days and fourteen hours, and "bringing with her the advices of the
fastest American sailing-ships which had started from New York long
before her."[U] This clinched the matter. The Admiralty now invited
tenders for the transatlantic mail service, by steam, between Liverpool,
Halifax, and New York.

The first call for tenders was made in October, 1838. The St. George's
Packet Company, owners of the _Sirius_, and the Great Western Steamship
Company, owners of the _Great Western_, put in bids, the former offering
a monthly service between Cork, Halifax, and New York for a yearly
subsidy of sixty-five thousand pounds; the latter, a monthly service
between Bristol, Halifax, and New York for forty-five thousand pounds a
year.

Neither offer was accepted for the reason, as was stated, that a
semimonthly service was desired.[V] Instead, private arrangements were
made with Samuel Cunard and associates for a carriage between Liverpool,
Halifax, Quebec, and Boston, twice a month, for a term of seven years,
the subsidy to be sixty thousand pounds annually, less four thousand
pounds for making only one voyage a month in the winter season.[W] The
contract required Mr. Cunard and his associates to furnish five ocean
steamships and two river steamers, the latter on the St. Lawrence.[V]
There were also definite restrictions as to turning their steamers over
to the Government for use in time of war. All were to be inspected by
Admiralty officers, and were to carry officers of the navy to care for
the mails.[X] The service was started with the _Britannia_, the first of
the four to be finished, sailing from Liverpool for Boston on July 4,
1840. Thus was begun the career of the celebrated Cunard Line. In 1841
the subsidy was increased to eighty thousand pounds, and the number of
steamers to five; and in 1846, a further increase brought the subsidy to
eighty-five thousand pounds.[Y]

The Admiralty's favoritism toward the Cunard associates aroused a
protest from the unsuccessful bidders for the subsidy, and at length the
Great Western Company, whose bid had been the lowest, caused a
Parliamentary inquiry to be made into the transaction. They complained
that a monopoly had been granted "to their injury and to that of other
owners of steamships engaged in the trade, and who were desirous of
entering it"; and they asked the inquiry on the broad grounds "that the
public were taxed for a service from which one company alone derived the
advantag