ork and Nassau in the Bahamas.[AO] The next
year (1858) after suffering crushing disasters in the loss of two of
their steamers, and the withdrawal of their subsidy, the Collins Company
failed, and their line was abandoned.[AP] So this competition ended.

Meanwhile complaints of the Admiralty's partiality in the allotment of
the contracts had been renewed more vigorously, with wider criticism of
grants for mail carriage largely in excess of the postage received; and
in 1859-60 another Parliamentary investigation was made. The ultimate
result of this inquiry was a radical change in the system. The
management of the ocean mail-service was taken from the Admiralty and
placed wholly in the hands of the Post-Office Department; and at the
expiration of the Cunard Company's extended contract, the service was
thrown open to public competition, as the Parliamentary committee of
1846 had advised.

Bids were now received from the Cunard, the Inman, the North German
Lloyd, and other lines. The Inman Company had previously offered to
perform the service, and had done so for sea-postage only.[AQ] Contracts
were finally concluded with the three named. The contract with the Inman
Line was for a fortnightly Halifax service, for seven hundred and fifty
pounds the round trip, nineteen thousand five hundred pounds a year, and
a weekly New York service for sea-postage. That with the Cunard Line was
for a weekly service to New York at a fixed subsidy of eighty thousand
pounds. That with the North German Lloyd was for a weekly service, at
the sea-postage. These contracts were to run for a year only. The
Cunard's subsidy, although considerably less than half the amount that
the company had received the previous ten years, showed a loss to the
Government, at sea-postage rates, of forty-four thousand one hundred and
ninety-six pounds, since the amount actually earned at sea-postage
rates was twenty-eight thousand six hundred and eighty-six pounds.[AR]

When advertisements for tenders were next issued, it was found that the
Cunard and Inman companies had formed a "community of interests," with
an agreement not to underbid each other. They asked a ten years'
contract on the basis of fifty thousand pounds fixed subsidy for a
weekly service. Instead, they were awarded seven years' contracts: the
Cunard for a semi-weekly service, seventy thousand pounds subsidy; the
Inman, for a weekly service, thirty-five thousand pounds subsidy.[AR] At
the same t