Chapter 16

It thus becomes abundantly evident from the Reports of Parliamentary Committees, from the "Acts of Parliament," and from the practice of the Admiralty and Post Office Departments, as well as from the unvarying experiences of twenty-four years, that the steam mail packet system of Great Britain was primarily adopted, and ever since sustained as the choicest means of giving to that nation the irresistible control of the world. Watching this system from the germ to its present maturity, we have seen the overshadowing tree reach higher and higher, and the circle of each year's growth expand more and more, until the outer ring now embraces the whole civilized and savage world. An additional evidence of this arrives this very day. The Atlantic brings intelligence (_New-York papers, Nov. 22d_) that Great Britain has just completed another mail contract, by which the Peninsular and Oriental Company are to run a third semi-monthly service to India and China; so that the Government and people of Great Britain shall have a weekly communication with those regions, while we have none except through them, although we are many thousand miles nearer to those countries.

It has been said that we should not attempt to run the postal and commercial race with Great Britain. Why not? Because she has many colonies, and must needs keep up communication with them. And why have steam instead of sail to them? Because steam is the means of more readily _controlling_ them. Grant it; and for the very same reason we wish steam with all the world; not that we may control the world, for this is costly and unremunerative, as Great Britain finds; but to conform it, and especially to _control_ its commerce. Great Britain has possessions in the West-Indies; but they are of the most insignificant importance when compared with the trade of the many islands and countries near them, which she does not possess, and with the Central American, Californian, Mexican, Peruvian, Chilian, New-Granadian, Venezuelan, and Spanish markets, which she controls and uses. So with India and the Mauritius. It is a matter of sore satisfaction that she is compelled to govern them as a means of reaching their rich trade, which, however rich, is far less important than that of China for which she so strives. So also with Canada. She was told some years since that, if she wished to secede from the Kingdom, because the Government would not assist in building a certain railroad, she might go, and carry peace, also, with her. The Government would scout the idea of running the Cunard line to Canada alone, and would not touch even at Halifax, except that the ships are compelled to go in sight of the place; as the "great circle" on which they sail nearly cuts the city. Great Britain runs that line because her trade with the United States requires it. That trade is worth to her every year twenty of her Canadas, as that of the West-Indies is worth a dozen of all the possessions which she has there. As to running the race of commerce with her, it is simply a _sine qua non_, on which there is no difference of opinion among Americans who love their country.

SECTION X.

THE MAIL LINES OF THE UNITED STATES.

THE MAIL LINES OF THE UNITED STATES: THE HAVRE AND BREMEN, THE PIONEERS: THE BREMEN SERVICE RECENTLY GIVEN TO MR. VANDERBILT: BOTH LINES RUN ON THE GROSS RECEIPTS: THE CALIFORNIA LINES: WONDROUS DEVELOPMENT OF OUR PACIFIC POSSESSIONS: THE PACIFIC MAIL STEAMSHIP COMPANY: ITS HISTORY, SERVICES, LARGE MATERIEL, AND USEFULNESS: THE UNITED STATES MAIL STEAMSHIP COMPANY: ITS RAMIFIED AND LARGE EXTRA SERVICE: EFFECT UPON THE COMMERCE OF THE GULF: ITS HEAVY LOSSES, AND NEW SHIPS: STEAMSHIP STOCKS GENERALLY AVOIDED: CONSTANTLY FAR BELOW PAR: THE COLLINS LINE: A COMPARISON WITH THE CUNARD: ITS SOURCES OF HEAVY OUTLAY, AND ITS ENTERPRISE: THE AMERICAN MARINE DISASTERS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN PREVENTED BY HUMAN FORESIGHT: THE VANDERBILT BREMEN LINE.

It is not my intention to notice the various lines in detail, or in any wise become their apologist, eulogist, or prosecutor. As a general thing they have discharged their obligations to the Government and the people in the most creditable manner; in a much better manner than could have been expected of them, considering the novelty of such enterprises in this country and our total want of experience either in steamship building or ocean steam navigation. It is a cause of great gratulation and satisfaction that springing into the great arena of the mail and passenger strife at a single bound, our steamers at once took the lead in the race, and have ever since distanced those of the whole world in speed, comfort, general accommodations, and cheap transit. This may be asserted as a rule without a single exception. The Collins steamers and the steamer "Vanderbilt" have beaten the Cunarders by nearly a day and a half on the average voyages; the Havre and Bremen steamers make just the same time as the Cunarders; and the California steamers of both lines have signally beaten those of all the English lines in the West-Indies, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific and Indian oceans. Indeed the triumphs of our steamers generally and specially have been so decided in every valuable point that we have great reason to be proud of the attainments to which the legislation of 1846 and '47 led. We have nothing to record to the credit of our legislation since that period.

The Havre and Bremen services were the first established in the United States; and as the pioneers in our mail steamshipping they have both proven themselves valuable to the country. The Bremen line went into the hands of Mr. Vanderbilt during the present year, on the expiration of the old contract; the "Ocean Steam Navigation Company" being unwilling to attempt the performance of the service on the small mail pay of the gross ocean and inland postages, even with their old ships. Mr. Vanderbilt having three ships wholly out of employment, determined to try the service. How far it will prove remunerative we shall not be able to determine until the steamers shall have run through one or two winters as well as summers.

The Havre service was continued in the old hands. Mr. Livingston had two fine new ships, which had been running but little over one year, and which, adapted specially to the mail, passenger, and transport trade of France, could not easily be withdrawn from the business for which they were built; while it would have been quite impossible to find for them employment in any other trade. He, consequently, made a temporary arrangement with the Department for one year, agreeing to transport the mails, as during the old contract, for the gross ocean and inland postages. With this small remuneration the Havre line gets a smaller pay than any other running; but one dollar per mile. The Company have deserved well of the Government for their untiring efforts to perform their contract; one of the greatest sacrifices being the necessity of building two costly new steamers just as their contract was about to expire. They suffered most severely from disaster. Both of their fine and fast steamers, the "Franklin" and the "Humboldt," were lost; and they were compelled to supply their places by chartering at exorbitantly high prices, until they built the two excellent vessels now running, the "Arago" and "Fulton." These two steamers run probably more cheaply than any ever built in any country; otherwise, being as large as they are, about twenty-six hundred tons each, they could by no means live on the small mail pay now given them. It may be that both these and the Vanderbilt Bremen steamers are losing money; although the latter vessels are much smaller, and have the advantage of an immense emigrant trade. I have no means of knowing the position of affairs in either company.

But no loss to the Havre Company has ever been so great as that of its late President, Mr. Mortimer Livingston. An honorable and just man in his dealings, both with individuals and the Government, he eschewed every attempt by which some sought to pervert and deprave the legislation of the country, and presented all of his views in steamshipping on high, honorable, and tenable grounds. He pursued the profession in an enlarged spirit of enterprise, and was not unmindful of his duties to his country, while he endeavored to establish legitimate trade and preserve a profitable private business which had been well founded long before the introduction of ocean steam. He was a worthy and most honorable gentleman, and is a loss to the whole public.

Prominent among the steamship enterprises of the country stand the two lines which connect the Atlantic and Gulf seaboard with our large and rich possessions in the Pacific, California, and Oregon. Established at a time when California was held by military government, and when Oregon was a wild untamed wilderness, these lines became the means of developing the richest portion of the American continent, and binding the far distant western world in close connection with the old confederacy, notwithstanding the mighty Cordilleras and Rocky Mountains which rose like forbidding barriers between them. Important as these possessions were, naturally and geographically, they acquired a new interest about the time that the Pacific and the Aspinwall Steamship Companies were established. The contracts which were made with these companies would certainly have ruined them but for the discovery of gold in California. This opened a new and brilliant field of effort, and the opportunities offered by these companies soon determined tens of thousands of our hardy and enterprising countrymen to enter and develop it.

It is pleasing in this connection to trace the almost mysterious progress of our Pacific territory during the past eight years, and the agencies producing it. Among these agencies none have been so effectual as the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. That Company was compelled to form an establishment of the most effective character four to five thousand miles away from home, and as it was at the time, thirteen thousand miles distant. The country was wholly new, so much so that it was, in most parts of the field which it had to occupy, extremely difficult to procure ordinary food for their operatives. Their ships had to make a voyage more than half of that around the world before they arrived at their point of service; and they found themselves without a home when there. The steamer "California," which left New-York on the 6th October, 1848, was the first to bear the American flag to the Pacific ocean, and the first to salute with a new life the solitudes of that rich and untrodden territory. She was soon followed by the "Panama" and "Oregon," and in due course of time by the "Tennessee," the "Golden Gate," the "Columbia," the "John L. Stephens," the "Sonora," the "Republic," the "Northerner," the "Fremont," the "Tobago," the "St. Louis," and the "Golden Age." From a small beginning that Company now has the finest steam fleet in the United States, although the difficulties in forming it were probably much greater than any of our other companies had to contend with.

These steamers found nothing ready to receive them in the Pacific. The Company was compelled to construct large workshops and foundries for their repair, and now have at Benicia a large and excellent establishment where they can easily construct a marine engine. They had also to build their own Dry Dock; for that of the Government at Mare Island was not ready until 1854. Theirs has ever been most useful to the United States, as it furnished the only accommodations of that class in the Pacific. They had also to make shore establishments at Panama, San Francisco, and Astoria, which, with coal depots, etc., were extremely costly, owing to materials having to be transported so far, and labor at the time being so high. The price of labor in California at all times depends on the profits which can be made by digging gold, and the prices paid for this species of labor have ever been enormous. Beyond this most unusual price of labor along the Pacific seaboard, the coals which they have used, whether from the Eastern States or from England, have been invariably shipped around Cape Horn, and have never cost less than twenty dollars per ton. For a large portion of the time the Company had to pay thirty dollars per ton for coal, and in one instance fifty dollars. Coal, like all other provisions of the steamers, has generally been purchased from those who sent it out on speculation, and took all the advantages of the peculiar market. Twelve dollars per ton is a low price for freight to California or Panama. In addition to this, the cost price of the coal, the handling, the wastage, and the insurance, will amount to about eight dollars per ton, making it never less than twenty dollars delivered. I have frequently seen coals sell even in Rio de Janeiro, which is but about one third of the distance from us, at eighteen to twenty-four dollars per ton. The nine steamers running consume about 35,000 tons of coal annually. If the vessels transporting it be of 1,000 tons each, it will employ something near thirty-five of these vessels at profitable rates, in this one item of their business alone. Such expenditures are not necessary to any other steam company in the world. The British lines in the Indian Ocean and the China Seas are supplied with domestic coal which comes at very reasonable prices, and is shipped but a short distance.

Yet this Company performs this distant and difficult service with great regularity and at a low price. They have never lost a trip, a mail-bag, or a passenger by marine disaster during the eight years that they have been running in the Pacific. This results from the fact of the Company having thirteen steamers. If all of the steamers now in commission were sunk, they could supply their place from their reserve fleet and have no hiatus in their service. Such a spare fleet is an enormous expense; but it is positively indispensable to regular and highly efficient service. It is singular that under these circumstances they can perform the service at $1.70 cents per mile. It is a notorious fact that these steamers could not have supported themselves in 1854-55 without the aid which they obtained from the Government for the services which they performed. They never have transported much freight, as it would not bear the transhipment at Panama. The small quantity which they had was during the first years after the discovery of gold, and then only. They have never at any time brought any eastward. The Panama Railroad was a splendid consummation of which the world had dreamed for years, and toward whose completion this Company was highly instrumental. Yet it did not enable the steamers to transport freight, and it never will.

These steamers run the 3,300 miles between Panama and San Francisco by a time-table. They arrive at either end within a very few hours of thirteen and a half days, including all of the stoppages, which are also made at specified hours. Thus the average speed of the steamers is about 254 miles per day. They touch at Acapulco and Mazanilla, and supply San Diego, Monterey, San Pedro, Santa Barbara, San Luis, and Obispo, ports of California, from Panama by a branch line. This is an extra service, and is not taken into account in calculating the mileage paid the Company.

The steamers have carried probably 175,000 passengers to California, and have brought back about $200,000,000 in gold. They have also by their semi-monthly line from San Francisco to Oregon assisted in populating that rich and beautiful agricultural district, and making it available for useful purposes as a part of the United States. They have converted the wilderness of California into a smiling garden, and will ere long produce the same effect on Oregon. With that coast comparatively unprotected, and with the small standing army sustained in this country, they become very important as a ready means of concentrating on the Pacific coast a large army in a few days. They also afford a ready transit for the changing crews of our national vessels, which, when once around the Horn, may remain there several years; having to change their crews only.

The large property of this Company in the Pacific can be made available for no other purpose than that for which it was created. Any company to be thoroughly effective there, must create its own stock, and support works on the same general plan as those created by the British East-India Company. Their success in building up this large establishment on the Pacific was simply an accident; and that accident the discovery of gold. But for this the Company would have failed in two years, or gone back pleading to Congress for relief. But the gold crisis saved it, and the enterprise was very remunerative for the first few years; but since 1853 the profits have been limited, while for one or two years the Company have sustained actual loss. They calculated too largely on the prospective business with California, and have too large a sum invested to make much for the future. And yet, with a smaller investment they could not perform the service, except in that dangerous, cheap, indecent way, of innumerable wants and deprivations, which the American people have begun to despise. They have had some few disasters, but none of those of a fatal character in the Pacific. The "Winfield Scott" was lost in entering the harbor of Acapulco; the "Tennessee" in entering that of San Francisco in a dense fog. The "San Francisco" was lost, as will be remembered, on this side, near our coast, as she sailed with troops for the Pacific. The Nicaragua Transit Company fared much worse with their steamers in the Pacific. They lost the "North America," the "Independence," the "S. S. Lewis," the "Pioneer," and the "Yankee Blade." Mr. Wm. Brown also lost his steamer "America," which he was running between San Francisco and Oregon. She was burned.

Their dividends for four years have been but twelve per cent. And should they be at any time thrown out of the service, more than half of their property would be irretrievably lost. This percentage of dividend would be large enough but for such possibilities as these, which may soon reduce it to a deficit and a loss. Thus it is that steam stock should declare three times the dividend of other stocks, to be eventually equal to them. And hence it is that, with the clear record of this Company before the Government, and with an investment of between three and four millions of dollars, being at the same time free from debt, the stock of the Company is selling at thirty-three per cent. below par. This is a good exemplification of my views in the preceding Sections regarding the costs, and hazards, and low values of ocean steam stocks generally. Nor are the stocks of this Company kept from the public. They are advertised and sold at public auction at these reduced rates every day in the year in this city; and no one of the five hundred and four stockholders, among whom these interests are diffused, seems anxious to put "his all" in the enterprise. And yet there are some people who call such companies a monopoly. If a monopoly, why do they not come forward, buy the stocks, keep them in their own hands, and profit by them; especially as a monopoly must be doubly good when it can be bought for two thirds the cash originally paid for it!

I have noticed this Company thus fully, because its extent of stock, and large field of operation, make it a fit illustration of the views which I have advanced throughout this work. I have no desire to depreciate the stock, or in any other way injure the Company, as my own enterprise gives me quite enough to do.

Many of the views advanced with regard to the Pacific Mail Company will apply to the United States Mail Steamship Company. That Company, at the outset, built very fine steamers, and ran them incessantly, until they were unfit for duty. They have constantly supplied their place, and have at all times, by building and by chartering at the highest prices, kept up a large and costly fleet for their ramified service. The service contemplated in their original contract, at $1.88-3/4 cents per mile, is but about two thirds of that actually performed. The contract required them to run 3,200 miles semi-monthly, but they actually perform semi-monthly 5,200. (_See Mr. King's Letter, Paper G._) The actual service has required nearly twice the number of steamers necessary to do that for which they contracted, although a part of it is in the coasting trade. Consequently the steamers have been rapidly worn out, from too heavy duty, and the stock of the Company has never paid as well as it should. The Company have, morever, suffered severely from disaster. The "Crescent City" was lost on the Bahama Banks, in 1855; all hands saved. The "Cherokee" was burned when in active service, in 1853; and the "George Law," or "Central America," but recently foundered at sea in a terrible gale. They were all good ships; but like those other excellent ships, the "Arctic" and "Pacific," they could not defy the powers of pure accident. In the same gale the "Empire City" was dismantled, having all of her upper works swept off, while the "Illinois" was injured by being on the Colorado Reef. They have both been undergoing most costly repairs for several weeks. While writing this, the "Philadelphia" is also in the shop. She recently broke her shaft and her cross-tail, and had to put into Charleston. All of these repairs cost an immense sum of money, and are calculated, with the severe losses which the Company has sustained, to dishearten the most hopeful and enterprising. Yet, since these disasters, and the completion of the "Moses Taylor," the Company are about laying the keel of another fine ship. This is another verification of my statement that the mail companies are in nearly every instance compelled to build new steamers in the very last years of their contracted service. The new "Adriatic" attests the same fact on the part of the Collins Company. (_See pages 141 and 142._)

The Company have had at various times the "Falcon," "Ohio," "Georgia," "Crescent City," "El Dorado," "Cherokee," "Empire City," "Illinois," and "Philadelphia," and now have the three last-named ships, the "Granada," the "Star of the West," and the new steamer "Moses Taylor." The benefits conferred by the Company's lines on the trade of the country generally, and especially on our southern seaboard and Gulf connections, have been almost incalculable. They found all of these ports in the undisputed possession of the British, whose steamers furnished the only mail and locomotive facilities of the times. By their superior speed and accommodations the "Georgia" and the "Ohio" soon drove those enterprising steamers from our coast, and confined them to the foreign countries of the Gulf and the Carribean Sea, where they yet rule triumphant in news, transport, and commerce. Our southern harbors are no longer filled with British cruisers, while in their stead we have built up a noble war marine, inured thousands of Americans to the ocean steam service, and made one most effective movement in the direction of successful defenses. (_See Letter of Hon. Edwin Croswell, Paper E, page 200._)