not among the
first to make the change from wood to iron or from paddle-wheels to
screws. But they did business honestly and well and always took care
of their passengers' safety.

The Cunards were Canadians. Sir Hugh Allan was a Scotsman. But he and
the line he founded are unchallengeably first in their services to
Canada. Hugh Allan was born in 1810, the son of a Scottish master
mariner who about that time was mate of a transport carrying supplies
to the British Army in the Peninsular War. He arrived in Canada when
he was only fifteen, entered the employ of a Montreal shipping firm
when he came of age, and at forty-eight obtained complete control of it
with his brother Andrew. From that day to this the Allan family have
been the acknowledged leaders of Canadian transatlantic shipping.

Hugh Allan was a man of boundless energy, iron will, and consummate
business ability. The political troubles of the Pacific Scandal in
1873 prevented him from anticipating the present Canadian Pacific
Railway in making a single united service of trains and steamers to
connect England with China and both with Canada. But what he did
succeed in carrying {147} through, against long odds, was quite enough
for one distinguished business lifetime. He began by running a line of
sailing craft between Montreal and the mother country in conjunction
with his father's firm in Glasgow. Then, in 1853, he and his brother
headed a company which ordered two iron screw steamers to be built in
Scotland for the St Lawrence. The first of these, the _Canadian_, came
out to Quebec on her maiden voyage in 1854; but both she and her sister
ship were soon diverted to the Crimea, where high rates were being paid
for transports during the war.

In 1858 the Allans contracted with the government for a weekly mail
service and bought out all their partners, as they alone considered
that the time had come for such a venture. The subsidy was doubled the
next year to prevent the collapse of the service after a widespread
financial panic. But heavy forfeits were imposed for lateness in
delivering mails, an adverse factor in the greatest fight against
misfortune ever known to Canadian shipping history. Within eight years
the Allans lost as many vessels. In every case there was disastrous
loss of property; in some, a total loss of everything--vessel, cargo,
crew, and passengers.

{148}

No other firm has ever had to face such a storm of persistent
adve