d in the Cunard contracts. They are to make twenty-four
voyages or forty-eight trips a year, leaving and returning to
Southampton semi-monthly.

"Another contract has recently been entered into, as I am
informed, for two ships to run between Bermuda and New-York. The
West-India line, in consequence of some disasters during the first
years of its service, was relieved from touching at the ports of
the United States; but in the spring of last year it was required
to resume its communication with New-Orleans, and is at any time
liable to be required to touch at the other ports on our coast
which I have named. Thus it will be perceived that this system of
mail steam-packet service is so arranged as not only to
communicate with Canada and the West-Indies, the ports on the
Spanish Main and the Gulf coast of Mexico, but also to touch at
every important port in the United States, from Boston to
New-Orleans.

"These three lines employ twenty-five steamers of the largest and
most efficient description, where familiarity with our seaports
and the whole extent of our coast would render them the most
formidable enemies in time of war. It is scarcely possible to
imagine a system more skillfully devised to bring down upon us, at
any given point, and at any unexpected moment, the whole force of
British power. More especially is this true with respect to our
_southern_ coast, where the great number of accessible and
unprotected harbors, both on the Atlantic and the Gulf, would
render such incursions comparatively safe to them, and terrible to
us. And when we reflect that the design of this system is, that it
shall draw the means of its support from our own commerce and
intercourse, we should surely have been wanting in the duty we
owed to ourselves and to our country, if we had failed to adopt
measures towards the establishment of such an American system of
Atlantic steam navigation as would compete successfully with it."

Previous to the renewal of the several foreign mail contracts, in
1850, the Treasury ordered, 26th April, 1849, the formation of a
Committee in these words: "_Ordered_, that a Select Committee be
appointed to inquire into the CONTRACT PACKET SERVICE." That Committee
was composed of Sir James Hogg, Mr. Cardwell, Sir Wm. Clay, Mr.
Cowper, Mr. Alderman Thompson, Mr. Fitz Roy, Mr. Hastie, Mr. Mang