amers were to be furnished, two of not less than a thousand tons
each. Upon receiving the contract Mr. Harris immediately transferred it
to W.H. Aspinwall of New York, representing the newly formed Pacific
Mail Steamship Company.[GC] The third was the Collins contract. This
stipulated for a semi-monthly service between New York and Liverpool
during the eight open months of the year, and a monthly service through
the four winter months, with five steamers, each of not less than 2000
tons and engines of a thousand horsepower. The first ship was to be
ready for service in eighteen months after the date of the contract,
November 1, 1847. The subsidy was fixed at $19,250 per twenty round
trips, or three hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars a year, a rate
of $3.11 a mile for sailing about 124,000 miles.[GD]

By subsequent acts the secretary of the navy was authorized to advance
twenty-five thousand dollars a month on each of the ships called for by
these several contracts from the time of their launching to their
finish; and the date of the completion of the first Collins steamer and
the opening of the New York and Liverpool service was extended to June
1, 1850.[GE]

At the same time that the secretary of the navy was executing these
contracts the postmaster-general under the authority of an act "to
establish certain Post Routes and for other purposes," also approved
March 3, 1847,[GF] was contracting for a steamship mail-service between
Charleston and Havana, with a subsidy of forty-five thousand dollars per
annum. This contract was entered into with M.C. Mordecai of Charleston,
who agreed to furnish steamships suitable for war purposes, and to
perform a monthly service.[GG] Several other propositions for steamship
service to various foreign countries were made to the postmaster-general
at this time, but none was accepted.[GH]

The pioneer Bremen-Havre line began its service on the first day of June
1847, with two steamers. These were the _Washington_ and the _Hermann_,
built in New York, strong and large, of 1640 tons and 1734 tons,
respectively, side-wheelers, bark-rigged. At first they made the run to
Bremen in from twelve to seventeen days, much better time than the
average clipper.[GI] But up to 1851 they had no regular schedule of
sailings, and, their speed being unsatisfactory, few mails were sent by
them. The subsidy payments, therefore, were made for each voyage
separately.[GJ] They had also ceased to command