We have already spoken of the founding of the General Steam Navigation Company, and shall speak presently of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. Following the precedent set by the Cunard Company, the Royal Mail Line, on March 20th, 1840, entered into an agreement with the British Government by which the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company were “to provide, maintain, and keep seaworthy, and in complete repair and readiness, for the purpose of conveying all Her Majesty’s mails, a sufficient number (not less than fourteen) of good, substantial, and efficient steam vessels, of such construction and strength as to be fit and able to carry guns of the largest calibre now used on board of Her Majesty’s steam vessels of war, each of such vessels to be always supplied with first-rate appropriate steam engines of not less than 400 collective horse-power, and also a sufficient number—not less than four—of good, substantial, and efficient sailing vessels, of at least 100 tons burthen each.” Previous to this agreement, the Government had conveyed the mails to the West India Islands in gun-brigs, and in those days we must not forget that the seas were not the free highways that they are now.
THE “TEVIOT” AND “CLYDE” (1841).
From a Painting in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
SIDE-LEVER ENGINE.
From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The contract was for ten years, and to take effect from December 1st, 1841. The fourteen ships were all named after British rivers, and many readers will be aware that this custom of the company has continued ever since, although in some cases the names of foreign rivers have also been thus employed. Some of these vessels were built at Northfleet on the Thames, others (including the Teviot and Clyde) were built at Greenock, others at Dumbarton, Leith, and Cowes. The Lords of the Admiralty stipulated that the vessels should be built under their supervision, and a naval officer was put in charge of the mails on each steamer, and carried out a sort of supervision of the ship’s affairs, a boat’s crew being always at his service when the mails were being taken aboard or disembarked. [The illustration facing page 112] shows the launch of the Forth at Leith in 1841. This picture, which is taken from a contemporary painting, is worthy of perusal, as showing the close resemblance between the mercantile marine and naval architecture of the period. Strength rather than slim beauty, massiveness rather than fineness, formed the keynote both in the steam and sailing ships of that time. In the same year had already been launched the Thames from Northfleet, and in the following year that vessel inaugurated this new service, setting forth, like the older packets, from Falmouth. The voyage from there to the West Indies took about eighteen days, but exceptional runs were done in seventeen days.
This new steamship departure was an undoubted success, and the Admiralty admitted that even the Government, with all its naval resources, could not have succeeded so well as this private company in getting together and ready for sea in so short a time so many large and well-equipped new steamers. Financially this meant a very large outlay, and there was not much less than a million of money expended on this first fleet. It should be stated, however, that the Government subsidised the concern by a grant of £240,000 per annum. Presently Falmouth gave way to Southampton as the headquarters of the Royal Mail fleet. To-day there are so many big liners calling at the Hampshire port, and there is at all times of the day so continuous a procession of all kinds of large steamships, that it is difficult to realise that in those days this was comparatively a small port.
It was only natural that, as soon as ever the West Indian service should have proved itself successful, a branch should be extended to the South American Continent. In 1846, therefore, the company organised a means of transit by mules and canoes across the Isthmus of Panama, which were in 1855 superseded by the Panama Railroad. Although we are departing from our historical sequence in the development of the steamship, it is convenient here to sketch very rapidly the progress of the Royal Mail Line farther still, for the evolution of a steamship company is not necessarily that of the steamship. A small company may be famous for having one or two ships that are always the last word in modern ship-building and marine engineering; a large company may possess a considerable aggregate of tonnage, but its ships may be behind the lead of others in improvements. For the moment we are considering the enterprise which enabled the early steamships to penetrate to distant, over-sea territories where the Elizabethan sailors had gone in their slow-going ships scarcely three centuries before.