al subsidy of $425,000 to Samuel Cunard and
his associates, and thereby created the most famous of the Atlantic
steamship companies.

Four of these liners began running in 1840--an event which foretold the
doom of the packet fleets, though the warning was almost unheeded in
New York and Boston. Four years later Enoch Train was establishing a new
packet line to Liverpool with the largest, finest ships built up to that
time, the Washington Irving, Anglo-American, Ocean Monarch, Anglo-Saxon,
and Daniel Webster. Other prominent shipping houses were expanding
their service and were launching noble packets until 1853. Meanwhile the
Cunard steamers were increasing in size and speed, and the service was
no longer an experiment.

American capital now began to awaken from its dreams, and Edward K.
Collins, managing owner of the Dramatic line of packets, determined to
challenge the Cunarders at their own game. Aided by the Government
to the extent of $385,000 a year as subsidy, he put afloat the four
magnificent steamers, Atlantic, Pacific, Baltic, and Arctic, which were
a day faster than the Cunarders in crossing, and reduced the voyage to
nine and ten days. The Collins line, so auspiciously begun in 1850, and
promising to give the United States the supremacy in steam which it had
won under sail, was singularly unfortunate and short-lived. The Arctic
and the Pacific were lost at sea, and Congress withdrew its financial
support after five years. Deprived of this aid, Mr. Collins was unable
to keep the enterprise afloat in competition with the subsidized
Cunard fleet. In this manner and with little further effort by American
interests to compete for the prize, the dominion of the Atlantic passed
into British hands.

The packet ships had held on too long. It had been a stirring episode
for the passengers to cheer in mid-ocean when the lofty pyramids of
canvas swept grandly by some wallowing steamer and left her far astern,
but in the fifties this gallant picture became less frequent, and a
sooty banner of smoke on the horizon proclaimed the new era and the
obliteration of all the rushing life and beauty of the tall ship under
sail. Slow to realize and acknowledge defeat, persisting after the
steamers were capturing the cabin passenger and express freight
traffic, the American ship-owners could not visualize this profound
transformation. Their majestic clippers still surpassed all rivals in
the East India and China trade and were