Returns to India by way of Trieste and the Red Sea.
Among the most zealous supporters of steam communication with the East, and subsequently one of the most arduous and conspicuous agitators of the overland route, was Mr. Thomas Waghorn.[301] He had been a mate in the Bengal pilot service, and, having piloted the Enterprize on her arrival at Calcutta, at once saw the advantages to be derived from the extension of steam-ships to India. In 1827 he became associated with the committee which had been formed in Calcutta for the prosecution of steam communication with England, and in the following year was accredited by that association to persons in authority at Madras, Ceylon, the Mauritius, the Cape, St. Helena, and London. Failing, however, to obtain sufficient patronage for a regular service by way of the Cape of Good Hope, he resolved to return to India by the Isthmus of Suez, as he had heard that the Enterprize was to be despatched up the Red Sea. With that object in view, he waited upon Lord Ellenborough, then President of the Board of Control, and also upon Mr. Lock, at that time Chairman of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, and offered to act as a courier to the East. His services having been accepted,[302] he left London on the evening of the 28th of October, 1829, crossed the continent of Europe to Trieste, and arrived at Alexandria on the 27th of November, at 8 A.M., passing through five kingdoms of Europe in nine and a half days; three days and seventeen hours of this arduous journey having been spent in stoppages. His orders were to meet the Enterprize at Suez, and to convey in her despatches for Sir John Malcolm, then governor of Bombay, but, this steamer having broken down on the passage, did not reach her destination.
Though much disconcerted by this misfortune, Mr. Waghorn at once hired an open native boat, and, without chart or compasses, sailed down the Red Sea to Jiddah, a distance of 628 miles, in six days, and, passing on thence, arrived at Bombay, March 21st, 1830, in the East India Company’s sloop Thetis, which had been sent to meet him.[303]
Still advocates Cape Route, 1830.
Though Waghorn was probably convinced in his own mind by the experience thus obtained of the superior advantages of the Red Sea route so far as regarded speed, he continued to advocate the establishment of a line of steam-vessels by the Cape in preference to any other,[304] no doubt feeling that, in supporting the views of the people of Calcutta, he was honestly performing his duties to those persons by whom he was employed. But whatever may have been the cause, he did not publicly support the overland route until some time afterwards. However, when free to act as he pleased, he took up the cause of the Red Sea route with his usual warmth and energy, and advocated it with more vigour and, certainly, with greater success than he had done that by the Cape of Good Hope.
Mr. Taylor’s proposal.
In the meantime other persons were steadily pursuing their endeavours to induce the East India Company to adopt the overland route, and among these may be mentioned Mr. J. R. Taylor,[305] who had long been as zealously labouring to form a company in London for the establishment of a regular communication by means of steam-vessels on the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. “The experience,” he remarked,[306] “afforded by passages made by steam-vessels in certain parts of the route selected, justifies the expectation that intercourse between the two countries may thus be effected in from fifty-four to sixty days;” and, in his letter forwarding a copy of his prospectus to Sir John Malcolm, he adds, “I beg leave respectfully to inform your Excellency, that the requisite number of steam-vessels being already built and equipped, a commencement may be made on the line of communication within three months from the period, when the assent of your Excellency’s Government to my proposition may be made known to me. If, then, I should be honoured by such assent, it is my intention, within the period already specified, to be the means of introducing into British India such a number of first-rate steam-vessels, unexceptionable in point of size and equipment, as will enable me to propose myself to become a general carrier to all the Indian Governments, both for England and in India, and will admit of those Governments maintaining a constant and regular communication with Great Britain, and all principal parts of British India, on the first and fifteenth of every month.”[307]
Reply of Bombay Government,
The result of this and other communications addressed by Mr. Taylor to the Government of Bombay, was an official letter from them to the Court of Directors stating that while they considered the Court alone “competent to pass a decision on his proposals,” they strongly commended the project he was endeavouring to accomplish. “We beg to add our opinion that no doubt can exist of the practicability as well as the utility of extending steam navigation to Egypt from Bombay; and that we should consider it a most fortunate circumstance if our attempts to promote this desirable object shall, by indicating such to be the case, induce men of enterprise and capital to embark in an undertaking of the nature proposed by Mr. Taylor.”
and discussion of the question.