My views in regard to this contract were fully stated in my annual report to Congress of December 1, 1853, and are also contained in the correspondence herewith communicated. It was not deemed necessary to answer the letter of Robert G. Rankin, president of the Mexican Ocean Mail and Inland Company, dated November 23, 1853, and received at the department on the 30th of January, 1854. That they were not prepared to fulfil their conditional contract on the 23d of November, 1853, nine months after its execution, is therein conceded, and the department had neither the time nor desire to enter into a discussion of the irrelevant matters introduced into the body of that letter.
The objections which I entertained to the change of schedule on the New Orleans and Vera Cruz route, proposed, by Messrs. Harris & Morgan in their letter of the 26th October, 1853, were two-fold:
1st. That by authorizing the change proposed the original intent and object of my predecessor, Mr. Hubbard, in entering into the conditional contract with Messrs. Ramsey and Carmick—which was, to secure an additional semi-monthly mail between the Atlantic States and California by alternating at regular intervals with the present semi-monthly line via Panama—would have been entirely frustrated; and thus, instead of having a weekly mail between the Atlantic and Pacific, there would have been, as heretofore, only a semi-monthly communication.
2d. By changing the schedule so as to make connections at Acapulco with the steamers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, that company would receive not only their regular compensation under their contract with the government, but extra pay under the contract of Ramsey & Carmick, although no additional service was really rendered by them to the department or the public.
Authority having been given by Mr. Hubbard on the 7th of March, 1853, to the postmasters of New Orleans, San Diego, Monterey and San Francisco, to make up and send mails by the Vera Cruz and Acapulco line, containing such matter as was expressly directed to go by that line, I took the precaution to withhold from those officers the authority to send mails without first consulting the department, by instructing them, on the 23d of September following, to report to the department before delivering such mails, for further instructions, should the proprietors apply for them. My object in issuing those instructions was simply to enable the department to be fully satisfied that all mails forwarded by that route were committed to the care and custody of competent and proper persons, and would be safely transported through Mexico. It does not appear, however, that any application has ever been made by Messrs. Ramsey & Carmick for a mail to be conveyed by that route, as no report from any postmaster to that effect has been received at this department.
I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
JAMES CAMPBELL.
Hon. Linn Boyd,
Speaker of House of Representatives.
No. 9—$424,000 per annum.
This article of contract, made the fifteenth day of February, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, between the United States (acting in this behalf by their Postmaster General) and Albert C. Ramsey and Edward H. Carmick, William H. Aspinwall and Edwin Bartlett, of the city of New York; Silas C. Herring, Elihu Townsend, Simeon Draper, and R. B. Coleman, of the same place, witnesseth: That whereas, by an act of Congress, passed March 3, 1845, entitled “An act to provide for the transportation of the mail between the United States and foreign countries, and for other purposes,” the Postmaster General is authorized to contract for the transportation of the United States mail between any of the ports of the United States and a port or ports of any foreign power whenever, in his opinion, the public interests will thereby be promoted; and whereas, by another act of Congress, passed March 3, 1851, entitled “An act to establish certain post-roads in the United States and the Territories thereof,” the Postmaster General is authorized to enter into contracts, for a period not longer than four years, for transporting through any foreign country the mails of the United States, and that in making such contracts, the Postmaster General shall be bound to select the speediest, safest, and most economical route; and whereas notice has been given by advertising, in accordance with the directions of said act, for inviting proposals for mail contracts, under and by virtue of the acts aforesaid; and whereas Albert C. Ramsey and Edward H. Carmick have been accepted, according to law, as contractors for transporting the mail on route No. 9, from Vera Cruz, via Acapulco, to San Francisco and back, twice a month, according to the schedule hereinafter mentioned, in thirteen days each way, being an extension of two of the trips on the New Orleans and Vera Cruz line through Mexico, for the purpose of conveying the mail, and thus making one through-line in sixteen days between New Orleans and San Francisco, at and for the sum of four hundred and twenty-four thousand dollars per year, for and during the term commencing from the time Congress shall ratify this contract, and ending four years from that date, with the right reserved to the Postmaster General to continue it one year longer, at the same terms: