The Peninsular Company chartered a number of vessels for its early service, but it was not until 1837 that it commenced to despatch mail-packets regularly from London to Lisbon and Gibraltar under contract with the British Government, which at that time and for twenty years afterwards was represented by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. This contract was tendered for by both the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company and a concern called the British and Foreign Steam Navigation Company, but the latter was unable to convince the Government that it possessed the resources, both financial and shipping, which would enable it to carry out the engagement. The Peninsular Company, on the other hand, was able to give the required assurance. The company undertook, in return for an annual subsidy of £29,600, to convey the mails monthly to the Peninsula. The pioneer vessel of this service was the Iberia, of 690 tons and 200 horse-power, which sailed in September 1837. Altogether the company had ten vessels, two of which were chartered from the City of Dublin Company.
The statement is often made that the steamer William Fawcett[71] was the first boat of the company; she was built in 1829 by Caleb Smith of Liverpool, and her engines were by Messrs. Fawcett and Preston, also of Liverpool; and after being used for some years as a ferry-boat on the Mersey she was placed on the Liverpool and Dublin route and may have been “chartered for a short time to the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company in 1835 or 1836, as she does not appear in the company’s advertised sailing list for 1838.”[72]
[71] See the [Frontispiece] to this book.
[72] Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”
In 1839 the British and French Governments arranged that the Indian mails should be sent by way of Marseilles and thence taken by an Admiralty packet to Malta to be transhipped to another Admiralty packet for conveyance to Alexandria. As was to be expected, an arrangement of this sort, involving such possibilities of delay, did not last long, and the Government advertised for tenders for the mails to be carried between Alexandria and England, with calls at Gibraltar and Malta both ways. Four tenders were sent in, and that of the Peninsular Company, which offered to do what was required for £34,200, was accepted. The company also offered to charge reduced fares to officers travelling on the public service and to carry Admiralty packages for nothing.
The urgency of a more regular steam communication between England and India than was supplied by the sailing or auxiliary Indiamen was now being extensively discussed, and the Government was asked to subsidise a line of steamers between England and Calcutta which should make the passage in thirty days. The Peninsular Company offered to carry the mails between England and Alexandria with the two steamers Great Liverpool and Oriental, and in 1840 the company was incorporated by Royal Charter under the name of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, with a view to the extension of its operations to the Far East. The Great Liverpool was of 1540 tons, and had been built for the Liverpool and New York trade, and the Oriental was of 1600 tons and 450 horse-power. The company was afterwards requested to place two smaller steamers on the Malta and Corfu branch of the mail service, and did so for no less than £10,712 below what it had cost to maintain the Admiralty packets.
The “Hindostan” (P. & O. Company, 1842).
The inadequate service maintained between Calcutta and Suez had given rise to many complaints, and at last, after considerable pressure had been brought to bear on the East India Company by the Government in London, the former consented to enter into a contract with the P. & O. Company for the conveyance of the mails between these two points. The company despatched its first steamer to India in September 1842, this being the Hindostan, a fine vessel of 2017 tons, and 520 horse-power. She was a three-masted vessel, and carried square sails on the foremast, and of her two funnels one was set before and the other abaft the paddles. Her departure was regarded as of national importance, and the warships she passed as she left port were manned in her honour. She was placed on the route between Calcutta and Suez, with calls at Madras and Ceylon; and as other steamers followed, the company was soon able to contract for the conveyance of the mails monthly from Ceylon to Hong-Kong, with calls at Penang and Singapore, for a subvention of £45,000. The company received £115,000 for its service between Calcutta and Suez. The Eastern services were attended with no little difficulty. At Suez and Aden fresh-water supplies had to be organised, and coaling stations, docks, and store establishments had to be established wherever necessary.
The scramble over the isthmus of Suez, whence came the name of the “overland route,” was one of the great drawbacks of this way to the East, and many persons preferred to travel to India by way of the Cape. In spite of its name the overland route was mostly a waterway, for the Mahmoudieh Canal enabled the P. & O. Company to transport its passengers and goods from Alexandria to the Nile, where they travelled by steamer to Cairo, and the land portion of the journey was rather less than 100 miles across the desert from Cairo to Suez. Caravans, sometimes numbering more than three thousand camels, were employed to convey a single steamer’s loading between Suez and Cairo. In passing from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean port every package had to undergo three separate transfers.