AN ABSTRACT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, APPOINTED SESSION, 1849, TO INQUIRE INTO THE CONTRACT PACKET SERVICE; IN SO FAR AS THE SAME RELATES TO THE PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY; WITH AN INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT AND REMARKS. Presented to the Court of Directors. ABSTRACTED AND PRINTED FOR THE INFORMATION OF THE PROPRIETORS OF THE COMPANY. _November, 1849._ As the circumstances connected with the origin and progress of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, and particularly with its employment in the Contract Mail Packet Service, are but imperfectly known to a great proportion of the present Proprietors; for their better information it has been deemed advisable by the Directors to authorise the printing and circulation of the following Statement and Abstract. References, it will be found, are occasionally made to parts of the proceedings of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, which have not been printed in this pamphlet, because they would have rendered it too bulky for convenient perusal. But those who may wish to examine these proceedings at length, can procure the Parliamentary Blue Book at Hansard’s offices for the sale of Parliamentary Papers. AN ABSTRACT, _&c., &c._ In their last Report, presented to the Proprietors at the general meeting held on the 31st of May last, the Directors stated that a Committee of the House of Commons had been appointed, “to inquire into the Contract Packet Service;” and expressed “their satisfaction that such an inquiry had been instituted, feeling, as they did, that as far as the interests of this Company were concerned, it would have a beneficial tendency, by eliciting facts connected with the origin and progress of the Company, and its employment in the Contract Mail Service, which could not fail to show the important national benefits which it has been the means of realising, and its consequent claim to public support.” It is no doubt known to some Proprietors of the Company, that for several years past statements have been made, and circulated with untiring pertinacity, to the effect, that the Contracts made by the Government with this Company for the Mail Packet Service had been obtained through undue favouritism, or corrupt jobbing[1]--that fair competition had been denied to other parties,--and that the Company had, in consequence, obtained a much larger remuneration for the Service than ought to have been given, and were deriving enormous profits from it. Although the Directors were aware that these misstatements had obtained some attention, even in influential quarters, they probably did not consider it was consistent with the eminent position which the Company occupies to take any legal proceedings against, or to enter into any public controversy with, the parties who had been chiefly instrumental in propagating them.