w performed by H.M. Post-Office Packets, ditto | 4 | -- |
Marseilles to London | Ditto by regular course of Post ditto | 5 | -- |
|----+----|
Total Interval from Hong Kong to London, and vice versa, by the proposed | | |
Route. Days | 59 | -- |
Average interval of transmission of China Correspondance, via Calcutta and }| | |
Bombay, during the last Twenty Overland Mails, viz. from 10th October, 1841, }| | |
to 6th May, 1843 }| 89 | -- |
|----+----|
Difference of time in favor of proposed Route Days | 30 | |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----+----+-------------------

KEY: D - Days.
h - Hours.

Mem.--I have adopted an average rate of seven miles per hour as a fair
estimate of the speed well-appointed Steam Vessels, of moderate size
and power, will be enabled to accomplish and maintain, throughout
the proposed Route, at all seasons of the year; for, during the
whole distance from Pinang to Aden, and _vice versa_, neither
monsoon, from the course steered, becomes at any period a directly
adverse wind, an advantage which the route hitherto observed does
not possess. Assuming that the Hon. East India Company continue the
management of the Bombay line, and that the Peninsular and Oriental
Steam Navigation Company are encouraged to render their operations
more comprehensive, by the establishment of branch steamers between
Ceylon and Singapore, to which latter port her majesty's steam
vessels on the China station could convey the mails from Hong Kong,
this all-important object might, without difficulty, be attained. The
advantages to the Straits settlements, consequent on the adoption of
improved arrangements, require no comment; and the _practicability_
of effecting a very considerable acceleration of the communication
with China is evident from the simple fact that the average interval
which has occurred in the transmission of letters from China, by the
last twenty Overland Mails (irrespective of the unfortunate July mail
from Bombay), exceeds the period occasionally occupied by fast-sailing
ship