An Abstract of the Proceedings of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, Appointed Session, 1849, to Inquire Into the Contract Packet Service

by Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company; Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee to Inquire into the Contract Packet Se

2273. I understood you to complain, that in the year 1844, the Board of Admiralty laid down a certain condition with regard to the horse power of the vessels to be employed in conveying the mails between Suez and Calcutta, which condition excluded the steamer “India?”—Yes.

2274. I understood you also to say, that that very same condition as to the horse power had been previously laid down by the East India Company, and that in the year 1841 the steamer “India” was pressed upon the East India Company by the Peninsular and Oriental Company, who had expected to buy her as a good bargain; and that the East India Company, being so pressed, refused to accept her?—I can now explain it.

2275. Is all that true?—Partly so, but not in the way you put it.

2276. But are the facts true; yes or no. I have collected the facts from your previous answers, and am putting them to you again; if any one of them be inaccurate, point out the one which is inaccurate?—You ask whether she was rejected in 1841; she was. But allow me to give the reasons.

2277. Was she rejected for the service between Suez and Calcutta in the year 1841?—She was refused to be received under a certain engagement.

2278. Did the East India Company, in the year 1841, refuse to accept the “India” steamer for the line between Suez and Calcutta?—Yes, but that had no reference to her capacity as a mail steamer.

2279. Be so good, then, as to explain the difference between the two cases?—The difference was this: in 1841 it was the voluntary proposition of the Peninsular and Oriental Company to undertake the communication between Suez and Calcutta, with vessels of 520-horse power; it was not for a mail contract, a mail contract not being necessary; and they put in the 520-horse power with the intention, I believe, of shutting out the “India” and other vessels. It was for a passenger line, not for a mail line, because the same mails were carried by Government vessels to Bombay, and therefore there was no necessity for a mail line, or for her service as a mail packet; but it had been an object of great consideration, both by the Government at home and the inhabitants of India, to have a passenger communication with Calcutta the same to which the remuneration had been promised. The “India” was on the spot, about to establish that, and the “Precursor” was being prepared to extend it; the Peninsular and Oriental Company came in with an engagement to do, for, apparently, a very small sum, what those vessels were then about doing; that was for the purpose of maintaining the passenger communication between Calcutta and Suez. They offered to do this with vessels of 520-horse power as a passenger line, which was, of course, a good deal better than doing it with vessels of 300-horse power, because the object was the accommodation of passengers, and, no doubt, a vessel of 520-horse power must have a great deal more accommodation for passengers than one of 300-horse power; and therefore, in asking the East India Company to accept a vessel of 300-horse power, instead of a vessel of 520-horse power, they were simply asking them to take a very considerable sum off their engagement. That was a very different thing from carrying the mails, which the “India” might have done; and, in fact, the experience of one year has proved that she was capable of doing it.

2280. You having stated your view of the reasons which influenced the East India Company, whether you are right in your view of those reasons or not, the fact was, that the steamer “India,” being pressed upon the East India Company by the Peninsular and Oriental Company, was rejected; is that so?—I understood that she was rejected, because it was not——

2281. Whatever were the reasons, was the fact so?—Yes.

2282. And your opinion was, that the Admiralty ought to have made in 1844 a different set of conditions, which would have included the steamer “India?”—I think the Admiralty, having the plans and specifications of the ship “India” before them, ought to have judged from them as to the sufficiency of the vessel, and not from the nominal horse power.