[FV]
The next year, 1846, in the annual post-office appropriations act (June
19), provision was made for the application of twenty-five thousand
dollars toward the establishment of a line of mail steamers between the
United States and Bremen; and early in 1847 (February 3) a contract was
duly concluded for a Bremen and Havre service, the first under the law
of 1845.
This was a five years' contract entered into with the Ocean Steam
Navigation Company, upon the basis of an earlier agreement (February
1846) with Edward Mills of New York, which Mr. Mills had transferred to
the new organization. The subsidy was fixed at one hundred thousand
dollars a year for each ship going by Cowes to Bremen and back to New
York once in two months a year, and seventy-five thousand dollars a year
for each ship going by Cowes to Havre and back to New York. The
contractors were to build within a year's time four first-class
steamships of not less than 1400 tons, nor less than a thousand
horsepower; and were to run their line "with greater speed to the
distance than is performed by the Cunard Line between Boston and
Liverpool and back."[FW] Provision for the subsidy thus called for was
promptly made in this item in the post-office appropriation bill for the
ensuing year, approved March 2: "for transportation by steam-ships
between New York and Bremen according to the contract with Edward Mills,
$258,609.
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