CHAPTER XIV

DEEP-WATER STEAMSHIPS--PART II

The success of the British steamers that crossed the Atlantic in 1838 led a number of New York capitalists to form what they called the American Atlantic Steam Navigation Company, of which James de Peyster Ogden was chairman, and on March 22, 1839, calls for subscriptions to the capital stock were published in the New York papers. The answers to the calls were few, and the enterprise was abandoned.

Out of several reasons for this failure, consider these: The American people had but little capital, and there were calls in many directions for every dollar obtainable. The calls from the railroads were particularly insistent, for while the first railroad to use steam (the Albany and Schenectady) was completed in 1833, the steam mileage in 1840 was 2380. The inland water traffic was most attractive. In 1839 the enrolled steamers measured 489,879 tons, and they were worn out so rapidly that every vessel had to be replaced (on the average) within four years. Then the deep-water sailing ships absorbed much capital, the tonnage in 1839 being 829,096, while the coasting tonnage measured 1,032,023 tons, and all these vessels were, on the average, highly profitable.

Of the other attractive calls for capital, nothing need be said, but a brief reference to an attempt to form a company to run transatlantic steamships from Philadelphia may be quoted from _Niles's Register_ of August 25, 1838:--

"At a meeting of the citizens held in the Merchants' Exchange, Philadelphia, to take such measures to forward the plan for a communication by steam between that city and Europe ... the following resolutions were unanimously adopted: ... Resolved that we have learned with lively satisfaction the willingness of our brethren of Great Britain to coöperate with us in this great enterprise" by making a liberal subscription for the construction of "such steamships as might be needed."

The "brethren" were not quite as willing to "coöperate" as was supposed, but the "great enterprise" was taken in hand a few years later by a man named William Inman, with notable results.

In considering their failures to organize transatlantic steamship companies, these business men did not fail to refer to the fact that the British government was paying subsidies to the Cunard and the Royal Mail steamship companies. The fact that the Cunard subsidy was a hardship for the owners of the unsubsidized steamers in the American trade was not dwelt upon. The people were told that subsidies were given in order to build up a steam merchant marine. Then Congress was invited to consider the fact that in subsidizing two lines of steamships Great Britain had secured eighteen fine ships fit to add to her growing steam naval fleet. Naval officers were carried on all those ships, and they were not only learning how to handle steam, but they _were learning to navigate American waters_--and all this at a period when England and the United States were on the verge of war.

Thereupon Thomas Butler King, chairman of the House Naval Committee, brought forward a plan for a subsidized mail line under the American flag. (Ho. Reps. 681 and 685, 28 Cong. 1 sess.) His arguments in favor of a subsidy were: That a reduction might be made in the rate of postage, and yet the income from the mails would soon pay all the subsidy that would be required. That our naval officers would learn how to handle steam. That we should learn how to build efficient steamships for deep water. That a line to the north of Europe would promote emigration and trade. In connection with this last argument it was stated that the British post-office authorities were in the habit of holding up all mails bound across England to the continent until the British merchants had had time to read and act upon their advices from America, and the newspapers had had time to print all the American news. After considering the matter for four years, Congress acted, on March 3, 1845, in a bill providing--

"That the Postmaster-general ... is hereby authorized ... to contract for the transportation of the United States mail between any of the ports of the United States, and a port or ports of any foreign Power, whenever, in his opinion, the public interest will thereby be promoted ... for any greater period than four years and not exceeding ten years. All such contracts shall be made with citizens of the United States, and the mail to be transported in American vessels by American citizens."

Thereupon the Postmaster-general contracted with Edward Mills of New York, who agreed to build ships to plans approved by the Secretary of the Navy, and run a steam-packet line from New York to Southampton and Bremen, twenty voyages a year, for a subsidy of $400,000. If alternate voyages were made to Havre instead of Bremen, the subsidy was to be $350,000.

Mills and his associates were incorporated (May 8, 1846), as the Ocean Steam Navigation Company. Contracts were let for the building of two steamships, and then the troubles of the company began. On learning that an American company was to enter the transatlantic trade, the Cunard Company began running packets regularly to New York. The opposition of this established line increased the timidity of capitalists so much that in spite of the guaranteed income of at least $350,000 a year, it was impossible to obtain the needed money in the United States, and "money was furnished for the undertaking by the little government of Bremen, and by individuals connected with the enterprise on the other side of the Atlantic, and pretty largely furnished, too." (App. Cong. _Globe_, September 4, 1850.)

The one deadly misfortune of the company, however, was found in the fact that the Americans had not yet learned how to build ocean-going steamships. Said the _Merchants' Magazine_, May, 1849, regarding the first ships of the line:--

"The models of the _Washington_ and _Hermann_ were quite defective, particularly so in having a very narrow bottom, which made them load deep and be tender or even crank at all times.... _Their engines also were not quite strong or stiff enough._"

The boilers were not large enough to furnish an adequate supply of steam and the paddle-wheels were too large for the engines. The _Scientific American_, October 7, 1848, said:--

"The great cause of our unsuccess in our Atlantic steamers is owing to our short acquaintance with the building of marine ships. There is science and genius among our nautical engineers, but _they want experience_."

When our first American mail steamer sailed for Europe no practical marine engineers could be found to work her engines. She took a first-class engineer and corps of assistants from one of the New York river packets; but as soon as the ship got to sea, and heavy breakers came on, all the engineers and firemen were taken deadly seasick; and for three days it was constantly expected that the ship would be lost. (Rainey's _Ocean Steam Navigation_.)

It is to be noted here that John L. Stevens, the ablest American marine engineer of his day, was one of the directors of this company.

The _Washington_ sailed for Southampton and Bremen on June 1, 1847. Her passengers and crew looked forward to a cheering reception on the other side; for when the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_ arrived in New York the people of the city turned out to honor them, and the city authorities and such bodies as the Chamber of Commerce gave public receptions in honor of the event. Then when the Cunard's first liner the _Britannia_ was frozen in at Boston the merchants of the city contributed $10,000, for which a contractor agreed to saw a channel for her to clear water. The contractor spent $20,000 in doing the work. He spent $10,000 out of his own pocket without a murmur, and the Cunard Company without a murmur let him do it. But the only official action taken on the arrival of the _Washington_ at Southampton was in the sending of a notice to the American mail agent that he would have to pay full sea postage on all mail landed, as well as the usual inland rates. And the only word of welcome spoken in the port was uttered by the officials of the dock company with whom the ship was berthed.

Because of their financial difficulties the company organized a separate corporation to build and run ships to Havre. The _Humbolt_ and the _Franklin_ were put on this route in 1849. The _Humbolt_ was wrecked at Halifax, December 5, 1853, and the _Franklin_ stranded on Montauk Point, July 17, 1854. The _Arago_ and _Fulton_, built to replace these two, were somewhat better than any ocean-going steamships theretofore built in the United States, and they were able to continue the service until the government chartered them for use in the Civil War (1861). The two Bremen ships were laid up after their subsidy ceased--1859. All six of these ships used by this corporation were slow as well as expensive to operate. The time used in the Bremen passage was about fourteen days; that to Havre, twelve.

The Collins Line (New York and Liverpool U. S. Mail Steamship Company), was the most famous of the subsidized lines. E. K. Collins was a Truro, Cape Cod, boy, who, at the age of fifteen (1817), became a clerk to a New York merchant. Five years later he was sent to sea as a supercargo, and a little later he became a partner in the business. His first memorable stroke of business was made in 1825, when cotton took a sudden rise in the Liverpool market. The news of the rise reached New York on the day that the regular Charleston, South Carolina, packet was to sail, and a number of New York merchants took passage on the ship, intending to buy all the cotton in Charleston before the news of the rise could be learned there. As the packet passed the bar at Sandy Hook, bound out, the merchants on her deck saw a pilot-boat, with young Collins on her deck, head away down the coast; and with one accord they made jeering remarks at the idea of a little schooner trying to beat the regular packet in such a race. But when they reached the Charleston bar they met the boat with Collins on board coming out. He had bought all the cotton.

With money made in that deal and with some obtained by marrying a rich wife, Collins started the New Orleans packet line, and another line thence to Tampico. These having proved successful, he then established the famous Dramatic Line to Liverpool. In 1840, Collins said:--

"There is no longer chance for enterprise with sails. It is steam that must win the day. I will build steamers that shall make the passage from New York to Europe in ten days and less."

In the winter of 1846-1847 Collins and others persuaded Congress to pass the act dated March 3, 1847. It provided for the construction of four naval steamers in place of ten that the naval committee had asked for; for a contract between the Secretary of the Navy and Collins & Co., for transporting the mail between New York and Liverpool; for a contract between the Secretary of the Navy and A. G. Sloo for transporting the mail between New York and New Orleans with a stop at Havana, and from Havana to Chagres, on the Isthmus of Panama--known as the Law Line, from George Law, the leading capitalist; for a contract with unnamed capitalists (C. H. Aspinwall was the leader), for a mail service between Panama and the ports of San Francisco and Astoria.

Collins's company had a paid-in capital of $1,200,000. By his contract, signed in November, 1847, he was to receive $19,250 per voyage for making two voyages per month for eight months of the year and one a month during four winter months. For this service Collins was to build four steamships measuring "not less than 2000 tons each," and complete them ready for sea within eighteen months; also a fifth ship "as early as may be practicable thereafter." Each ship was to carry a naval officer, as mail agent, and four passed midshipmen to serve as deck officers.

Contracts were made for the four ships, and many different statements have been made regarding their size and cost. Chief Engineer Isherwood, of the navy, put the size of the _Atlantic_ and the _Pacific_ at 2686 tons each; the _Arctic_ and _Baltic_ at 2772. Senator Rusk, of Texas, who vigorously supported the line in all its appeals to Congress, said the four measured 11,131 tons in the aggregate. The _Merchant's Magazine_ (Vol. 22, p. 682) rated them at 3500 tons each and said they cost $650,000 each. G. S. Houston, in a speech in Congress on July 7, 1852, quoted the company to prove that the average cost of the ships was $736,035.67 each.

With a paid-up capital of $1,200,000, four ships were built that cost at least twice as much as the money in hand would pay for, and they were each at least 700 tons larger than the contract called for. The builders gave Collins credit, and thereby secured the work on their own terms. And yet while thus paying the highest prices for his ships, and with an ever growing debt staring him in the face, Collins was recklessly extravagant in furnishing his cabins, and in every department of the company's management.

As a result, within six months after the contract was signed with the Secretary of the Navy, Collins was back in the lobby at Washington, "begging and boring" for further help. By the act of August 3, 1848, the Secretary of the Navy was authorized to advance $25,000 a month on each of the four ships until they should be put into commission, and the time for completing them was extended to June 1, 1850. Under a subsequent agreement this advance was paid back in small instalments.

And during all this time Collins walked the streets, telling all who would listen that he was going to run the _Scotch-built, Scotch-managed_ Cunarders off the sea!

When done, the ships were found to have fine models--they rode the waves in a way that excited the admiration of all sailors. But the keelsons under the engines were only forty inches deep, while the keels were 277 feet long, and there was "give" enough to rack the engines to pieces--a fact showing conclusively the ignorance of the designer so far as ocean steamships were concerned. And yet George Steers, the famous designer of the yacht _America_, was the responsible man! As the _Scientific American_ had said of our engineers, he "wanted experience."

The _Atlantic_ began the service on April 27, 1850. It was in this year that the average American sailing ship was making three voyages where foreign ships made but two. For thirty years our sailing packets had carried the broom on the North Atlantic. The captains of the Canton tea clippers, dressed in raw silk, were strutting about the water front, boasting of passages that were the wonder of the world. And here was a new line of steamers with a managing owner who had won fame as the owner of swift ships, and who had been assuring the whole world that he was going to beat all creation with steam!

In the mind of the captain of the _Atlantic_ the honor of the Stars and Stripes was in his custody, and he could keep it safe only by driving the ship to the utmost limit of speed. And each of the other ships was also driven to the last gasp. In May, 1851, the _Pacific_ ran from New York to Liverpool in 9 days, 20 hours, and 16 minutes. In August, 1852, the _Baltic_ crossed from Liverpool to New York in 9 days and 13 hours. Collins had kept his promise to drive a ship across the Atlantic in less than ten days.

In the meantime, the Cunard Company, to meet the determined opposition, built new ships, and the British government raised the subsidy to $16,500 per voyage. Orders were issued in England to drive the new Cunarders, too, but it was impossible for them to equal the rampant Collins liners at that time.

For a time it seemed to the American people that the supremacy upon the seas was to be maintained with steam, and not a few Englishmen, including the editor of the _London Times_, took a pessimistic view of the situation. A little later, however, the situation was seen in its true light. On February 15, 1851, when the _Atlantic_ had been in commission but ten months, the _Scientific American_ said editorially that "it is very foolish to push through a steamship on a long passage by dint of coal." The _New York Herald_, a nautical specialist, was complaining, meantime, that the American firemen were wretchedly inefficient. It was admitted by the company, later still, that for the first twenty-eight voyages of the line the average cost of coal was $8612.28, the amount consumed being well up toward 2000 tons.

And yet the big coal bill was one of the least of the evils of the situation. By driving the engines to the limit on every mile of the route the weak timbers under the engines were needlessly strained, with the result that the engines were racked out of line and torn to pieces. No sooner did a ship get rid of its passengers at the pier than an army of machinists came on board to make repairs; and they were employed in relays, day and night, until the passengers came to the pier for the next passage.

"Either the scale upon which it was planned was not required, and could not be sustained by the country, or it has been most shamefully mismanaged," said Congressman Borland, in a speech in the House, on May 17, 1852, in reference to the Collins Line. Collins had come to Congress for an increase in the subsidy, and a statement of the company's affairs which he submitted shows that Borland was right in both ends of his statement. (See App. _Cong. Globe_, 32 Cong. 1 sess.) The statement is dated December 15, 1851. It showed that the expenses for the first twenty-eight voyages had averaged $65,215.59. The income was--for passengers, $21,292.65; freights, $7,744.20, subsidy, $19,250,--a total of $48,286.85, leaving a net loss of $16,928.74 per voyage.

Because Collins had broken some records, and because it was believed that his ships would serve in case of war, and because he had reduced the cost of carrying package freight, and because Congress heartily hated everything British, the subsidy was increased to $33,000 per voyage for twenty-six voyages a year. (Act of March 3, 1854.)

For a time thereafter Collins was free to continue his extravagant career. Having luxurious furnishings, he gained in the cabin passenger trade. He also gained somewhat in the package freight business. The advent of the Crimean War (March 27, 1854, to March 31, 1856), helped him because the British government took and used several of the Cunard steamers as transports (as _war-ships_, even the Cunarders were a sham). The Cunard service was thereby reduced and he thus had opportunity to sail in alternate weeks with the remaining Cunarders. But even then no profits were made. The line never paid a dividend.

In the meantime, the Scotchmen were learning to race their ships, and in 1855 they built the _Persia_, an iron ship of 3300 tons, and 3600 actual horse-power; and with her, in September, 1856, they crossed in 9 days, 2 hours, and 40 minutes, thus making a new record.

Collins built the _Adriatic_, the fifth ship under the contract, and the records agree that she was a very swift ship, but by no means a profitable one. Moreover she appeared too late; for by the act of August 18, 1856, Congress gave notice to Collins that the subsidy would be reduced, a year later, to the original sum of $19,250 per voyage. At the same time it became certain that no subsidy would be paid after the end of the original term of the contract--ten years.

In the meantime the line lost the _Arctic_. While running at a speed of thirteen knots an hour through a heavy fog, forty miles off Cape Race, and making no sort of signal to notify other vessels of her presence in those waters, she was rammed by the French steamer _Vesta_, and sunk with a loss of 307 lives. It has been asserted that she went down because the modern system of bulkheads had not been invented. As a matter of fact, the Norwich liner _Atlantic_, a ship built in 1846, had a collision bulkhead, and other ships had been divided by several bulkheads before the time of the _Arctic_, but experience shows that no system of bulkheads as yet installed has been able to save a ship when rammed in the engine-room. Then on September 23, 1856, a little more than a month after Congress decided to reduce the subsidy, the _Pacific_ sailed from Liverpool, and was never heard from afterward. The two ships thus lost were together insured for $1,250,000, chiefly in England, and the money was paid to the company.

The line continued its service after the subsidy was cut (June 30, 1857), but a financial panic swept over the commercial world in the fall of that year, and with the consequent loss of business the line failed. The last voyage was made in January, 1858. In April, following, the sheriff sold the ships (subject to claims of $657,000) for $50,000. Collins died at his home in Madison Avenue, New York City, in June, 1878, and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.

"I knew the Collins line very well.... They burned an immense quantity of coal; they were fitted out and fitted up in the most sumptuous manner; they had large crews, a large number of officers and a large number of engineers, for they had most powerful engines. They were run at full speed, and the company had not enough ships on the line to enable them to have proper relays so that they began to deteriorate very rapidly, and they ran them out in a very short time. They had very large buildings in New York, a great many officers and a great many people connected with them. All these had to be paid. Then there were a great many deadheads, so that I used to be astonished how they kept running at all." (Admiral Porter, H. R. Rep. 28, 41st Cong. 2 sess. p. 192.)

Two other lines, subsidized under the act of March 3, 1847, need a brief consideration. One was the Sloo Line, which, as noted, ran steamships from New York by the way of Havana, to New Orleans, with a branch line to Chagres, on the Isthmus of Panama. The subsidy paid was $290,000 a year. The first ship (the _Falcon_), left New York in September, 1848. The Pacific coast contract went to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company at $308,000 per year. The first ship on this line left New York on October 6, 1848.

In providing for these lines Congress had been influenced chiefly by a desire to meet the British diplomacy in establishing the Royal Mail Line to the West Indies, the Isthmus, and Mexico. But the desire to provide ships fit for war was also in mind, and some enthusiasts supposed that the line would in some way increase American commerce with the countries of the Pacific coast, especially those at the south of the Isthmus, where an American named William Wheelwright had established a coast line with British capital. It is seen now, that neither of these lines could have made money under the contracts, and that none of the hopes of Congress would have been satisfied but for the discovery of gold in California and the consequent rush of emigrants to the gold-fields. Because of the traffic thus supplied both lines were immensely profitable. The Pacific Mail made money in spite of the fact that coal cost $30 a ton (one lot $50), and there were no shops anywhere on the coast for the repair of ships until the company established works of the kind. In fact, the enormous profits brought unsubsidized steamers into competition with both the lines. Commodore C. Vanderbilt, who had earned fame as a steamship man on the Hudson River and Long Island Sound, was one of the "interlopers," and he was paid, at one time, $56,000 a month to keep his ships out of the traffic (_Cong. Globe_, June, 1858). The Panama railroad, which was completed at midnight, January 27, 1855, was built as a connecting link between these two lines; and one gets an idea of the extent of the traffic thereafter from the fact that in the first seven years it was operated (including the traffic on the uncompleted line beginning in 1852) the earnings amounted to $5,971,728.66 (Otis, _Isthmus of Panama_).

Brief space will suffice for the stories of the unsubsidized transatlantic steamships of the period. In 1848 the owners of the Black Ball Line of sailing packets attempted to substitute steam for sail by building the steamer _United States_, a ship of 1904 tons, which they despatched to Liverpool. But because of the competition of the subsidized ships it was not possible to make her pay. The subsidized ships were able to cut rates on all kinds of traffic, of course, and this was naturally done when the new ship was seeking cargo.

This fact seems to be of much importance. It is a fact beyond dispute that subsidies to a few favored lines greatly injured all other shipping trading to the same ports--it injured British as well as American shipping. In fact, the British ship-owners, as already noted, were injured so much that they made emphatic protests to their government, but they were, in the long run, able to survive the effects of the unfair practice. In the United States the paying of subsidies to the few lines simply killed private enterprise on the North Atlantic.

In the meantime, Captain R. B. Forbes, of Boston, built the auxiliary screw steamer _Massachusetts_ (1845), a ship with full sail-power and a screw that could be lifted out of water when the wind served. She made two voyages between New York and Liverpool, after which she was sold to the government for use in the war with Mexico. A number of ships have been built on this principle since then, and there are several in the lumber trade on the Pacific coast at this time (1910), but for some unexplained reason auxiliaries have never become fashionable.

In 1850 William Inman, of England, established the line for which the Philadelphia merchants had hoped in 1837, and two American steamships, the _Pioneer_ and the _City of Pittsburg_, made a voyage or two each in the service, but they were then withdrawn and used in more profitable traffic on the Pacific coast.

In 1855 Commodore Vanderbilt offered to establish a Liverpool line, to run in alternate weeks with the Collins Line, if a subsidy of $15,000 a voyage were paid him and he were allowed to make no shorter passages than the Cunard Line; if Collins Line speed were demanded, he wanted $19,250 a voyage. This was when Collins was receiving $33,000. The only result of the offer was to help turn public sentiment against Collins. Vanderbilt had already constructed two large steamers (the _North Star_, called his yacht, and the _Ariel_) for use in his Isthmian competition, and when he failed to get a subsidy contract, he made a few voyages in the Bremen route and to Havre, omitting, however, all voyages in the winter months. With a view of increasing his service he built a still larger ship, called the _Vanderbilt_, and he was able to arrange with the Post-office Department for the sea and inland postage on all mail carried. During the four years (1858-1861) during which this arrangement lasted, his mail receipts amounted to $360,730.48, according to Morrison. He made some money, and it is likely that the service would have developed into a permanent line but for the Civil War.