d to its general capabilities.

Whatever may be said of the wind as a cheap agent of locomotion, this
much may be safely predicated of steam vessels for the mails; that
their time of departure and arrival has an absolute fixity which is
attainable by no other means, and which is highly conducive to the
best interests of all those for whom commerce is conducted. No
reasoning is necessary to show to the man of business, or even to the
pleasure-seeker, the importance of approximate certainty as to the
time when the mail leaves and when he can receive an answer to his
dispatches. He may not be able to give clearly philosophic reasons for
it; yet he feels the necessity in his business; and it certainly
relieves him of many painful doubts, if nothing more. Uncertainty in
commercial operations is always hazardous and costly to the great mass
of the people, who as a general thing pay more for whatever they get,
on the principle that we seldom take a venture in an uncertain thing
unless it holds out inducements of large profit, or unless we get a
high price for guarantying it. So in commercial correspondence, which
constitutes the great bulk of the ocean mails. Let uncertainty prevail
for but three or four days beyond the time when we should have news
from abroad, and every body is in doubt, every body speculates, and in
the end every body is injured.

Nor is this certainty in the time of arrival and departure of the
mails more desirable than their speed. The common sense of the world
has settled down upon the necessity of rapid mails; and all of the
ingenuity of the age is now taxed to its very highest to secure more
speed in the transmission of intelligence. Many interests demand it.
Money, which represents labor, is continually lent and borrowed in
bills of exchange, acceptances, deposits, and in actual cash sent
across the seas. The length of time for passing the bills and
correspondence, or the specie itself, thus becomes an exceedingly
important item to those who are to use them, and consequently to the
ultimate consumer for whom they are conducting the commercial
transaction. What community would to-day tolerate the idea of sending
three millions of dollars per week, and five millions of credits
between England and the United States on a sailing ship of whatever
quality, with the probability of keeping it lying unproductive on the
ocean for thirty days? Extend this to weekly shipments of the same
amounts, and have at on