they were renewed for another term of twelve
years, which will expire in 1862. Thus many of the lines have been in
operation for the last nineteen years, and have demonstrated the
practicability, the cheapness, the utility, and the necessity of such
service. The entire foreign mail service is conducted by fifteen
companies, having one hundred and twenty-one steamers, with a gross
tonnage of 235,488 tons; the net tonnage being 141,293, assuming the
engines, boilers, fuel, etc., to be forty per cent of the whole
tonnage, which is altogether too low an estimate. The whole number of
British sea-going steamers is sixteen hundred and sixty-nine, with an
aggregate tonnage of 383,598 tons, exclusive of engines and boilers,
and of 639,330 tons gross, including engines and boilers. (_See paper
A, page 192._) We must add to this list the new steamer "Great
Eastern," whose tonnage is twenty-seven thousand tons, and which will
make the entire present mercantile steam tonnage of Great Britain
660,330 tons. The greater portion of these steamers, exclusive of
those engaged in the foreign mail service, are employed in the
coasting and foreign continental trade; while some few of them run in
the American merchant service, and many others in the subsidized mail
service of foreign countries, such as the lines from Hamburgh and
Antwerp to Brazil, and from those cities to the United States. Some of
them are also engaged in the mail service between Canada and England,
under the patronage of the Canadian government. (_See paper D, page
199._) If we add to this list the 271 war steamers, the 220 gunboats,
and the Great Eastern, we shall find that the British Mail,
Mercantile, and War Marine consists of the enormous number of two
thousand one hundred and sixty-one steamers, exclusive of the large
number now building. Nearly all of these are adapted to the ocean, or
to the coasting service, and may be classed as sea-going vessels.

It is interesting to trace this rapid progress of steam since its
first application to purposes of mail transport in 1833. An
intelligent writer says, "The rise and progress of the ocean steam
mail service of Great Britain is second in interest to no chapter in
the maritime history of the world;" and while we acknowledge a
grateful pride in the triumphs of our transatlantic brethren, we must
blush with shame at our dereliction in this great, and civilizing, and
enriching service of modern times. The steam marine of th