For several years prior to the arrangement of the Contract with this Company, for the accelerated transmission of the India Mails to and from Alexandria, much public solicitude had been manifested for a more comprehensive system of steam communication with India than that which had been established by the Government and the East India Company. That establishment being considered, as, indeed, at its commencement it was professed to be, merely a preliminary and experimental one—intended to pave the way for a more comprehensive scheme, that should embrace all the Presidencies, and not be limited to the port of Bombay only, as the Government and East India Line was,—and which it was expected private enterprise would undertake, after the navigation of the Red Sea, and other important questions connected with such an undertaking, had been tested by the Imperial and Indian Governments.
As a proof of the importance which was attached to this extension of steam communication with British India, the following declarations of eminent persons connected with the Government of that empire may be quoted:—
The late Lord William Bentinck, then Governor-General of India, stated, in a public despatch, that so great were the advantages which it would confer, “that it would be cheaply purchased at any price.” The present Right Honourable President of the India Board, Sir John Cam Hobhouse, who then filed the same post, in speaking in the House of Commons of various ameliorations which the Government he was then connected with had in view for India, in which improved steam communication formed an item, said, that “it was calculated to benefit India to an extent beyond the power of the most ardent imagination to conceive.” And the present Lord Bishop of Calcutta, in a public address at a meeting in that city, said, that “the extension of steam navigation with India would be opening the floodgates of measureless blessings to mankind.”
Various attempts, however, under the sanction of eminent merchants, and other influential parties connected with India, to form a Company and establish the so much-desired scheme having failed, the parties who had been instrumental in establishing the Peninsular Company, and the accelerated conveyance for the India Mails to Alexandria, feeling that they had placed themselves in a position to effect this important national object, resolved to adopt it as a part of their enterprise, which they thenceforth designated “The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company.” It was accordingly formed into a joint-stock Company, and a Charter of Incorporation from the Crown was applied for, which, after considerable opposition from other parties, was granted—but subject to the following conditions, namely, “That the Company should open an improved steam communication with India throughout, from England, within two years from the date of the Charter, or it should be null. That all steam vessels to be constructed by the Company of 400-horse power, and upwards, should be so strengthened and otherwise arranged as to carry and fire guns of the largest calibre then used in Her Majesty’s steam vessels of war. That the Government should have a power of inspection, as to their being maintained in good and efficient sea-worthy condition, and that the Company should not sell any of such vessels without giving the pre-emption of purchase to the Government.”
The Company under this Charter having obtained the necessary additional capital, and being joined also by most of the parties who had previously been endeavouring to effect this object under the designation of “The East India Steam Navigation Company,” proceeded, with all practicable speed, to fulfil the conditions, and carry out the object of their Charter of Incorporation.
On the 24th September, 1842, their first vessel destined for the India Sea service, the “Hindostan,” of 1800 tons, and 520-horse power, constructed at Liverpool, at a cost of £88,000, was despatched from Southampton for Calcutta, to open the “Comprehensive” line of communication, by plying between Calcutta, Madras, Ceylon, and Suez.
The commencement of this communication, by so large and powerful a vessel, was looked upon as a public event, and the ship was visited by members of the then Government, Directors of the Honourable East India Company, and many other eminent individuals.
It may here be necessary to advert to a circumstance which has been made the subject of much misrepresentation, and was even attempted, although without success, to be misrepresented to the Parliamentary Committee. (See evidence of Mr. Andrew Henderson in the Report, questions 2200 to 2208, and 2333, and 2334; also, correspondence between the East India Company and the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, in the Appendix, page 224 to 227.)
The circumstance alluded to was this:—The Directors of the East India Company, seeing that the extension of steam communication with India was at last in the hands of parties likely to place it on a practical basis, and desirous to encourage it on public grounds, voluntarily proposed to the Peninsular and Oriental Company to give them a premium of £20,000 per annum, and to continue the same for five years, on certain conditions, which, if the Company should at any time neglect or decline to fulfil, it was at the option of the East India Company to withdraw the premium or grant.