CHAPTER VII.
Royal West India Mail Steam Packet Company, 1841—Number of their ships—Conditions of mail contract—Large subsidy—Heavy loss during the first year of their operations—Capital of the Company—Liberal concessions by Government—Complaints of the public—Improved prospects of the company from improved management—Contract renewed, 1850—Its conditions—Fresh conditions, 1857—Contract again renewed, 1864—Further renewal, 1874—The steam-ship Forth—Losses of various ships of the company—Causes of these losses—Loss of the Amazon—Terrible sufferings—Loss of the Demerara—Additions to their fleet, and superior class of vessels.
Royal West India Mail Steam Packet Company, 1841.
Number of ships.
Soon after the Atlantic Ocean began to be regularly navigated by steam-vessels, the importance of a better means of intercommunication with the West Indies led to the formation of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which entered into a contract with the Board of Admiralty in March 1841 for the conveyance of the mails between England, the West Indies, and the Gulf of Mexico. This company commenced operations on a much more comprehensive and grander scale than either the Cunard Company or the Peninsular and Oriental. Fourteen large steam-ships were at once ordered to be built for the service; they were to be substantial and efficient in all respects, and of such strength as would enable them to carry guns of the largest calibre then in use on board Her Majesty’s war-steamers, with engines of not less than 400 collective horse-power.
Conditions of mail contract.
Large Subsidy.
When complete, the conditions of the contract required one of these vessels to be ready to take the mails on board, twice in each calendar month, and to proceed, viâ Corunna and Madeira, to the island of Barbadoes and, after staying there not more than six hours, thence, viâ St. Vincent, to the island of Grenada, where the stoppage was limited to twelve hours, and thence, again, to the islands in succession of Santa Cruz and St. Thomas, Nicola Mole in Haiti, Santiago de Cuba, and Port Royal, in Jamaica. After a stay not exceeding twenty-four hours at Port Royal, the steamer was to proceed to Savannah-la-Mer, in the same island, thence to Havannah, and, on her return thence, to call again at Savannah-la-Mer, thence to Port Royal, and, thence, to Santiago de Cuba, Nicola Mole, and Samana, in the island of Haiti, delivering mails at each place, “care being taken that the said steam-vessel shall always arrive at Samana aforesaid (after performing the said voyage from Barbadoes under ordinary circumstances of wind and weather) on the twenty-second day after the arrival from England of the mails at Barbadoes;” and, after delivering and receiving the mails at Samana, “the steam-vessel shall make the best of her way back from Samana to such port in the British Channel as the said Commissioners of the Admiralty shall from time to time direct.” The scheme, also, embraced other places in the West Indies, the Spanish Main, and the United States, for which mails were to be carried. In consideration of the services thus to be performed, the company was to receive at the rate of 240,000l. per annum, in quarterly payments; the contract to commence on the 1st of December, 1841, or at an earlier day if possible, and to continue in force for ten years, subject to twelve months’ notice on either side for its termination.
Heavy loss during the first year of their operations.
But this subsidy, large as it doubtless was for the service to be performed, was not sufficient to cover the heavy outlay the company had considered necessary in the construction and equipment of their fleet. Perhaps, too, part of this outlay arose from the fact that, though Mr. McQueen, the projector of the company, was a gentleman who had had considerable experience in the promotion of large undertakings, his knowledge of maritime affairs was limited, while he was not sufficiently conversant with those details, the practical knowledge of which is so essential to the success of all shipping operations. The directors, as a body, were not competent, from previous experience, to manage such an undertaking; while the choice also of commanders, selected from the Royal Navy, with little or no experience of steam, and none whatever of the numerous requirements of a merchant-ship, was unfortunate, and may have in some measure tended to produce a balance sheet which, though embracing to its credit the large permanent subsidy, showed at the close of the first year’s operations a loss of no less than 79,790l. 16s. 8d. to the company!
It may, however, be remarked that the projectors of this undertaking had entered on an entirely new field, and that merchants who had been accustomed to dispatch their produce in sailing-vessels were unprepared to pay the enhanced rates required for steam-ships, while the passenger and goods trade in itself was not then nearly sufficient for a remunerative return on the large capital subscribed.
Capital of the Company.
Liberal concessions by Government.
Originally, the company was authorized to issue fifteen thousand shares of 100l. on which calls of 50l. per share had been made up to the time of the first meeting of shareholders, with power to borrow 260,000l. But as another call of 10l. per share, sanctioned at this meeting, was found insufficient for the requirements of the Company, the directors appealed to Government for further assistance. By the original arrangements, the annual mileage traversed by the company’s ships would have been 684,816 miles. Government, however, in reply to their appeal, generously consented to reduce the distances to be performed to 392,976 miles, and to allow the annual subsidy of 240,000l. to remain undisturbed. By these important and liberal modifications the annual expenditure of the company which, according to their own calculations, would have been 360,000l. per annum, was reduced to 235,000l.
It was further conceded that if, at any time, and from causes, in the opinion of Government, of a public and national character, such as war, the insurance on steam-vessels should rise above six guineas per cent. per annum, or on coals above two guineas per cent. on the outward passage, the company was to receive an additional sum to be settled by arbitration, but which was not to exceed 10,000l. per annum.
Complaints of the public.
In process of time, and notably after the necessity of greater economy in the public finances had been admitted, great discontent was expressed through the press with regard to these very liberal concessions,[273] which was materially aggravated by a statement, the accuracy of which I have no means of testing, that the amount paid for the West India mail service exceeded the sum received for postage by 183,938l., and that, though the Brazil branch left a margin of 3478l. in favour of the Post-office, the direct loss to the public amounted to no less than 180,460l. per annum.[274]
To most of these complaints the company was altogether indifferent, believing them to have their origin in disappointment and jealousy; but there was no answer to the well-founded remonstrances of the colonists that the service was, after all, performed with great irregularity. Indeed, it is beyond cavil that during their earlier operations, the vessels did not arrive at the time named in the tables of routes attached to the contract, that, for instance, the duplicate correspondence from Chagres, sent round by way of New York in American vessels, and thence by the Cunard or American steamers to Liverpool, often arrived in England sooner than the original letters brought directly by the Royal Mail vessels; and, further, that much confusion was constantly caused by the non-arrival of the outward mails till days after the dispatch of the homeward ones. Unnecessary delays also took place in coaling at St. Thomas and in the receiving and transferring freight there and elsewhere. There was also, it was alleged, a want of sufficient steamers for the intercolonial service, while the occasional negligence and incompetency of the commanders of the vessels led to a needless loss of time between port and port; complaints were likewise made of insufficiency of accommodation for passengers on some of the intercolonial steamers, and, also, that a pernicious system of gambling was permitted in the vessels of the main line. Some of these complaints, as frequently happens under similar circumstances, were frivolous and unwarrantable, but too many of them were unanswerable; indeed the bitter attacks on the company might naturally have been expected considering the numerous favours supposed to have been conferred on it, and, above all, the notorious fact, that the contract for the conveyance of the mails was never exposed to public competition.
Improved prospects of the Company
On the other hand, the company had great difficulties to contend against, while its shareholders, so far from receiving any dividend on their capital, sustained during the first year of its operations a heavy loss. Moreover, though liberal concessions had been made by the Government, together with various unusual allowances, these were more than counterbalanced by the loss of two valuable ships during the second year of its operations. Yet, taking into account these and other losses, to which reference will hereafter be made, the trade increased so rapidly as to recoup the disasters of the company, and to leave, in 1843, a surplus of receipts over expenditure of 94,210l. and in 1844 of 147,749l.: the directors were therefore enabled to recommend a dividend on the half-year ending 31st December, 1844, of 30s. per share; in October, 1846, 35s.; and in April, 1848, 2l. per share.[275]
From this time the prospects of the company steadily improved, and when, in 1850, various capitalists in the United States projected the construction of a railway across the isthmus of Panama—a project which promised extensive additions to its business—the company was in a position to render this new undertaking considerable assistance by advancing, in the course of the year 1851, the sum of 25,480l. towards its completion. At that time, too, the direct and most advantageous route to the Australian colonies appeared to be across that Isthmus; indeed the Panama route was recommended by a Committee of the House of Commons who inquired into this subject in the session of 1849. But, apart from the Australian trade, that of San Francisco was then being rapidly developed by the discovery of the gold mines, by attracting (as these did) large numbers of passengers from Europe, and, thereby, laying the foundation of the present enormous traffic in grain and other produce from California, perhaps the most fertile district of the United States—the valley of the Mississippi not excepted.
from improved management.
From that period the operations of the company have from various causes yielded a very fair return to its shareholders, some of these, doubtless, being due to the rapid increase of the trade, to the knowledge the directors have gained from experience, and, not the least, to the fact that their ships are now commanded by men who have been either trained in their own service, or have acquired, while employed by other shipowners, the sort of knowledge essential for the successful management of merchant-steamers.
Contract renewed, 1850.
Its conditions.
In 1850, Government granted a renewal of the mail contract to the company for a further term of ten years from the 1st January, 1852, the conditions being, that the subsidy should be raised from 240,000l. to 270,000l. per annum, and that the company, on its part, should undertake the additional cost and expense of a monthly service to the Brazils, thus increasing the mileage to be performed from 389,448 to 547,296 miles, and, at the same time, reducing the mileage rate from 12s. 3d. to 9s. 10d. per mile. The company was also required to accelerate the speed on the West Indian line from 8 knots an hour, as originally agreed, to 10 knots an hour, and to add five new steamers to their fleet, each of 2250 tons burden and 800 horse-power. Besides an increased outlay of capital, these conditions entailed on the company a very considerable increase in the wear and tear of ships and machinery; hence their general expenditure rose in the course of the year, after these new arrangements came into force, from 264,802l. to 403,769l. per annum.
Fresh conditions, 1857.
In 1857, other changes were made in their contract. The first condition—a somewhat extraordinary one—had reference to an amalgamation with the European and Australian Mail Company for the conveyance of the mails, viâ Egypt, to and from Australia, which subsequently proved a great failure, this Company having altogether broken down; the second required an acceleration of the mails between England and Rio Janeiro from sixty-six days twenty-two hours, the time hitherto allowed for the performance of the round voyage, to fifty-five days nineteen hours. The company was, also, ordered to provide three more vessels, of 3000 tons and 800 horse-power, for the West India and Atlantic service, and a fourth of smaller dimensions to increase the speed of the mails between Rio Janeiro and the River Plate. These changes proved to be of considerable public advantage, as the time of the post between England and the isthmus of Panama was thus reduced from fifty-nine to forty-two days, while, as the homeward mails arrived three days before the departure of the outward ones, the mercantile community obtained important additional facilities for transacting their business with that part of the world.
Contract again renewed, 1864.
When the second contract expired in January 1864 fresh arrangements were made whereby the annual subsidy was reduced to 172,914l. and the speed increased on the West India Transatlantic service to 10½ knots an hour. In 1866 it was further agreed that each alternate fortnightly packet should proceed from St. Thomas direct to Colon instead of touching first at Jamaica, thus shortening the route between England and Panama. In 1868 another and, in this case, most important modification, was suggested in the conditions of the contract. Hitherto, the steamers of this company had been propelled, principally, by paddle-wheels, its directors being, perhaps, among the last to see the advantages to be derived from the application of the screw. But, though now convinced of the many advantages of the screw over the paddle, before entering on the large expenditure required for such a change, they naturally wished to know the intentions of Government with regard to the continuation of their mail contracts; the result of this application being the extension of the period till 1874, with, however, the condition, that Government should participate in all profits beyond eight per cent.
Further renewal, 1874.
As a considerable amount of discontent had, in the meantime, again found expression through the medium of the public press with regard to the very large sums of money which this company had received for the conveyance of the mails, and, as different members of the House of Commons had insisted that the service should be thrown open to public competition, the directors were obliged to consider the alternative of either abandoning it altogether, or of conducting the service for a much less amount than they had hitherto received: they wisely adopted the latter course, and, on public tenders being invited, undertook to convey the West India mails for the annual subsidy of 84,750l., not much more than one-third of what they had originally received—a sum, however, subsequently supplemented by 2000l. per annum as a recompense for the ships calling at Plymouth and there landing the mails, instead of at Southampton, their final port of destination.[276]
In subsidizing the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company during the earlier portion of its career to the large extent I have named, the British government were evidently actuated by reasons similar to those, which induced the government of the United States to make the like liberal concessions to the unfortunate Collins line; and there can be no doubt that the original vessels of this company were well adapted for one of the objects Government had then in view—the creation of a fleet of a class of large and strongly built merchant-steamers, which could be made use of in the event of war. Hence, all these vessels were built to carry heavy guns when necessary, so as to be serviceable for the purpose of the navy at a comparatively small subsequent outlay. A drawing is furnished on the following page of one of those ships which, in nearly all respects, resembled the government steamers of the period.
S.S. “FORTH.”
The steam-ship Forth.
Losses of various ships of the company.
The Forth was altogether a very fine vessel of her class, and the largest of any of the original fleet of the company. She was somewhere about 1900 tons gross, or builders’ measurement, 1147 tons register, and 450 nominal horse-power. She was built at Leith in 1841, by Messrs. Menzies and Co., and, as Government reserved its right of purchasing any of these ships at a valuation, she was, like the others, constructed in accordance with a specification from the Admiralty, under the survey and immediate control of officers appointed for this purpose. Indeed, the fleet of the Royal Mail Company consisted of the finest class of vessels of that description built of wood which, previous to 1841, had been sent to sea either for naval or mercantile purposes. Nor were they inferior to any vessels then afloat either in the completeness of their equipment, or in the elegance and convenience of their accommodation for first-class passengers. But, from some cause or other, arising either from those I have already ventured to suggest or from the unavoidable dangers of the ocean, the company at first was most unfortunate in the number of losses they sustained. Nor can it be urged that such disasters were due to any special dangers in their line of navigation, for they had no fogs and ice to fear, like their more northern Transatlantic voyagers: with the exception of occasional hurricanes among the West India Islands, their course was a comparatively safe one, and, yet, no fewer than six of the West India Royal Mail Company’s packets were lost in the first eight years of their career.
Besides the Isis which, on the 8th of October, 1842, sank off Bermuda, having previously struck on a reef, the company lost, on the 15th of April, 1843, the Solway, 20 miles west of Corunna. She was one of their finest vessels. Her captain, the surgeon, various passengers, and a portion of the crew, consisting in all of sixty persons, perished with the ship. The Tweed, another of their first-class vessels, of 1800 tons burden and 450 horse-power, was totally lost on the 12th of February, 1847, on the Alicranes reefs off Yucatan, in the Gulf of Mexico, while on her voyage to Vera Cruz. Her loss was most disastrous, and caused great excitement at the time. The crew and passengers amounted to 151 persons (seventy-two of whom were drowned), and their sufferings, as graphically described by one who had escaped,[277] formed a subject of conversation for a longer period than such calamities now do. After five days’ suffering, the remainder of the passengers and crew were rescued from the barren reef of rocks on which they had been cast. Again, on the 1st of February, 1849, the Forth was also completely lost on the same rocks which had caused the total destruction of the Tweed; while, in the following year the Actæon was wrecked in rounding the point near Carthagena on a shoal extending, as was alleged, much further into the sea than had been laid down on the Admiralty charts. Nor must the loss of the Medina, wrecked on the 12th of May, 1844, on a coral reef near Turks Island, be omitted, as this was, certainly, one which ought not to have occurred.
Causes of these losses.
Some of these disasters, no doubt, arose from the intricate nature of the navigation among the West India Islands, and others may have been caused, as the supporters of the company alleged, “by those sudden changes of the weather, hurricanes, squalls, northers, &c., with which the West India Islands, Spanish Main, and Gulf of Mexico are so frequently visited,” but the rocks and shoals of the Gulf could have had nothing to do with the loss of the Solway off Corunna, and, as the company has met with much fewer disasters of late years, I may be allowed to suspect that incompetency had too much to do with the almost periodical losses of the first eight or ten years of its career.
Loss of the Amazon.
But by far the greatest disaster which befell any of this company’s ships was the destruction of the Amazon by fire at sea; indeed, nothing could be more terrible than the loss of this ship and the sufferings of those who perished with her.
The Amazon was built by Messrs. R. and H. Green, at Blackwall, and launched from their yard on the 28th of June, 1851: she was the largest wooden merchant steam-ship which had up to that time been constructed. An illustration of her, as she lay at anchor ready for sea, on her first and only voyage, will be found on the following page.[278]
When surveyed by the Admiralty before her departure from Southampton, she was reported capable of carrying fourteen 32-pounders, and two 10-inch pivot guns of 85 cwt. each on her main-deck; her coal bunkers were constructed to carry 1000 tons of coals, or upward of sixteen and a half days’ consumption at the rate of 2½ tons per hour for her twenty-six furnaces. Her engines were fitted in a framework independent of the vessel, so that little or no perceptible vibration was felt when they were at work: moreover, allowing 12 superficial feet for each man, she had accommodation in her lower decks for 360 soldiers, besides elegant cabins for first-class passengers. Her cost, when ready for sea, was somewhat over 100,000l.
“AMAZON.”
On the 2nd of January, 1852, the Amazon, under command of Captain Symons, took her departure from Southampton with the usual mails for the British and foreign West Indies, the Gulf of Mexico, Spanish Main, &c., fifty passengers, and a large and valuable cargo. Her crew numbered 110, exclusive of the Admiralty officer in charge of the mails. The Amazon was the first of the direct line of steam-ships arranged by the company to run fortnightly between Southampton and Chagres, touching only at St. Thomas, at which place various lines of branch packets for the accommodation of the West Indies, the Gulf of Mexico, &c., were to meet, diverging thence to the different islands and ports embraced in the new arrangements with Government, and thus establishing, as it was termed at the time, “a great steam ferry between Europe and the Isthmus of Panama.”
In the course of the day after her departure, when steaming at the rate of about 9 miles an hour against a stiff south-west gale, the bearings of the paddle-shafts became so hot from the excessive friction of the new machinery, that on two occasions the engines had to be stopped to cool them, in one case for two and a half hours; after which everything appeared to be in order. But at midnight of the evening of the 4th January, when the Amazon was somewhere about 110 miles west-south-west of the Scilly Islands, the watch on deck, to their dismay, discovered that a fire had broken out suddenly on the starboard side forward between the steam-chest and that portion of the deck whereon the galley stood, the flames at once rushing up the gangway in front of the foremost funnel. So sudden, indeed, was the conflagration that when the alarm bell, instantly sounded, brought the captain upon deck, it was only to witness the inevitable destruction of his ship; the force of the gale then blowing having spread the flames with such rapidity that every appliance, by means of wet swabs, buckets of water, and at last the fire pumps (for they had not been ready), proved alike utterly futile to check the progress of the fire.
The most terrible consternation and confusion now prevailed. Passengers and crew rushed on deck in the wildest dismay, while the gale which raged overhead increased their fears. To add if possible to the terrors of this awful calamity, the smoke and flames had driven the engineers from their stations, so that the machinery could not be stopped; consequently the Amazon dashed through the waves at full speed. Thus the raging fire, made more fearful by the storm, consumed everything animate and inanimate within its reach, spreading with the most alarming rapidity over the deck of the ship and extending to the cabins below, where many of the passengers were either suffocated by the smoke or consumed by the flames.
Recourse was now had to the boats: of these there were nine, including four life-boats. As too often happens in cases of emergency, the boats were neither clear nor ready for lowering. In this instance, too, the life-boats had been fitted with crutches on which their keels rested. These fittings now obstructed their clearance from the sides of the ship, and but for this fatal arrangement so serious a loss of life might have been lessened. To make matters worse, the two best and largest boats had been stowed on the top of the sponsons, which were now surrounded by the flames and could not be approached. When the mail-boat was lowered, it was immediately swamped with twenty-five persons on board, all of whom perished; the pinnace, when lowered, sheered across the sea before the people in her could unhook the foretackle, and they too were all washed out and drowned, except two men who had clung to the thwarts and were enabled to scramble back to the deck of the ship: the boat itself, which hung by the single tackle, was soon afterwards dashed to pieces against the side of the vessel. By extraordinary efforts fourteen of the crew and two of the passengers were enabled to remove from the cranes and lower in safety one of the starboard life-boats, while nineteen of the crew and six of her passengers escaped in another: these, with a young midshipman, named Vincent, who displayed great bravery and intrepidity, the chief steward, one passenger (a young lady), and two of the seamen, who had managed to lower without accident a small boat, the dingy, were the only persons saved out of the 161 who had embarked on board the Amazon only two days previously. All the others perished, including the captain, either by the flames or the waves; and, perhaps, in the melancholy annals of the sea, there is no shipwreck more appalling than that of the Amazon.
Terrible sufferings.
No writer of romance in the wildest dreams of fancy could have pictured a scene more terrible than this reality. Young Vincent, in his vivid narrative, describes two passengers rushing from their cabins enveloped in flames and falling lifeless upon deck. He speaks of a lady, with an infant in her arms, entreating some one to take care of her child, heedless of her own safety, but before assistance could be rendered perishing with her child amid the flames. Others, he says, fled from them, only to be engulfed in the ocean. One lady passenger, who had been lifted into the boat, was so terrified by the waves which dashed over the sides of the ship that she preferred death among the flames, and wildly rushed back to her destruction. Others fell through the burning decks or hatchways, and were instantly consumed, while some resigned themselves calmly to their terrible fate; when Vincent left the ship he states that “some of those who yet lived were kneeling on the deck in prayer, while others, almost in a state of nudity, were running about screaming with terror.”
Between three and four o’clock in the morning the masts of the vessel fell over her sides; the foremast on the port and the mainmast on the starboard, but the mizen still stood while the fire raged from stem to stern. One poor fellow then appeared perched on the extreme end of the jib-boom, the only living thing amidst the burning mass; but he, too, perished. About five in the morning, when the life-boat was “passing the ship in a leewardly direction,” the gunpowder in her magazines exploded, and in about twenty minutes afterwards, the mizenmast went by the board; the vessel herself then making a heavy lurch, as if eager to escape from the flames, went down, her funnels still standing, but red hot, with everything on board which the fire, in its fury, had left unconsumed.
Loss of the Demerara.
The destruction of the Amazon following so quickly upon the stranding of the Demerara at Bristol (another of the five additional vessels which the company had just launched), materially inconvenienced the directors in the fresh arrangements they had made with Government for the more expeditious delivery of the mails. They had now only the Oronoco, Magdalene, and Parana to conduct the direct service between Southampton and the isthmus of Panama; but these misfortunes appear to have stimulated the shareholders to renewed exertions. Other vessels were engaged and fresh contracts entered into for the construction of steamers of a still finer description.[279] When, at length, Government relieved the company from the condition of building wooden vessels adapted for purposes of war, and the directors themselves discovered that iron was preferable to wood and the screw a better mode of propulsion than the paddle-wheel, they produced vessels equal to most of those now engaged in Transatlantic navigation. Of late years, their average of loss, until very recently, has been comparatively small.
Additions to their fleet,
There are not now many finer steamers afloat than their Tagus and Moselle, which were launched in the year 1871 from the yard of Messrs. John Elder and Co. The former, a vessel of 2789 tons builders’ measurement and 600 horse-power, attained a mean speed of 14·878 knots per hour on the occasion of her official trial; while the Moselle, a sister ship, of about 3200 tons gross register, surpassed her, having made 14·929 knots per hour as the average of four runs over the measured mile. Equally satisfactory results have attended many of their other vessels, and not the least remarkable is the case of the Tasmanian, an iron screw-vessel they purchased from the unfortunate European and Australian Steam Navigation Company. This vessel, which was also fitted in 1871 by Messrs. John Elder and Co. with engines on the compound principle, accomplished her first voyage to St. Thomas in 338 hours (14 days, 2 hours) on a consumption of only 466 tons of coal, though she formerly consumed 1088 tons on a run of 349 hours (14 days, 13 hours).
and superior class of vessels.
An entire change of management combined with a superior class of vessels have had a very material effect on the prosperity of the company, enabling the directors at their last meeting to declare a dividend of 10 per cent. per annum. Their fleet[280] is now a large and excellent one, and well adapted, on the whole, for the due performances of the various mail services[281] undertaken by the company. It is further only just to the company, before closing this sketch of its operations, to record the services which it rendered to the British Government in placing some of its finest ships at the disposal of the naval department for the conveyance of troops during the Crimean War, more especially as the operation was carried out with only a trifling interruption to the contract mail service.