The Cunarders were successful, and the conveyance of the mails by steamship became quite established. The white-winged clipper ships fought hard against the Cunarders, but they had to yield. Three years later the Company put another vessel on the route—the Hibernia—and in 1845 the Cambria. These were of greater size and developed a little better speed than their forerunners. It has always been the policy of the owners to improve their ships as they went on building, and even thus early that policy ruled.
The establishment of the Cunard Company marks a most important step in ocean steam navigation. Further, in the same year, 1840, in which the Cunarders began to run, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company was established. Ten years later saw the foundation of the Collins and the Inman Lines. The Collins, an American Line, boasted that they would run “the Cunarders off the Atlantic.” They were very fine vessels, and they were the first fleet to fully adopt the upright stem and discard the bowsprit. But the Cunarders were ready for the fierce competition. They had actually put on six new vessels, and their new postal contract of 1847 had stipulated for a weekly, instead of a fortnightly service; while the subsidy was much increased. It was to be £173,340 annually instead of £81,000.
THE ICE-BOUND “BRITANNIA” AT BOSTON.
By permission of The Cunard Steamship Co.
The echoes of that fierce struggle between the Cunarders’ and the Collins’ boats have now died away, or have been quite lost in the other clamorous cries of that wonder of the world, the development of the transatlantic steamship traffic; but apparently partisanship ran very high. The Collins’ seem to have been slightly the faster vessels, coming from America in 9 days 17 hours, but occupying nearly two more days to return. Alas, disaster overtook them. The Arctic perished by collision; the Pacific was lost at sea, and no one knows the story of her death, for she was never heard of more. Bad management, and extravagance surged over the remaining vessels, and the fine ships went as old iron!
But the Inman line had also begun to run, about 1850. These ships, like the Great Britain, were built of iron and propelled by a screw. The first was the City of Glasgow, and several famous “Cities” followed; though years afterwards the Inman line became the “American,” and the appellation “City” was dropped, the ships being simply known as Paris, New York, Berlin, etc. The Inman line had the distinction of being the first, apart from the Great Britain, to use iron screw steamers regularly on the Atlantic. Other lines soon followed, the Anchor, the Allan, and the Guion, while the Cunarders, not to be beaten, came along in due course with iron and screw steamers.
But great changes were at hand. To mark these changes let us look at what may be called the culminating ship of the old type of steamers—the Great Eastern.
This historical vessel was the largest ever built. She was 680 feet long, by 83 feet broad, and her hull was 60 feet high, 70 feet including bulwarks. But the steam pressure of her engines was only from 15 to 25 lbs. She was fitted with both screw-propeller and paddle wheels. Her screw-propeller engines were of 4000 indicated horse-power, and paddle of 2600, but they could together work up to 11,000 horse-power.