2293. Your intention being that the mails should be carried as far as Point de Galle by the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and taken up at that point by you, and carried in your ships to Hong Kong?—Yes.
2294. How many vessels would that service have required?—It would have required three vessels.
2295. How many vessels were you in possession of, at that time?—We had one vessel.
2296. Where did you intend to get other vessels from?—We offered to hire them in India, where we had four or five at our disposal.
2297. You said the other day that it was not possible for you to guarantee any particular vessels in the Indian Seas as being obtainable by you for that purpose?—We stated in the tender that we would hire such vessels as we could procure, but we could not do that, because no time was allowed.
2298. You said the other day that the “India,” being a paddle ship, and over-built, was not particularly well qualified to deal with the typhoons in the China seas?—She was not the vessel that I would have chosen.
2299. You also told us that you had in your eye, as one of the other vessels of the contract, a steamer which had gone to China in the year 1830?—Yes.
2300. Will you be so good as to state what, according to your intention, was to have been the third ship by which the contract was to be performed?—The tender states that two vessels were to be built within a year for that purpose.
2301. But, speaking of time present, you intended to employ the “India,” and to take the chance of a steamer which went out to China in the year 1830, and to take the risk of your being able to pick up a third vessel; was that your intention?—Yes; but a company, of which I was a large proprietor, had five ships in India besides the “India.”
2302. Was that company, of which you were a large proprietor, able to guarantee that there would be other vessels to perform the contract?—Certainly. I made this tender quite certain that they would be very glad to employ their vessels there.