About that period many shipowners were under the impression that full-rigged ships, such as the Massachusetts, with an auxiliary steam-engine, to be used only in calms and light winds, would in themselves combine all the best qualities of a sailing-ship and steamer: nor was this surprising. On the voyage, for instance, from England to India a sailing-vessel during the favourable trade winds and monsoons, which can always be depended upon for a considerable part of the voyage, would, under sail alone, make almost as much progress as a steamer; while, in the calms, which are invariably met with for from five to ten degrees on each side of the Equator, and, where sailing-vessels frequently are long detained, the small steam-engine could be applied to great advantage; as also on entering as well as on leaving harbours. Indeed, so strongly impressed was I with the value of auxiliary steam-vessels for distant voyages, that, in 1856, I undertook, even after these failures, to convey in seven such steamers, three-fourths of which belonged to myself, the monthly mails, within a given time, between London, the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Ceylon, Madras, and Calcutta.
The vessels thus employed were built entirely of iron, and ship-rigged, as may be seen by the following illustration of one of them; more fully so, in proportion to their size, than those of the General Screw Company, and, as their engines were only from 80 to 120 horse-power nominal, on a tonnage of from 800 to 1500 tons gross, they were purely auxiliary vessels. Under sail their speed was from 10 to 11 knots, with a favourable wind, and, under steam alone, from 6 to 7 knots an hour in light breezes or calms, but, in adverse winds, they made little or no progress, a fact arising in great measure from their small steam-power and from the resistance their heavy spars presented to the winds: consequently, though they met with no accidents, and were more to be depended upon, as to time, than ordinary sailing-vessels, they could not maintain the regularity essential for the mail service; so, after twelve months’ experience, I relinquished the undertaking.
AUXILIARY STEAMER TO CAPE AND INDIA.
Since that time no mails have been carried in any description of steam-vessels from England to ports eastward of the Cape of Good Hope by the Atlantic sea route, except it may be to Natal, and occasionally to the Mauritius, or to Zanzibar on the east coast of Africa.
Not borne out by the results.
In full powered steamers the space required for coals and machinery on these distant oversea voyages, over and above their first cost and current expenses, prevent them carrying cargo sufficient to afford remunerative returns, and their owners are not recouped by the extra rates of freight obtainable for the time saved on the voyages. In the case of the auxiliary steamers the results are the same, arising in a great measure from similar causes, for, though such vessels had greater space for cargo, yet the advantage thus gained is counterbalanced by the maintenance of a staff of engineers and firemen who, during the greater portion of the voyage are unemployed, and by the fact already stated that, though the auxiliary engine is valuable in calms, it has not power enough to be of service against strong and adverse winds. As a rule, therefore, it is in most cases more profitable to employ either a steamer with only light spars and a few fore and aft sails, or a full-rigged vessel which depends entirely upon her sails. Anything between the two has not hitherto been found to answer so well, though there may be exceptions depending on the trade in which such vessels are employed.
Conveyance of the Australian mails.
From the time of the opening of the overland route, all the mails to the East Indies have passed through Egypt, except those despatched by the two lines of auxiliary steamers round the Cape of Good Hope, to which I have just referred; and even by these vessels few or no letters were sent except to the intermediate ports; but, for many years after the overland route had been opened, the British mails to Australia and New Zealand were conveyed almost entirely by sailing-vessels, except during the two or three years the Australian Royal Mail Steam Packet Company carried on its operations. When the steamers of that company were unable any longer to continue the service, the Peninsular and Oriental Company undertook, as we have seen, the conveyance of these, the more important mails by way of Ceylon; but, when the service was relinquished for a time, as some of their steamers were required as transports for the Crimean War, the conveyance of the whole of the Australian mails, greatly to the annoyance and discomfort of the colonists, reverted again to sailing-vessels.
To obviate as far as practicable the delay and uncertainty in the time of the delivery of the letters, Government, instead of contracting for their conveyance by any one line of sailing-vessels, considered it expedient to throw the contracts open to the competition of all suitable vessels engaged in the trade with Australia. But this, too, was merely an experiment, and one which proved alike unsatisfactory to the public and Government. It was tried, however, for a year or more and, as it so happened, the trial was made just between the time when the steamers of the General Screw Company and those of the Australian Royal Mail Company had ceased to run, and of my own experiment with the Cape and Indian mail services.