to attack New Orleans, but instead he got through the blockade from Annapolis to Richmond and joined the Confederate Navy. He was in command of the ram Louisiana when the Southern fleet was attacked and scattered by the Federal fleet under Admiral Farragut, and sank the Louisiana rather than let her be captured. Next he was ordered to take command of the Shenandoah, then being fitted out at Liverpool for a cruise in the Pacific. He commissioned his ship off Madeira in October 1864 and set sail for the south. He captured and either burnt or sank nine American sailing ships before he arrived at Melbourne on January 25, 1865, but the ship’s stay was a short one, for it was expected an American vessel or two would be on her track, and she left Port Phillip on February 8, 1865. Three months later she began her destructive work among the whalers in the Okhotsk and Behring Seas and the Arctic Ocean. Three months after General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court-house, the Shenandoah continued her activity, and it was not until the British barque Barracouta was spoken that Waddell learnt that the war was ended. Waddell then sailed the Shenandoah to Liverpool and surrendered her to the British Government, by whom she was handed over in November 1865 to the United States Consul. During her career under Waddell’s command she captured thirty-eight vessels, of which six were released on bond and thirty-two were sunk or burnt. She afterwards passed into the possession of the Sultan of Zanzibar, and some years later was lost with all hands in a gale. Waddell returned to America in due time and commanded the San Francisco, of the Pacific Mail Line, until she struck a rock and went to the bottom. All the passengers were saved and Waddell was the last to leave the ship.[69]

The other most notorious blockade-runner and commerce-harrier was the Liverpool-built Alabama, a wooden three-masted screw steamer, rigged as a barque; she was of 1040 tons register and 220 feet in length and had horizontal engines of 300 nominal horse-power, operating one propeller and giving her a speed, under steam, of nearly 13 knots, while with steam and sail together she could cover 15 knots. The story of her exploits and of her destruction by the United States wooden cruiser Kearsarge off Cherbourg in June 1864, and of the “Alabama claims,” is too well known to need repetition here.[70]

The mail route between England and India via the Cape was admittedly slow; and it seemed possible to carry the mails by way of Suez in a much shorter time. The eastern half of this service was maintained in a very inefficient manner by the East India Company. The British Government had inaugurated in February 1830 its mail steam-packet service from Falmouth to the Mediterranean. Up to this date the mails had been carried in sailing brigs, although steam navigation with the Mediterranean had already been established and the steamers beat the sailing brigs by many days. The first of these Government steam packets was the Meteor, and the others employed included the African, Messenger, Firebrand, Echo, Hermes, Colombia, Confiance, and Carron.

The Dublin and London Steam Packet Company, under the management of Messrs. Bourne, decided in 1834 upon establishing a line of steamers between London and the Spanish peninsula. The proposed line was to be called the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company, and its first steamer was probably the Royal Tar. This steamer, by the way, had previously been chartered in 1834 to Don Pedro and then to the Queen Regent of Spain.

It is hardly correct, however, to describe these Admiralty vessels as warships, for the Admiralty steam vessels at that time were gunboats, or despatch vessels, steam for line-of-battle ships not being used until some years later.

The Peninsular Company chartered a number of vessels for its early service, but it was not until 1837 that it commenced to despatch mail-packets regularly from London to Lisbon and Gibraltar under contract with the British Government, which at that time and for twenty years afterwards was represented by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. This contract was tendered for by both the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company and a concern called the British and Foreign Steam Navigation Company, but the latter was unable to convince the Government that it possessed the resources, both financial and shipping, which would enable it to carry out the engagement. The Peninsular Company, on the other hand, was able to give the required assurance. The company undertook, in return for an annual subsidy of £29,600, to convey the mails monthly to the Peninsula. The pioneer vessel of this service was the Iberia, of 690 tons and 200 horse-power, which sailed in September 1837. Altogether the company had ten vessels, two of which were chartered from the City of Dublin Company.

The statement is often made that the steamer William Fawcett[71] was the first boat of the company; she was built in 1829 by Caleb Smith of Liverpool, and her engines were by Messrs. Fawcett and Preston, also of Liverpool; and after being used for some years as a ferry-boat on the Mersey she was placed on the Liverpool and Dublin route and may have been “chartered for a short time to the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company in 1835 or 1836, as she does not appear in the company’s advertised sailing list for 1838.”[72]

In 1839 the British and French Governments arranged that the Indian mails should be sent by way of Marseilles and thence taken by an Admiralty packet to Malta to be transhipped to another Admiralty packet for conveyance to Alexandria. As was to be expected, an arrangement of this sort, involving such possibilities of delay, did not last long, and the Government advertised for tenders for the mails to be carried between Alexandria and England, with calls at Gibraltar and Malta both ways. Four tenders were sent in, and that of the Peninsular Company, which offered to do what was required for £34,200, was accepted. The company also offered to charge reduced fares to officers travelling on the public service and to carry Admiralty packages for nothing.

The urgency of a more regular steam communication between England and India than was supplied by the sailing or auxiliary Indiamen was now being extensively discussed, and the Government was asked to subsidise a line of steamers between England and Calcutta which should make the passage in thirty days. The Peninsular Company offered to carry the mails between England and Alexandria with the two steamers Great Liverpool and Oriental, and in 1840 the company was incorporated by Royal Charter under the name of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, with a view to the extension of its operations to the Far East. The Great Liverpool was of 1540 tons, and had been built for the Liverpool and New York trade, and the Oriental was of 1600 tons and 450 horse-power. The company was afterwards requested to place two smaller steamers on the Malta and Corfu branch of the mail service, and did so for no less than £10,712 below what it had cost to maintain the Admiralty packets.

The inadequate service maintained between Calcutta and Suez had given rise to many complaints, and at last, after considerable pressure had been brought to bear on the East India Company by the Government in London, the former consented to enter into a contract with the P. & O. Company for the conveyance of the mails between these two points. The company despatched its first steamer to India in September 1842, this being the Hindostan, a fine vessel of 2017 tons, and 520 horse-power. She was a three-masted vessel, and carried square sails on the foremast, and of her two funnels one was set before and the other abaft the paddles. Her departure was regarded as of national importance, and the warships she passed as she left port were manned in her honour. She was placed on the route between Calcutta and Suez, with calls at Madras and Ceylon; and as other steamers followed, the company was soon able to contract for the conveyance of the mails monthly from Ceylon to Hong-Kong, with calls at Penang and Singapore, for a subvention of £45,000. The company received £115,000 for its service between Calcutta and Suez. The Eastern services were attended with no little difficulty. At Suez and Aden fresh-water supplies had to be organised, and coaling stations, docks, and store establishments had to be established wherever necessary.

The scramble over the isthmus of Suez, whence came the name of the “overland route,” was one of the great drawbacks of this way to the East, and many persons preferred to travel to India by way of the Cape. In spite of its name the overland route was mostly a waterway, for the Mahmoudieh Canal enabled the P. & O. Company to transport its passengers and goods from Alexandria to the Nile, where they travelled by steamer to Cairo, and the land portion of the journey was rather less than 100 miles across the desert from Cairo to Suez. Caravans, sometimes numbering more than three thousand camels, were employed to convey a single steamer’s loading between Suez and Cairo. In passing from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean port every package had to undergo three separate transfers.

“For nearly twenty years this system of working the company’s traffic continued in operation, but it sufficed for carrying on a trade which, for the value of the merchandise in proportion to its bulk, has, it may safely be said, never been equalled. It attained sometimes the annual value of forty millions sterling.”[73]

The East India Company’s service between Suez and Bombay was as bad as that formerly maintained with Calcutta, owing to indifferent management and unsuitable steamers, and as it cost about 30s. per mile, whereas the P. & O. maintained its services to India and China for 17s. per mile, there was a renewal of the agitation for the service to be taken out of the control of the East India Company and entrusted to a concern which could work it better and more economically. Parliament in 1851 supported the agitation, but the East India Company would not give way until the fates were too strong for it; one lot of Bombay mails went to the bottom in a native sailing vessel in which they had been placed at Aden, as the company had no steamer ready for them at Suez. At the request of the Government, the P. & O. Company agreed to take over this service for a subvention of £24,000 per annum, as against the £105,000, or thereabouts, which the old arrangement had cost.

The P. & O. Company opened its Australian service in 1852 as a branch line, but this connection proved so beneficial to the company and the Australian Colonies alike, that in course of time it was made a main-line service, to the mutual advantage of the company and the Colonies. So many of the company’s steamers were employed in the Crimean War and during the Indian Mutiny for the Army, that the Australian portion of the service was dropped for some time.

In 1852 the company added eleven vessels to its fleet, including the celebrated Himalaya, then the largest steam-ship afloat and the fastest ocean-going vessel, with the possible exception of a few on the North Atlantic. Eleven of the company’s steamers were chartered to the Government as transports during the Crimean War, and one of them, the Colombo, was nicknamed Santa Claus when she arrived at Sebastopol one Christmas Eve with presents and sorely needed stores and provisions for the troops.

The East India Company in 1855 asked for tenders for the Calcutta and Burmah mails, and an agreement was entered into with Messrs. McKinnon and Co. of Glasgow, but the steamers they employed were unsuitable and small and the enterprise was a failure. Two steamers, the Baltic and Cape of Good Hope, were sent out for the work, and fortunately for the owners were acquired soon afterwards as transports during the Indian Mutiny.

This undertaking was known as the Calcutta and Burmah Steam Navigation Company, and was at that time purely local in its operations. Its steamer the Cape of Good Hope was lost in a collision in the Hoogly, and another steamer of the line was wrecked while on her way out to India on her first voyage while off the coast of Ireland.

However, the company changed its name in 1862 to the British India Steam Navigation Company, Ltd., and notwithstanding its inauspicious start under its old name, it has grown apace and is now one of the principal lines trading between England and the Eastern Hemisphere.

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which threatened serious financial loss to the P. & O. Company, proved of great benefit to the British India Company. The P. & O. “for thirty years had built up and depended for existence upon the only traffic which was possible in connection with the transit through Egypt, viz., the conveyance of passengers and goods at rates which were necessarily high, owing to the conditions under which the work had to be carried on. These conditions and the rates depending on them were swept away by the opening of the canal, and the financial consequences were such that for some time the future existence of the company appeared to hang doubtfully in the balance. The company’s work had therefore to be reorganised, and a new fleet procured with what diligence was possible under the adverse condition of reduced, and at one time of vanished, profit.”

This extract from the company’s Handbook is interesting, but considering how long the Suez Canal was in building, the company can hardly be said to have made any undue haste in anticipating the coming change.

The difficulties of the P. & O. Company, caused by the opening of the Suez Canal, were increased by the objections which the Post Office raised to the use of the canal for the passage of the mails instead of the Egyptian Railway, but it gave way on this point “for a pecuniary consideration, that is to say, for a sensible abatement of the subsidy, which was not an easy matter to arrange at a time when the company was struggling for existence. However, the company made some concession, and it was finally arranged that the heavy mails which were then sent from England by sea should in future be carried by the Suez Canal, but it was not till 1888, when the company had reduced their charge for the conveyance of the mails by nearly £100,000 per annum, that the accelerated mails sent via Brindisi were also transferred to the Canal Route. The company’s connection with the Overland Route through Egypt, which had existed for half a century, was then finally closed.”[74]

The Union Line was founded in 1853 as the Union Steam Collier Company, and it made a start with five little steamers, the largest of which were the Dane and Norman of 530 tons. The outbreak of the Crimean War, and the consequent withdrawal of the P. & O. steamers from the Southampton and Constantinople service for use as transports, saw the Union vessels placed upon that service till they also were engaged as transports, and a sixth vessel was acquired. When the war was ended, the steamers were placed for a time in the Southampton and Brazil trade, but it was not a very profitable venture and they were diverted to the South African trade, the company receiving a subsidy of £30,000 a year for five years for carrying the mails to and from the Cape of Good Hope. The first sailing was made by the Dane in September 1857, and the sailings thereafter were monthly. The subsidy was increased by £3000 the following year on condition that calls were made at St. Helena and Ascension.

In 1857, Rennie’s “Aberdeen” Line, after having been for many years in sail, went in for steam and despatched its first steamers, Madagascar and Waldensian, from London to South Africa, carrying the mails between Cape Town and Durban. These are stated to have been the first steamers on the South African coast. The Madagascar, of 500 tons, was commanded by Captain George Rennie. Like all the long-distance steamers of her time, she carried a large spread of sail, but her engines, like those of most of her contemporaries, were calculated to be able to render her independent of the wind if it did not happen to be suitable, and therein they marked a great improvement upon those of an earlier type, which were merely assistants to sail. The steamers built in the later ’fifties were intended to place reliance principally on their engines, because of the regularity of passage thereby secured, rather than upon their sail-power; so that even by this time, although the vessels were described as auxiliary steamers, a more correct description would have been that they were steam-propelled vessels carrying a large spread of canvas.

In March 1859, Messrs. J. and W. Dudgeon issued a circular on the subject of steam navigation direct to Calcutta round the Cape, pointing out that “steam hereafter will be almost exclusively employed in the transport of goods between East India and Australia and the United Kingdom may be taken for granted; this is merely a matter of time.” The circular continued that the Cape route would certainly be simple and safe, and therefore superior to the overland route, especially if it could be rendered expeditious and profitable. The conditions required that vessels of not less than 5500 tons, builders’ measurement, be supplied at a total cost per vessel of £150,000; the voyage, it was anticipated, would take thirty or thirty-five days, or only a couple of days more than the overland route. As a correct forecast of the size of vessels which until a few years ago conveyed the great bulk of the merchandise between Britain and the Far East, this statement is interesting and shows how accurately the needs of the traffic were estimated.

In 1855 Messrs. A. and J. Inglis of Pointhouse, Glasgow, entered into a contract “with a degree of boldness which only complete success could have justified. They undertook to build the steamer Tasmanian to the order of the European and Australian Steam Navigation Company. The machinery, of over 3000 horse-power, was at that time considered of the largest size, and to undertake the erection of it in a little wooden shop barely twenty feet high, and furnished with a fifteen-ton crane, was almost heroic. The soleplate of this set of engines weighed 40 tons, and had to be lowered with screw-jacks into a pit dug out to give height under the travelling crane. Messrs. Inglis actually built up the crank-shaft themselves, working the material in the smithy. The Tasmanian proved one of the fastest screw steamers built up to that time, having easily attained over 14¹⁄₂ knots at Stokes Bay. Her consumption of coal, about three pounds per indicated horse-power, was for that day extremely moderate. The engines were constructed with three cylinders, had a built crank-shaft, valves at the side, variable expansion, steam reversing gear, a built propeller, and other fittings which are still reckoned in that comprehensive term, ‘all modern improvements.’ The engines worked most successfully until the general adoption of the compound engine made so many admirable contrivances obsolete.”[75] Shortly after building the Tasmanian, Messrs. A. and J. Inglis began to build for the British India Company with excellent results to all concerned, and since then they have constructed many vessels for this famous company.

In July 1858, owing to the failure of the European and Australian Mail Company, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company agreed with the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to continue the Australian mail service, and entered into a mail contract for eight months for a subsidy at the rate of £185,000 per annum, giving a monthly sailing, with Government guarantee of £6000 a month under certain circumstances if there were loss in the working.

The line of mail packets between Panama, New Zealand, and Sydney was maintained in connection with the R.M.S.P. service to the West Indies and Panama with the mails, and was regarded as a useful alternative to the line from Point de Galle to King George’s Sound and other Australian ports. The Panama, New Zealand, and Australian Royal Mail Company was granted a yearly subsidy of £9000 for the main line, excluding the intercolonial services, the amount to be increased to £110,000 if the New Zealand Government should afterwards stipulate for a higher rate of speed. The Ruahine, the second vessel laid down, but the first completed for this line, was constructed by Messrs. Dudgeon, and was a brig-rigged steamer of 1500 tons, and was 265 feet long, 34 feet beam, and 25 feet 7 inches deep, and had engines of 354 nominal horse-power, driving Dudgeon’s double screws. She had accommodation for 100 cabin passengers, 40 second cabin, and 65 in the steerage. She left London on her maiden voyage in April 1865, and made the voyage to her final Australian port in 63 days, of which she was only 55 days actually at sea, the other days being accounted for by calls en route. She was expected to make the passage between Panama and Wellington in 25 days.

The Pacific Steam Navigation Company, which celebrated the seventieth anniversary of its foundation in February 1910, owes its inception to the enterprise of William Wheelwright, an American, who was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1794, and died in London while visiting England in September 1873. He began his business life as a printer’s apprentice, but soon went to sea, and by the time he was nineteen years old he was in command of a ship. He was captain of the Rising Empire when she was wrecked in 1823 off the Plate, and then shipped as supercargo on a vessel bound from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso. The following year he was appointed United States Consul at Guayaquil and five years later removed to Valparaiso. With the view of extending American commerce and supplying better communication than then existed on the coast, he established in 1829 a line of passenger vessels between Valparaiso and Cobija, and in 1835 decided to place steamers on the west coast. It took him three years to obtain the necessary concessions from the South American countries concerned. American capitalists fought shy of his proposals, so in 1838 he came to England, where he was well received. His plan included the adoption of the route across the Isthmus of Panama, though many years passed before this portion of it was realised. The necessary capital, £250,000, was raised in 5000 shares of £50 each, and a Royal Charter was granted on February 17, 1840. The two wooden paddle-steamers, Chili and Peru, were built for the line by Messrs. Curling, Young and Co. of London in 1839; they were sister vessels and were each about 198 feet long by about 50 feet over the paddle-boxes and were brig-rigged, of about 700 tons gross, and had side-lever engines of about 150 horse-power by Miller and Ravenhill. In 1840 they passed through the Straits of Magellan, Mr. Wheelwright being on board one of them, and received a series of national welcomes along the west coast. Coaling difficulties were serious, and at one time the boats were laid up for three months. At last, in order to secure a sufficient supply, Mr. Wheelwright began to operate mines in Chili. These vessels were not, as has often been stated, the first steamers to enter the Pacific, for in 1825 a small steamer, the Telica, belonging to a Spaniard, tried to trade on the coast, but was a financial failure and the owner blew up his vessel and himself with gunpowder at Guayaquil.

The Pacific Steam Navigation Company came near to being a failure, but held on, and in 1852, having secured a further postal contract, the company added four larger vessels of about 1000 tons each to its fleet, all of them being employed on the purely local service.

In 1852 there was a bimonthly service from Valparaiso to Panama, where the line had a connection across the isthmus with the Atlantic navigation. In 1855 the Panama Railway was opened, and the company’s activity was greatly increased. In the following year also the company adopted the compound type of engines, which was only just brought out, being, it is stated, the first steam-ship proprietary to do so for ocean traffic, and influenced probably by the immense saving thereby made in fuel consumption.

Contracts were made in 1848 by the United States Government with George Law, an American financier and shipowner, and his associates, to carry the American mails from New York to Aspinwall on the Isthmus of Panama, and with C. H. Aspinwall to convey the mails on the Pacific side from Panama to San Francisco and ports beyond. This was the inauguration of the Pacific Mail Line, and its first steamer, the California, sailed from New York in October of that year for San Francisco. The gold rush was at its height and the demand for the steam-ships was so great that she was quickly followed by the Pacific and Oregon, the latter built in 1845. All three were wooden paddle-steamers about 200 feet long and of nearly 1060 tonnage, and made good passages round Cape Horn.

With the arrival of the three steamers on the west coast, the transisthmian route was adopted for passengers and light merchandise, and the Ohio and Georgia, which Law had built, carried, in 1849, the first passengers by steam-ship to the isthmus from New York.[76]