The latter enterprise
was promoted by an American,[AF] after he had failed to obtain support
in his own country[AG] for a project to establish an American steamship
line to ports along the west coast of South America, a field in which
American sailing ships had long been preeminent.[AH]
Up to 1847 the British lines monopolized the transatlantic service. Then
the situation became enlivened by the advent of competing American
steamships subsidized by the United States Government, with high-paying
mail contracts. The first of these was the New York, Havre, and Bremen
line starting in 1847; the next, the celebrated Collins Line between New
York and Liverpool, underway in 1850. The competing vessels were
American-built, wooden side-wheelers; those of the Collins Line superior
in equipment and in passenger accommodations, and faster sailers, than
the British craft.[AI] To meet this competition the Cunard Company
increased their fleet while the Admiralty increased the subsidy. Four
new steamers were first added, in 1848, to run directly between
Liverpool and New York, and the postal subsidy was raised to one hundred
and forty-five thousand pounds a year for forty-four voyages--three
thousand nine hundred and twenty-five pounds a voyage.
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