Part 4

2015. What was the subject of that memorial or letter?--The merchants represented to Sir Francis Collier the serious inconvenience which they, “and, in particular, the Canton community, have suffered, and continue to suffer, by the frequent late arrival of the steamers conveying her Majesty’s mails. The delay seems to have arisen from the steamers being generally unable to keep the time contracted for by the Admiralty, for the performance of the several distances, as will be seen, we believe, by the reports sent home by the Admiralty agents, appointed to the several steamers. The time slowed is very ample, rendering it seldom necessary to exceed a speed of eight miles per hour; and had the steamers been the superior class of vessels contracted for by the Admiralty, and ‘keeping pace with the advanced state of science,’ no difficulty in performing the passages within the specified time ought ever to be experienced. An improvement has lately taken place in the class of boats, by the arrival of other steamers; but the system adopted, and particularly, of late, of overloading them, and to such an extent as to render it necessary to carry a large quantity of coal on deck, tends to perpetrate the evil, and to create even greater detention than before, while it greatly endangers the lives of her Majesty’s subjects, and the safety of her Majesty’s mails. It is our opinion, that on several occasions it may solely be attributed to unforeseen and fortunate circumstances that the steamers have been enabled to reach their destination. Considering the large sum given by her Majesty’s Government for the purpose of carrying the mails, and also that thereby the Peninsular and Oriental Company are enabled to have a monopoly of the traffic on this side of Egypt, we think the mercantile community have reason to expect that, at all events, the contract shall be faithfully adhered to, and that the steamers shall not be allowed to carry beyond a certain and safe amount of cargo;” and they request Sir Francis Collier to call the attention of the Lords of the Admiralty to the subject.

2016. Was that transmitted by Admiral Collier?--It was transmitted to the Admiralty by Admiral Collier.

2017. What was Sir Francis Collier’s remark or observation when he transmitted that memorial?--Sir Francis Collier’s letter does not appear to be in this correspondence, but I presume it can be produced.

2018. What was done in consequence of the transmission of that memorial?--“A letter appears to have been written on the 11th of April, 1849, by the Secretary of the Admiralty to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, enclosing a copy of the memorial which had been received from Sir Francis Collier, and the Company were acquainted that the Board of Admiralty trusted that they had already taken steps to prevent the recurrence of the delays complained of.”

2019. Will you read any previous letter on the same subject which was laid before the Admiralty by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company?--“Admiralty, 6th March, 1849.” (This is from the Secretary of the Admiralty to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company.) “Gentlemen, it having been represented to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty that the contract steam packet, ‘Achilles,’ was delayed in her voyage from Point de Galle to Hong Kong, in November last, she having sailed from the former place on the 29th of that month, and not arriving at Hong Kong until the 23rd of December; thus being 175 hours beyond the time allowed by the contract; I am commanded by my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to call your attention to the circumstance, and to acquaint you that it appears that the place intended for coals on board the ‘Achilles’ was occupied by opium chests, and the coals placed on deck, and the vessel overloaded; and that my Lords are informed that her arrival at Hong Kong, 175 hours after she was due, was owing to the excess of cargo, and to the negligent and lazy manner in which the vessel was coaled at Singapore.”

2020. What was the result of that letter?--The secretary of the Company answered it on the 10th of March, 1849--“I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, dated 6th instant, calling the attention of the Directors of the Company to a representation which has been made to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that the Company’s contract steamer, ‘Achilles,’ was considerably delayed upon her voyage from Point de Galle to Hong Kong, in November last, and that such delay was owing to the excess of cargo, and to negligence in the coaling at Singapore. In reply, I am instructed to express the great regret with which the Directors have received this communication, and to acquaint you, for the information of their Lordships, that a rumour having already reached them that some representations of the kind had been addressed to their Lordships, the Directors, by the mail of the 24th of February, wrote to the Company’s superintendent at Bombay, calling upon him for full and immediate explanation of the circumstances. Until the receipt of his report it will be impossible for the Directors to say how far the allegations in question are well founded; but, in the meantime, they are anxious to state that their standing instructions to all the agents and officers of the Company are, that the punctual performance of the mail service is to be ever regarded by them as paramount to every other consideration, and that any departure from that principle will be visited by the Directors with the utmost severity. The Directors take this opportunity of acquainting you, for the information of their Lordships, that having found by experience that no commercial house, however high its respectability, can represent the Company so efficiently at foreign stations as an officer of their own, they, by the last steamer, despatched Captain Sparkes, lately the Company’s superintendent at Southampton, to relieve the firm at present acting as the Company’s agents at Singapore, in the superintendence of the Company’s affairs at that port, and they feel every confidence that he will actively and zealously discharge his duties at that station. The Directors also think it right to state, that from such information as they are at present in possession of, they have reason to consider that the representation which has been made to their Lordships is exaggerated, both as regards the extent of the delay of the ‘Achilles,’ and the alleged causes thereof.”

2021. This letter is of the date of the 10th of March, 1849; what is the date of the memorial of the merchants of Canton?--The 29th of December, 1848.

2022. Was there any corresponding complaint or representation from the Admiralty officer on board the vessel to the Lords of the Admiralty?--I cannot state.

2023. Was not the first letter which you read in consequence of the official representations made to the Admiralty, through their officer, as to the delay of the “Achilles,” previous to the reception of the memorial from Hong Kong?--I have no doubt it was.

2024. The Company say, in the letter of the 10th of March, that they can give no answer to the complaint made of misfeasance in the contract between Ceylon and China, til they shall receive a report from their agent at Bombay?--They state that they wrote to their superintendent at Bombay, calling upon him for an immediate explanation of the circumstances.

2025. Do you know that the service is now performed from Ceylon to China by a vessel that starts from Bombay, and picks up the mail there?--I believe it is so.

2026. What was the result of those communications; did the Admiralty come to any decision upon them?--On the 12th of March, the Admiralty acquainted the Company that they “were gratified to learn that they had despatched an officer of their own to act as superintendent at Singapore, and who may be able to prevent the recurrence of the delay complained of.”

2027. Nothing was done by the Admiralty but to express their satisfaction that the Company had sent out an agent to Singapore, as an answer to that complaint of the Company overloading their vessels, and being out of time?--The Admiralty subsequently sent forward the letter I have read from the merchants, stating, “that their Lordships trust you have already taken steps to prevent the recurrence of the delays complained of.” The Admiralty appear to have done nothing more; the matter is still in the course of investigation; it is not yet closed; the explanation has not yet been received from the Company.[7]

2028. Have you any other complaints?--No.

_Charge of corrupt Jobbing, and Favouritism by the Admiralty towards the Peninsular and Oriental Company._

Examination of Mr. Andrew Henderson--

2138. Am I to understand that you make two complaints: first, that there was no opportunity for tendering; and, secondly, that the price was too high?--Yes.

2139. Were you during the period, from the beginning, in 1844, to the time at which the contract was finally signed, in constant communication with the Admiralty?--I used to go to the Contract Packet Office, which was the only place I could go to; I could get no answer to my letter.

2140. Did it come before the Board?--It appears not; Mr. Sidney Herbert told me that he had never heard of it.

2141. On the 8th of August Mr. Sidney Herbert told you it was open to you to send in any contract that you wished?--Yes.

2142. Did you send in a contract, offering to do the service with efficient vessels for £60,000?--No; I gave this proof that it could be done; but I made no tender for it, because I had no vessel for it.

2143. Your opinion was, that £60,000 was an adequate price, and that the public in general, and you in particular, ought to have an opportunity of making a tender; did you tender to do the service at that price?--In reply to that question I may state, that early in December the representative of the “Precursor,” Sir George Larpent, and myself, waited upon the President of the Board of Control, and asked him to take care that our interests should be considered, and we received an assurance that they should be considered; and in the scheme for the mails it is particularly stated that those two vessels were ready, and it was suggested that they should take alternately the mails with the other two vessels.

2144. I ask you whether you did or did not offer to do the service for £60,000?--I can hardly say whether you can call it an offer, but I submitted a scheme by which it was shown that it could be done for £60,000; contracts were not advertised for, and therefore we were not in a position to send in contracts.

2145. You placed in the hands of Mr. Crofton Croker a lithographic statement, from which you considered the inference might be drawn that £60,000 would be sufficient for that service?--Yes.

2146. Was that statement anonymous, or was it guaranteed by any name?--It was guaranteed by my own name; and the same thing was stated in the plan submitted to Government; and that plan has, every bit of it, been carried out since.

2147. My only object is to come to an accurate understanding of the facts; I understand your grievance to be, that the more expensive tender, from the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company, was accepted by the Admiralty, when a cheaper contract might have been had from other parties, and that, in your judgment, £60,000 a year would have been ample for that service; is that so?--My complaint is, that the proposal of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company to undertake the Bombay mails was not accepted, but that they were allowed to adopt all my plans, and I was refused all participation in it. It could not be called a contract, it was not the time for a contract; contracts were never asked for; but there was clear evidence given that, if we were allowed to take it, it could be done for £60,000.

2148. You complain that an unfair advantage was allowed to be taken of you, by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company?--Certainly; I complain that they were allowed to take advantage of my plans and to adopt them, and that I was not allowed to compete for the contract.

2149. In your plan, you said it could be done for £60,000?--Yes.

2150. Your general plan has been adopted by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company?--Yes; my plan was distinctly opposed to theirs. Their plan was this: the vessels which were bound to go every month to Bengal, they purposed that those vessels should go to Bombay, and that once in every two months those vessels should go to Calcutta. That was, in point of fact, reducing the present communication, from a separate mail to Bombay and Calcutta, to one mail to Bombay.

2151. Your complaint was, that you were excluded from the opportunity of competing for the contract?--Yes; and that my plans were adopted.

2152. You have put it on record, that on the 6th of August the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated to you, that he had given no authority for the conclusion of the contract?--Yes, he said that he had nothing to do with it.

2153. On the 8th of August, two days afterwards, you have put it on record that the Secretary to the Admiralty told you that it was quite open to you to send in any tender you pleased?--Yes.

2154. And it was therefore open to the public in general, and to you in particular, to put in a tender thereupon?--I sent in a distinct tender for the China mail.

2155. But we were speaking of the service for which you say £60,000 was ample; viz. the Suez and Calcutta service. Confining yourself at present to that, you were told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the 6th of August, that the contract was not concluded, and you were told by the Secretary of the Admiralty, on the 8th of August, that it was open to you, in particular, to send in any tender for the conveyance of the mail from Suez to Calcutta?--I was engaged in the other one at the time.

2156. Then is there any grievance at all as regards your being deprived of the mail from Suez to Calcutta?--Certainly, a very great grievance.

2157. Be as good as to explain what that grievance is?--The grievance is, that the “India” and the “Precursor” were not allowed to participate in the advantage.

2158. Then, whether the sum paid for the service was £60,000 or £170,000, your grievance is, that the “India” and the “Precursor” did not come in for a share of it?--That is one point; but, on public grounds, I maintain that the sum given was a great deal too large, and that that sum was not given to merchants and shipowners in India, but to a London company.

2159. To whomever it was given, £60,000 would have been the sum for which shipowners would have been ready to do the service?--Yes.

2160. You had a knowledge of the fact, at the time the tender was open to you, that it could be done for £60,000?--I had not money enough to do it.

2161. Were you not in communication with all the principal shipowners who signed the petition?--Yes.

2162. Did you get up the petition which was presented on the 8th of August?--I did.

2163. Are those parties whose names were signed to it parties who had capital to compete for a good contract, if it was to be had?--Certainly.

2164. Did they, or any of them, send in a tender to the Board of Admiralty to do this service for £60,000?--No; they stated their belief that it was of no use to send in a tender, as it would not be attended to; that the contract would be sure to be given to the Peninsular and Oriental Company, whatever they chose to ask.

2165. Did you tell Mr. Green, and all the other parties who signed the petition, that Mr. Sidney Herbert had told you that it was open to you to send in a tender?--My impression is that it was known to them, but Mr. Green said, “No, let them alone; they are too strong for us.”

2166. Then it was known to Mr. Green, and all the other parties who petitioned, that they had an opportunity to make a tender?--The expression they used was, that it was taken out of their hands, and that it was of no use their doing it; but I do not know that I saw Mr. Green after that time.

2167. Do you mean to represent that the principal shipowners having information that the Secretary of the Admiralty had stated that the contract was open, were nevertheless of opinion, that if they offered to do the service for £60,000, the Board of Admiralty would still give the contract to a party who required a much larger sum?--I hardly know how to answer that question. I cannot say that I saw Mr. Green after the petition, but his impression was that it was of no use to compete with that powerful Company.

2168. Do you mean to represent to the Committee your opinion that while the Board of Admiralty told you that you might compete if you pleased, they had in point of fact made up their minds to give the contract to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company at a much higher price?--That was our firm belief, that they had made up their minds to give it to them. This I know as a fact, that when the matter was handed over from the East India Company, and the East India Company had nothing to do with it, the Peninsular and Oriental Company asked £170,000, and they had it all their own way; but the East India Company said that they would not pay more than a certain amount annually; they were to pay a certain proportion, but they said, “We will do nothing of the kind; you may do as you like: we will have nothing to do with it beyond paying a certain amount.”

2169. Did it occur to you that if so scandalous a spirit of jobbing as you describe had actuated the Board of Admiralty, you might have put them completely in the wrong by offering a contract from parties competent to perform the service for £60,000, which you laid down as the proper sum?--I can answer the question in this way: it is all very well to say, “Why did you not send in a contract?” but it is a contract that required a large capital and great arrangements. It is impossible to make all those great arrangements in two days; the Peninsular Company, by obtaining under false pretences £20,000 for the Calcutta mail, had put all other parties out; and if you say, “Will you make a contract in a couple of days now for £60,000?” it is impossible; it requires a large fleet and great capital. Mr. Green has a large fleet, but they are employed in other parts; and his expression was, “It is of no use competing with the Peninsular Company, for they are too powerful for us; their influence is so great.”

2170. You mean to represent that all the shipowners in London acquiesced in the opinion that public money to a large amount was going to be given from favouritism to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company; but that it was of no use, on account of the secret influence which the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company had got at the Admiralty, to contend with them?--That was my own individual belief, and the petitioners, I think, agreed in that.

2171. Did you lend a large share in the drawing up of this petition?--I did.

2172. Is it your composition?--I do not know that it is.

2173. In the petition you object not to one contract in particular, but to the system of contracts altogether?--We object not to the whole system of contracts, but to the system under which it has been carried on; in the first place, there are put into the contracts conditions which are never acted upon; that I consider extremely wrong; it keeps all honest men away.

2174. The stringent conditions put into the contracts keep all honest men away?--That is going too far; I mean to say that you are asked to agree to very strict conditions, which a man cannot honestly say, “I agree to.” If the condition says that if I am half an hour behind time I shall forfeit £500, a man naturally asks himself, “Shall I enter into the contract? for if those clauses are inserted, I am a ruined man, and therefore I cannot guarantee that.”

2175. If you and your friends had tendered this service for £60,000, you would have required more reasonable conditions?--I should have no objection to being bound to all reasonable conditions. The late contract for the mail to the Brazils is as it ought to be; there is no kind of trap of so many hours; the condition is simply this, the ships are to be efficient vessels.

2176. No honest man, in your opinion, would have undertaken such a contract as that which the Peninsular and Oriental Company undertook, for £60,000?--What I mean is this, that no honest man would undertake a thing which he was not competent to perform; for instance, he would not undertake that the passage shall be a certain number of hours; and putting in those strict conditions would prevent an honest man from taking part in it.

2177. I understood you to say, that no honest man would undertake, and therefore I presume you would not have recommended anybody to undertake, so strict a condition as that of which we are speaking?--I am afraid you are putting a wrong construction upon what I said; I say, no honest man would undertake a condition which he could not honestly say he could perform. If I bound myself to go in a certain number of hours between certain points, an honest man would say, if that was a great speed, “I cannot bind myself to accomplish that.”

2178. That would prevent an honest man from complying with the conditions imposed upon the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company?--That is putting it in the other way; I am certain that I would have taken the contract, because I know that Government would not exact the penalty.

2179. You would have taken it, though an honest man would not have taken it?--I am afraid you are misinterpreting me; you use the words “honest man” in a different sense from that in which I use them. I mean to say that an honest man could not honestly undertake to do a thing which was almost impracticable; but, as I know the Government would not have exacted the penalty, I would have taken the contract if I had had an opportunity; but I had no opportunity.

2180. You would have taken the contract?--Yes, anybody would take the contract for £170,000 a year; nobody would have refused it.

2181. You were under the impression that the Peninsular and Oriental Company were so strong that nobody could compete with them?--Yes, and that is the impression now.

2182. That was your impression at the time you lent your aid to the drawing up of that petition?--Yes, it was.

2183. It was the impression, you believe, of the parties who signed the petition?--Yes.

2184. Is that, in point of fact, one of the allegations of the petition?--I do not know.

2185. Are not the allegations of the petition totally of a different effect; are they not against contracts in general?--Certainly not against contracts in general; they are against contracts being given without fair competition; they are not against contracts generally, for contracts must be had somehow, but they should be fair and open.

2186. The prayer of the petition is “that public money granted for the purposes of steam navigation shall be applied, not for the exclusive advantage of any companies or individuals, but so that all engaged in shipping may fairly participate therein, or equally compete; therefore affording to your petitioners the opportunity of showing to your Honourable House the truth (if doubted) as to facts and principles of all the statements of this their humble petition.” If you were under the impression that the Admiralty were actuated by so corrupt a spirit that it was not of any use for solvent parties to send in tenders, will you explain to the Committee why it was that you left that out, as one of the allegations of the petition which you drew up at the time?--I do not understand the question.