Revenue and expenditure.
From whatever cause it may have arisen, the fact is apparent, that though the annual gross receipts of the company are enormous, its expenditure[354] is so great that less balance is left for the shareholders than is usually divided among those of undertakings of a similar character, which receive no assistance from Government, but are free to employ their ships in whatever branch of commerce they can be most profitably engaged.
Coals required.
Coal, as may be supposed, is one of the company’s heaviest items of expenditure, and one, also, that has greatly increased during the last few years; but when the price was comparatively moderate, the accounts of this company, from 1856 to 1865 inclusive, showed an expenditure for coal alone of no less than 5,250,000l. sterling, or, on the average, 525,000l. per annum: moreover, a large stock must be constantly kept[356] to meet the demands of the steamers employed on their various lines of communication; to maintain this stock, the company employ 170 sailing-ships annually, a trade which, in itself, would have been considered of no mean importance in the days of our forefathers.
Description of vessels.
It has not been the least interesting portion of my labours, to describe the different modes of commercial intercourse with India from the dawn of history, and, from the scanty fragments of very ancient records, to attempt to afford information, however imperfect, of the ships of the first traders by sea to the far East, their dimensions, the routes they followed, the length of their voyages, and something about their crews and internal economy. I have also traced their progress, as best I could, through the period of the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages, when the vessels of the proud Italian republics, in connection with the Muhammedans, retained for centuries in their hands that rich and ever envied commerce, thence onward to the period when the Portuguese and the Dutch were masters of the Indian seas, and, still further, to our own days, when a company of traders ruled alike the land and ocean of these vast and much prized territories; and I have, at the same time, given minute details of the ships and maritime services of this once all-powerful company.
Screw steamer Khedive.
I now supply the following illustration of one of the most modern vessels, belonging to the Peninsular and Oriental Company, engaged in that trade (she was built for the new line of commerce through the Suez Canal, by Messrs. Caird and Company, of Greenock, by whom her engines were also constructed); so that my readers may see the progress made in the mode of conducting maritime intercourse with India from the earliest period to our own time.
The Khedive is built of iron and propelled by the screw, combining all the qualities which modern science can suggest to secure with safety the greatest speed and capacity with the smallest current expenses.[357]
