New-Orleans, its first movement to counteract
or discourage the proposed American line in that direction was to
run branches of the Royal West-India mail line from Bermuda to
New-York, and from Jamaica to New-Orleans and Mobile. Now that the
American line to Chagres has gone into full operation, and the
news from the Pacific comes by this line to New-York, and thence
to Liverpool, some fifteen days sooner than the same news brought
by the British line,[J] the English government has revised,
enlarged, and extended its West-India line. It has entered into a
new contract with the Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company, a material
feature of which is to run a mail line direct from Southampton to
St. Thomas, and thence to Chagres and back, twice a month, with
steamers of larger capacity and power, and with a proposed speed
of from twelve to fourteen miles per hour. For this line, five or
six new steamships are, under the contract, to be built, while the
old vessels are to form branches from this main line or trunk to
other of the routes of this great and extended plan of steam
intercourse and letter-carrying; at the same time that government
will withdraw its branches to the Balize, Mobile, and New-York,
extend its line to Rio de Janeiro, and enlarge its line in the
Pacific, from Panama to Valparaiso, converting it from a monthly
to a semi-monthly route. These movements show not only the
immediate results of American enterprise in ocean steamships, and
the important consequences, aside from any purposes of coast and
harbor defense, to which it has already led, but the strong public
reasons on the part of our Government to foster, continue, and
encourage it. It has already counteracted the best efforts of the
large and long-established English steam lines, and transferred
the commerce and letter-carrying so long exclusively enjoyed by
them to American ships. If promoted and favored by the Congress of
the United States, it will still meet and counteract the new
efforts of the English Government to recover the ground which
American skill, enterprise, and capital, aided by the Government,
have won from them.

[J] "By the contract of 1846 with the West-India Royal Mail
Steam-Packet Company, the voyage from Chagres to Southampton is
performed in 33 days. By the United States Mail Steamship Compan