These three celebrated steamers, the Alaska, Arizona and Oregon were popularly known as the “Greyhounds of the Atlantic.” As has been stated, the Oregon was lost after collision, the Arizona is still afloat, and the Alaska was sold in 1902 for the purpose of breaking up. After the decease of Mr. S. B. Guion, which occurred on the 19th December, 1885, the steamers of the fleet were gradually disposed of to various purchasers. The firm, however, of Guion & Co. is still in existence, as passenger agents, the business being carried on by Mr. Frank Ramsden and Mr. I. O. Roberts.
The Royal Atlantic Steam Navigation Company, better known as the “Galway Line,” was established by a number of English and Irish gentlemen, who in January, 1859, proposed to the British Government to carry H.M. mails from Galway to Portland, Boston, or New York, via St. John’s, Newfoundland, or otherwise, for the sum of £3,000 on the round voyage. They further offered “to convey telegraphic messages from the United Kingdom to British North America and the United States in six days, casualties excepted.” As the Atlantic cable was not then in existence, the Government was favourably disposed to the scheme, and on the 21st April, 1859, a contract was entered into with the said company, based on the terms of the proposals made to the Government.
On the 10th June following, the Royal Atlantic Steam Navigation Company contracted with Messrs. Palmer, of Newcastle, for the construction of two steamships, the cost of each to be £95,000; and five days later (15th June) they concluded a similar contract with Messrs. Samuelson, of Hull, for two steamships, to cost £97,000 each. As the date of the commencement of the postal service, according to the Government contract, was fixed for June, 1860, the contract with the builders stipulated for delivery of the vessels within eleven months from the date of the agreement. It was also a condition of the contracts, that the ships were to be built according to lines, plans, and specifications approved by the Admiralty. The four steamships referred to were almost uniform in model, measurement and equipment. Each measured about 2,800 tons, with engines of about 850 nominal horse-power. Their principal dimensions were—Length 360 feet, beam 40 feet, and depth of hold 32 feet. Those built by Messrs. Palmer were named Connaught and Hibernia, and those by Messrs. Samuelson, Columbia and Anglia. A clause in the Company’s contract with the builders specified “that each of the said vessels when completed was, on a fair and proper trial thereof, to accomplish a speed at the rate of 20 statute miles per hour in smooth water, and to consume not more than 8,800 pounds of fuel per hour.” In the case of the Connaught this condition was not complied with, for on her trial trip the Government Inspector reported that the speed of this “vessel was about thirteen knots.”
From its commencement the Company was in difficulties. The second steamer, the Hibernia, on being surveyed by the Government Inspectors, was found to be leaky. None of the vessels were delivered within the time agreed upon, and in order to keep faith with the Government the Company was compelled to charter a steamer to inaugurate the service. They accordingly hired from the Messrs. Malcomsons, of Waterford, one of their Liverpool and River Plate steamers, the Parana, which sailed from Galway on the 27th June, 1860, and arrived at St. John’s in seven days thirteen and a half hours, or one day thirteen and a half hours beyond the stipulated time for delivering the telegraph messages at St. John’s.
The second steamer to sail from Galway was the Connaught, which sailed for Boston direct on the 11th July, and was twenty-two and a half hours over contract time in arriving at that port. This steamer was totally lost on her second voyage in October of the same year.
The third steamer of the Company sailed from Galway on the 9th April, 1861, and returned in May following in a disabled condition, having met with ice on the passage. She made the slowest passage outwards of any of the fleet, having taken ten days seven and a half hours to reach St. John’s, and seventeen days twenty and three quarter hours to reach Boston.
As two of their own steamers were unavailable, the one being lost and the other disabled, the Directors found it necessary to take up outside steamers. They therefore chartered the Prince Albert, and purchased the Adriatic, one of the latest and most famous of the Collins Line. She appears to have been the only vessel belonging to the Company capable of carrying out the terms of the Government Contract. She completed the run from Galway to St. John’s in the specified time, six days, and to New York in one day fifteen hours and fifteen minutes less than contract time. On her return she made the passage from St. John’s to Galway in five days nineteen hours and three quarters, the shortest passage on record from port to port across the Atlantic. It is impossible to state what would have been the result had the steamers built for the Company been equal to the Adriatic, but she was secured too late to retrieve the fortunes of the Company. Unable under such adverse circumstances to raise fresh capital, the managers of the Company had no course left but to abandon their undertaking, and they terminated their contract in May, 1861. This unfortunate enterprise entailed a loss to the Government of about £15,000, while it is probable that the loss incurred by the shareholders of the Company was not less than £150,000 during the short period of its existence.
Chapter XVIII.
The Orion wrecked off Portpatrick, 1850.—The steamer Neptune.—A second “Grace Darling,” 1852.
One of the most convincing proofs of the splendid management of the several steamship companies which trade between Liverpool and Glasgow, of the skill and honest workmanship put into the vessels, and of the great care exercised by the officers who navigate these ships, is the fact that for upwards of eighty years there has been but one disaster accompanied by loss of life on this station.