Two still existing and influential Steamship Companies were established this year. The General Steam Navigation Co., of London, and the Belfast Steam-Packet Co., afterwards merged into the Belfast Steamship Co., Limited, of Belfast.
The competition between the Steam-Packet Companies engaged in the Scotch and North of Ireland passenger trade had become so keen, that in the summer of 1825 the steamers from Belfast to Glasgow lowered their fares to 2s. for 1st cabin, 6d. for 2nd cabin, and carried deck passengers for nothing.
On the Dublin and Liverpool station competition was nearly as severe, one steamer sailing in the autumn of 1825 with upwards of 700 passengers carried at 6d. each.
Under these adverse circumstances, the proprietors of the Dublin and Liverpool Steam Navigation Co. deemed it prudent to make terms with their more powerful competitor, the City of Dublin Steam-Packet Co. The managers of the latter company, early in the following year (1st February, 1826), purchased the Navigation Co.’s steamers, and increased the capital of their own company to £250,000, in shares of £100 each.
The Press communications exchanged between the owners of the rival steam-packets must have been extremely entertaining to the citizens of Glasgow of that period. The following extraordinary literary effusion, from the owners of the steamboat Swift, was published in the “Glasgow Herald,” of the 30th June, 1825:—
“The great superiority of the Swift over the Cock Boat that is puffed off as sailing direct from the Bromielaw is now so well known at Glasgow and Belfast as scarcely to require to be noticed in this advertisement, but for the sake of strangers coming from a distance it may be proper to state that her power and size are double, and her speed so much greater, that when the two vessels start together the Swift runs the other out of sight in five or six hours. Her hours of sailing are so adapted to the tide, as to ensure the shortest possible passage, by arriving at Greenock and Glasgow about high water, and at Belfast as soon as there is water up to the quay.”
The following crushing reply of the owners of the steamer referred to as “the Cock Boat,” appeared in the next issue of the same newspaper.
“The fine new Steam-Packet George Canning continues to sail for Belfast every Tuesday and Friday. She is the only Steam-Packet that sails direct from Glasgow, therefore, her passengers are not subjected to the delay, inconvenience and risk, attending change of vessel and transhipment of luggage.
“The George Canning has crossed the Channel upwards of 60 times, and has in every instance accomplished her passage without putting into any intermediate ports.
“If the writer of a contemptible article in the Swift’s advertisement of Friday last, means the George Canning, he has the merit of stating a gross falsehood, knowing it to be such; and, therefore, written for the express purpose of deceiving the public!!!