charges, &c. If the
steamers are allowed to become mere vessels of freight, or for
carriage of goods, no regularity in their voyages could be expected.
To avoid delay, these articles could be landed and taken to the
Custom-house in every island and place, and delivered thence, under
the Revenue laws, to each owner.

The greater extent to which combination can be carried on in the mail
circle, and the wider that that circle can be extended, so much
cheaper the labour of conveyance becomes, and the greater the returns
therefrom. Further, not merely the greatest possible speed, but the
greatest possible regularity, is the desiderata in the conveyance of
mails in any country: the latter, in particular, is more essentially
necessary than the former, and is, in fact, the life-spring of all
commercial communication.

The work to be performed, in every quarter, must not only be well
done, but done within a limited time, in order to render it beneficial
and effective. Powerful boats, that can overcome the distance and the
natural obstacles that present themselves, can alone do this.
Small-power boats can never accomplish the work. Numbers will not
overcome the difficulties, nor come, as regards time, within the
limits required.

Each packet steamer on each of the great lines, could and should return
unto Falmouth alternately, and the boats from Falmouth be prepared
to take the longer voyage in their stead. The time each will have
to stop at Falmouth will always allow of time for any material (p. 010)
examination and the repairs that may be necessary.

Without actual experience it is impossible to place before the public,
in a correct point of view, the whole appearance and state of steamers
employed in the West Indian mail service, as seen last year--when the
whole extent of their voyages was travelled over in more than one of
them:--imagine a small ill-contrived boat, an old 10-gun brig, as the
_Carron_ is, for example, of 100-horse power, and thirty to forty tons
of coals on her deck; with a cabin about thirteen feet by ten, and an
after-cabin still smaller, both without any means of ventilation,
except what two ill-planned, narrow and miserable hatches, when open,
afford. Imagine a vessel like this starting from Jamaica, with ten or
fifteen passengers, and a crew of thirty-seven people, still more
miserably provided with room and quarters, to stem the currents, the
trade winds--(not to speak of storms,)--which blow,