While Durham was occupied with his preparations for his mission to Canada, events occurred which were not only of unsurpassed importance to communication between Europe and America, but which seemed to promise a strengthening of the relations between the mother country and her colonies.
In April 1838, two steamships sailed from the United Kingdom for New York—the "Great Western" from Bristol, and the "Sirius" from Cork—and reached their destination safely, the former in fifteen days, and the latter in seventeen days.[257]
As the voyages were made in the face of stiff, westerly winds, the speed of the "Great Western" and the "Sirius" gave much satisfaction, and it was accepted as settled that thereafter steam would be the motive power in the faster vessels employed in the transatlantic trade.
The rapidity with which this conviction established itself was remarkable. There is nothing surprising in the immediate recognition of this new achievement of steam by speculative publicists, who saw in the events only the realization of their visions, but the British treasury, the arcanum of conservative caution, yielded with almost equal readiness to the argument provided by the two vessels.
The British consul at New York was the first to bring to official attention the importance of this advance in the art of navigation. By the return of one of the vessels, he suggested to the colonial office that all official despatches and commercial letters for the Canadas should be directed to the consulate at New York. He undertook to assort the correspondence, and forward it to Montreal and Toronto by queen's messengers.
By avoiding the delays to which the regular couriers were subject, and taking advantage, wherever possible, of the steamboats running on the inland waters and of the railroads, which were beginning to be constructed throughout the eastern states, the messengers would be able to provide a greatly accelerated service. The answers to letters sent from London or Liverpool to Canada should be back in those cities in from thirty to thirty-five days—approximately the time taken by the Halifax packets on a single trip.
The British post office saw reasons for declining the proposal, so far as it regarded commercial correspondence. It was, however, prepared to transmit official despatches by this means, and to arrange for their conveyance from New York in the manner indicated by the consul.
The people of Halifax—who had always regarded with a jealous eye the disposition of the inland British colonies, to use the port of New York in preference to their own—managed, at this juncture in the history of ocean transport, by an appeal to imperial considerations to make a strong case for their port. By a happy chance, the "Sirius" on its first homeward voyage, overtook the mail packet from Halifax, and the captain of the packet, impressed by the higher speed of the steam vessel, induced the captain of the "Sirius" to take the mails, with the result that their arrival was advanced by several days.
Joseph Howe and some other gentlemen from the Maritime provinces who happened to be passengers on the sailing packet when this incident occurred, were struck with this demonstration of the superiority of steam, and discussed among themselves whether this fact might not indicate the means of overcoming, in favour of Halifax, the advantage enjoyed by the port of New York.
On the arrival of Howe in London, a meeting was called of men interested in the subject, and it was resolved to press their views on the attention of the government. Several of the gentlemen wrote to the colonial secretary, and a memorial of a more formal character was submitted, bearing the signatures of Howe, as representative of Nova Scotia, and of William Crane, a member of the legislature of New Brunswick, as representative of that province.[258]