Collins line relinquished, 1858.
But the Collins Company continued to run their ships with regularity and undaunted vigour up till 1858, and it was only when the shareholders discovered that they were competing with the Cunard and other British steamers at a ruinous loss, and declined to provide more capital, that this great but spirited undertaking was relinquished. Though the most strenuous exertions were made, every effort failed to resuscitate the Company. The losses had been stupendous: minor and separate interests, moreover, as well as those persons who, from the first, had been opposed to subsidies for the conveyance of the mails, now brought their influence to bear upon Congress. The merchants and shipowners of Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other places, envious of New York, complained loudly of that city having a virtual monopoly of the Transatlantic trade, nor did the owners of the sailing packets fail to renew their protests against the large annual grants of public money voted for ocean steam communication. In the face of these remonstrances, and of the numerous hostile interests now at work, the American Government declined to grant any further subsidies to the Collins Company, or to aid, from the public purse, another undertaking which proposed to take its place.
Scotia.
But the Cunarders did not relax their efforts to maintain the high position they had now attained. In 1862 they sent forth the Scotia, of which an illustration will be found on the following page.
Her great strength,
She also was built of iron, but superior in speed and strength to the Persia, and of somewhat greater power and dimensions.[212]
CUNARD STEAM-SHIP “SCOTIA.”
“In framing the Scotia, the utmost attention was bestowed for the purpose of giving strength and firmness to the whole of her large hull so as to enable her to resist strain, and make her invulnerable to concussion. To secure strength she is bound in the strongest manner throughout from stem to stern, and she is fitted with six transverse bulkheads which, in the length of the ship, divide the hull into seven perfectly water-tight compartments, and besides these she has also four water-tight subsidiary or caisson compartments. She is traversed from stem to stern by five keelsons, all of which are firmly secured at each bulkhead. At the bow, her framing is diagonal to afford the greatest possible resistance in case of concussion, and from the various peculiarities of her construction and the excellence of the material with which she has been built, the Scotia is admitted to be the strongest as she is certainly (1865) the finest merchant-steamer afloat, and, as such, may be safely adopted as the champion and model of a mercantile ocean steam-ship.”[213]
and speed.