The Atlantic was not the only scene of steam-ship enterprise in the early part of the nineteenth century, for merchants and shipowners recognised the importance of a faster and more regular communication between England and the Far East, and began to consider the desirability of employing steam-ships as soon as these vessels had shown that they could be used for sea voyages. At a meeting held in London in 1822 and attended by a number of merchants engaged in the Eastern trade, it was decided to form a steam-ship company to establish regular communication with India via the Cape of Good Hope, and to send Lieutenant Johnston to India to endeavour to interest merchants there in the scheme. The meeting naturally was in favour of the all-sea route by the Cape, but Johnston went to India via Suez, and became so convinced of the superiority of the latter route for mails and passengers and light merchandise that he became an enthusiastic advocate for its adoption. His mission to Calcutta was so successful that, in December 1823, Lord Amherst, the Governor, officially signified approval of steam-ship communication between the two countries, and recommended the Council to make a grant of 20,000 rupees to any British person or company who should, before the end of 1826, “permanently establish steam communication between England and India, either by the Cape of Good Hope or the Red Sea, and make two voyages out and two voyages home, occupying not more than seventy days on each passage.”[67]
[67] Lindsay’s “History of Shipping.”
Thanks to the generosity of the Rajah of Oude a sum of 80,000 rupees was subscribed in India. The enthusiasm shown in the East for the project induced the promoters in London to charter the Enterprise, which was then being built by Messrs. Gordon and Co. at Deptford. Johnston returned to England, and when the Enterprise was completed he was appointed her captain. She was a wooden paddle-steamer, 122 feet on the keel, and 27 feet beam, and of 479 tons register. Her engines of 120 horse-power were estimated to give her a speed of eight knots per hour in good weather. Her boiler, which was of copper in one piece, cost £7000 and weighed about 32 tons. She sailed from London on August 16, 1825, and arrived at Calcutta on December 7. Her stoppages to replenish her bunkers occupied ten days, so that her actual travelling time was ninety-three days. She depended largely on sail. This voyage is of importance as it was the first made to India by a vessel built for ocean navigation and fitted with an auxiliary engine.
The Enterprise cost £43,000, and soon after her arrival, as the first Burmese war was then in progress, the Indian Government gave £40,000 for her.
The Falcon, a sailing ship of 176 tons, and having steam auxiliary, went to Calcutta in 1825, but it is to the steamer Enterprise that the honour belongs of having first reached Calcutta as a steamer. All that the voyage of the Falcon proved was that she arrived safely; her engines were not much used and her small size shows that even if she had been filled with coal she could not have steamed all the way to Calcutta, nor were there sufficient coaling stations to enable her to do so.
The pilot of the Enterprise at Calcutta was Thomas Waghorn, then in the Bengal pilot service. The Calcutta Steam Committee, on behalf of the Indian Government, consulted him in 1827 on the question of the establishment of steam navigation between England and India, but though he visited a number of towns in England, his project of establishing a regular line of steamers via the Cape of Good Hope was not carried out. This, however, was not his only scheme.
One of the difficulties in the way of establishing steamers on the Red Sea route was the high price of coal at Suez. Waghorn ascertained that coal could be brought to Suez by camel from Cairo at a reasonably cheap rate, and he therefore urged the adoption of this route. While he was still in England he heard that the East India Company intended to send the Enterprise from India to Suez, and he then offered to make a trial voyage. He was appointed courier to the East, and left London in 1829, undertaking to carry despatches to Bombay and return with the reply in three months, a time which was usually occupied by sailing ships in voyaging one way. When he reached Suez he found that the Enterprise had broken down on the way, and he accordingly took an open boat and began the journey down the Red Sea. Fortunately, the company’s sloop Thetis, which had been sent to look for him, picked him up and took him to Bombay, and he returned to London in the appointed time. A steamer service down the Red Sea was then established. The Hugh Lindsay made the voyage from Bombay to Suez and back once a year until 1836, when two large steamers, the Atalanta and Berenice, took her place. During these years Waghorn devoted himself to overcoming the difficulties and dangers of travel across the desert from Alexandria to Suez.
“He associated with the Arabs, he lived in their tents, and gradually taught them that pay was better than plunder. He established a regular service of caravans, built eight halting-places between Cairo and Suez, and made what had been a dangerous path beset with robbers a secure highway. Before he left Egypt in 1841 he had a service of English carriages, vans, and horses to convey travellers.”[68]
[68] “Dictionary of National Biography.”
Meanwhile the service on the Cape route had been steadily improving.