[76] Marvin’s “American Merchant Marine.”
When the Pacific Mail Company established a competing line between New York and Chagres, Law placed an opposition line of four steamers on the Pacific. In 1851 the rivalry was ended by his purchasing their steamers on the Atlantic side, and selling to them his new line from Panama to San Francisco.
Twenty-nine fine steamers, of a total of 38,000 tons, were built in ten years for the two branches of the Californian trade, and the Pacific Mail Company, representing an amalgamation of the Law and Aspinwall interests, assumed the position, which it has retained ever since, of the leading American steam-ship company in the Pacific. The company is asserted to have carried 175,000 passengers to the “golden west” in that decade and to have brought back gold to the value of forty million pounds sterling.
“The Administration, which was so liberal in helping the Collins Line to beat the British, contracted with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, formed in 1847, for a service from Panama to Astoria, and from New York, Charleston, and New Orleans to Havana, from which port the company already had a connecting line to Chagres (Colon), thus completing the connection between the coasts.... The speed from Panama to San Francisco was more than ten miles an hour. Thus the United States had line traffic of first-class character connecting its remote coasts before it had an American line to Europe. At Panama it connected with the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, giving service to Peru and Chili, so that before the middle of the century the Pacific had at least 5000 miles continuous steam line traffic.”[77]
[77] “The Ocean Carrier,” by J. Russell Smith.
The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in the seventy years of its existence has played an eventful part in the history of the mercantile marine. Its earliest steamers were wooden paddle-boats, and were among the best, but in spite of their excellence they experienced an extraordinary run of misfortunes, and losses by fire and wreck marred the records of the company for several years after its incorporation in 1839. Its charter has been revised and extended from time to time, one clause being that the whole of the share capital must be British owned, and the management British. In its long career it has served almost every port in the West Indies with the mails, and has had no less than fifty-three contracts. At one stage its management was subjected to some strong criticism, but under its present management the company has prospered by leaps and bounds, affording an excellent illustration of the value of well-directed energy and enterprise.
The history of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company is the record of the development of the steamship connection between this country and the West Indian Colonies. In 1840 the original contract was entered into with the Admiralty Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral for the commencement of the mail service to the West India Colonies, the Spanish Main, New York, Halifax, Mexico, Cuba, &c.
The conditions under which the mail contract was to be carried out were somewhat onerous. One was that the company should receive on board every vessel a naval officer or other person and his servant to take charge of the mails, and that every such person should be recognised and considered by the company as the agent of the Commissioners in charge of the mails. He was empowered to require a strict observance of the contract and “to determine every question whenever arising relative to proceeding to sea, or putting into harbour, or to the necessity of stopping to assist any vessel in distress, or to save human life.” A suitable first-class cabin was to be furnished at the company’s expense, and appropriated to the officer’s use; he was to be victualled by the company as a first-cabin passenger without charge, and should he require a servant, such servant, “and also any person appointed to take charge of the mails on board,” should also be carried at the company’s cost. From which it would appear that some very comfortable places were at the disposal of the Admiralty. The Admiralty representative was also to be allowed a properly manned four-oared boat to take him ashore whenever he felt inclined to go. Various penalties were applicable for breaches of the contract, the fines ranging from £100 for doing something of which the official did not approve to £500 for a delay of twelve hours, and a further £500 for every twelve hours “which shall elapse until such vessel shall proceed direct on her voyage in the performance of this contract,” so far as the Barbadoes mails were concerned, and of £200 for mails for other places. Another stipulation was that naval officers were to be charged only two-thirds of the ordinary fares as passengers. The company’s subsidy was to be £240,000 per annum.
The company’s first steamer, the Forth, was launched at Leith in 1841, and on January 1, 1842, the West Indian mail service was established by the sailing of the steamer Thames from Falmouth. On completion of her voyage she proceeded to Southampton, which has been the terminal port of the company ever since. The company organised transit by mules and canoes across the Isthmus of Panama in 1846, opening up the route via Colon and Panama to the Pacific ports.
In the same year the Admiralty, in order to make a through mail communication between England and the West Coast of South America, contracted with the Pacific Steam Navigation Company for the carrying of mails from Panama in connection with the R.M.S.P. service to Colon, and the next year the latter company made through arrangements with the Pacific Steam Navigation Company and the Panama Railroad Company for traffic from Southampton (via Panama) to the South Pacific Ports.