sary to do that for which they contracted, although a
part of it is in the coasting trade. Consequently the steamers have
been rapidly worn out, from too heavy duty, and the stock of the
Company has never paid as well as it should. The Company have,
morever, suffered severely from disaster. The "Crescent City" was lost
on the Bahama Banks, in 1855; all hands saved. The "Cherokee" was
burned when in active service, in 1853; and the "George Law," or
"Central America," but recently foundered at sea in a terrible gale.
They were all good ships; but like those other excellent ships, the
"Arctic" and "Pacific," they could not defy the powers of pure
accident. In the same gale the "Empire City" was dismantled, having
all of her upper works swept off, while the "Illinois" was injured by
being on the Colorado Reef. They have both been undergoing most costly
repairs for several weeks. While writing this, the "Philadelphia" is
also in the shop. She recently broke her shaft and her cross-tail, and
had to put into Charleston. All of these repairs cost an immense sum
of money, and are calculated, with the severe losses which the Company
has sustained, to dishearten the most hopeful and enterprising. Yet,
since these disasters, and the completion of the "Moses Taylor," the
Company are about laying the keel of another fine ship. This is
another verification of my statement that the mail companies are in
nearly every instance compelled to build new steamers in the very last
years of their contracted service. The new "Adriatic" attests the same
fact on the part of the Collins Company. (_See pages 141 and 142._)

The Company have had at various times the "Falcon," "Ohio," "Georgia,"
"Crescent City," "El Dorado," "Cherokee," "Empire City," "Illinois,"
and "Philadelphia," and now have the three last-named ships, the
"Granada," the "Star of the West," and the new steamer "Moses Taylor."
The benefits conferred by the Company's lines on the trade of the
country generally, and especially on our southern seaboard and Gulf
connections, have been almost incalculable. They found all of these
ports in the undisputed possession of the British, whose steamers
furnished the only mail and locomotive facilities of the times. By
their superior speed and accommodations the "Georgia" and the "Ohio"
soon drove those enterprising steamers from our coast, and confined
them to the foreign countries of the Gulf and the Carribean Sea, where
they yet rule triumpha