ll mail
pay of the gross ocean and inland postages, even with their old ships.
Mr. Vanderbilt having three ships wholly out of employment, determined
to try the service. How far it will prove remunerative we shall not be
able to determine until the steamers shall have run through one or two
winters as well as summers.

The Havre service was continued in the old hands. Mr. Livingston had
two fine new ships, which had been running but little over one year,
and which, adapted specially to the mail, passenger, and transport
trade of France, could not easily be withdrawn from the business for
which they were built; while it would have been quite impossible to
find for them employment in any other trade. He, consequently, made a
temporary arrangement with the Department for one year, agreeing to
transport the mails, as during the old contract, for the gross ocean
and inland postages. With this small remuneration the Havre line gets
a smaller pay than any other running; but one dollar per mile. The
Company have deserved well of the Government for their untiring
efforts to perform their contract; one of the greatest sacrifices
being the necessity of building two costly new steamers just as their
contract was about to expire. They suffered most severely from
disaster. Both of their fine and fast steamers, the "Franklin" and the
"Humboldt," were lost; and they were compelled to supply their places
by chartering at exorbitantly high prices, until they built the two
excellent vessels now running, the "Arago" and "Fulton." These two
steamers run probably more cheaply than any ever built in any country;
otherwise, being as large as they are, about twenty-six hundred tons
each, they could by no means live on the small mail pay now given
them. It may be that both these and the Vanderbilt Bremen steamers are
losing money; although the latter vessels are much smaller, and have
the advantage of an immense emigrant trade. I have no means of knowing
the position of affairs in either company.

But no loss to the Havre Company has ever been so great as that of its
late President, Mr. Mortimer Livingston. An honorable and just man in
his dealings, both with individuals and the Government, he eschewed
every attempt by which some sought to pervert and deprave the
legislation of the country, and presented all of his views in
steamshipping on high, honorable, and tenable grounds. He pursued the
profession in an enlarged spirit of enterprise, and