An event occurred on the 8th November, 1861, which occasioned considerable public excitement, both in Great Britain and in the U.S.A. It was during the struggle between the Northern and Southern States, and two of the Commissioners of the Confederate States were forcibly removed from the Royal Mail steamer Trent, while on their way to Europe, by the officers and crew of the Federal man-of-war San Jacinto. This high-handed action, which was not repudiated by the Federal Government, was inexcusable, and the tone adopted by a great portion of the press of the Northern States was ludicrous, and unworthy of a great people.
In 1871 there was launched from the yard of Messrs. John Elder & Co. two splendid screw steamers to the order of the Royal Mail Co. These steamers were the Tagus and the Mozelle, both steamers being 3,252 tons gross register and 600 nominal horse-power. On her official trial trip the Tagus attained an average mean speed of 14·878 knots per hour, a result which was slightly surpassed by her sister ship the Mozelle, the average mean speed of the latter on her trial trip being 14·929 knots per hour.
At the same time Messrs. Elder & Co. effected an extraordinary improvement in the Tasmanian, an iron screw steamer the Royal Mail Co. had purchased from the unfortunate European and Australian Steam Navigation Co. This vessel was fitted with compound engines, and on her first voyage afterwards from Southampton to St. Thomas, occupying 14 days 2 hours, she consumed 466 tons of coal, against her former consumption of 1,088 tons on a voyage occupying 14 days 13 hours.
Since that date all the additions to the Company’s fleet have been screw steamers, and it now (1903) consists of 22 ocean steamers, with a gross tonnage of 87,855 tons, in addition to 9 coast steamers employed as feeders to the mail services.
In the first year of the present century, Messrs. Elder, Dempster & Co. established a service of mail steamers between Bristol and Jamaica. A detailed account of this service, which is known as the Imperial Direct West India Mail Service, Limited, will be found in the second part of this volume.
Chapter XV.
International rivalry in the Transatlantic.—The Collins Line and the Cunard Co.
For upwards of nine years Great Britain had held a monopoly of the transatlantic steamship business. America could and did build sailing vessels that were unsurpassed by those belonging to any other nation; her Baltimore clippers, Boston packets, and New York liners were all of them vessels of the highest class and reputation. But apparently Americans could neither build, nor own ocean steamers that were capable of successfully competing with British owned steamships. At least, it is a matter of history that from 1838 to 1847 all the steamships that crossed the North Atlantic sailed under the British flag, with one exception.
On the 15th September, 1845, Messrs. Forbes & Co. despatched from New York their auxiliary steamship Massachusetts. She was practically a full-rigged ship, 751 tons O.M., fitted with an engine of 170 horse-power. This engine had two cylinders each 3 feet stroke and 26 inches diameter. Steam was generated in two “waggon boilers,” each 14 feet long, 7 feet wide and 9 feet high. Her propeller was made of composition metal, and could be raised out of the water when not required. Her engine room, boilers, bunkers, &c., were situated in the lower after hold, and occupied a space equal to one-tenth of the cubic capacity of the ship. Her engines were capable of driving her in smooth water at the rate of about 8 knots per hour, on a consumption of 9 tons anthracite coal per 24 hours. The length of the Massachusetts was 161 feet, her beam 31 feet 9 inches, and her depth of hold 20 feet. She had a full poop, extending to the mainmast (and consequently forward of the funnel), in which there was accommodation for 35 first-class passengers. Her entire cost with machinery complete in all respects was £16,000. She made two round voyages between New York and Liverpool, and in June, 1846, was chartered to the U.S. Government to carry troops to the Gulf of Mexico. The Government were so well pleased with her that they afterwards purchased her, and she took part in the siege of Vera Cruz. Subsequently her name was changed to the Farralones, and she continued in the U.S. Navy until about 1870, when she was again sold. Her new owners removed her machinery and renamed her the Alaska.
Obviously the Massachusetts was not intended to compete against full-powered ocean steamships, and it was not until 1847 that the first American line of steamers to Europe was established. This was a line of steamships to run between New York and Bremen, calling at Southampton. The pioneer steamer of the line, the Washington, sailed on her first voyage from New York for Southampton on the same day (June, 1847) that the Britannia, belonging to the Cunard Company, sailed for Liverpool. This was the first ocean race between American and British steamships. Theoretically the American steamer was incomparably superior to the other. She was much larger and had double the power; she was new, while her rival had been buffeted by the Atlantic billows for seven years. Quoth the editor of the “New York Herald”: “We have to say that if the Britannia beats the Washington over (and they both, we understand, start the same day), she will have to run by the deep mines, and put in more coal.” The Britannia did not “run by the deep mines and put in more coal,” but she won the race by two full days.