1393. If I understand you, from what you have stated from that report, the estimate of the Admiralty for the cost of their vessels, for three first-class vessels and one second-class vessel, was £148,000?--Yes, £148,000. 1394. That makes no allowance for any receipt from passengers?--It is without deducting passage-money. 1395. What was the amount of passage-money deducted from the East India Company’s account, which comes to £108,000?--That will be shown by the Parliamentary document ordered to be printed on the 3rd of July, 1843, I presume; It is not stated here. No. IV. _Contract for conveying the Bombay Branch of the India Mails between Southampton and Alexandria._ Two Mail Communications per month with India being thus established,--viz., that by the Peninsular and Oriental Company to Calcutta, _viâ_ Ceylon, and that by the East India Company’s packets between Suez and Bombay,--the Mails for the former being despatched _viâ_ Southampton on the 20th, by the Peninsular and Oriental Company’s vessels, to meet the same Company’s vessels plying between Suez and India, China, &c.,--it became necessary to provide a means of conveyance for the Bombay branch of the India Mail between Southampton and Alexandria, which had hitherto been conveyed by the Peninsular and Oriental Company’s vessels, and was despatched from Southampton on the 3rd of every month. The Government required, at first, a continuous line of steam vessels, of not less than 400-horse power, to ply between Southampton and Alexandria, similar to that conveying the Calcutta branch of the India Mails; and the Peninsular and Oriental Company were called upon to submit proposals for undertaking the Service on that plan. The Managing Directors represented that to undertake the Service upon that plan would entail a heavy expense upon the public, inasmuch as the expense of maintaining such a communication, by such vessels, would be equal to the expense of the Southampton and Alexandria communication for the Calcutta branch of the Mails, for which the public were then paying about £30,000 per annum; while the passenger traffic, _viâ_ Bombay, would be considerably less, in consequence of the obstruction presented to the conveyance of goods, and the high charge and inadequate accommodation for passengers by the East India Company’s packets. In short, that, looking to these circumstances, £40,000 per annum would scarcely be remunerative for such an undertaking. This plan was, therefore, abandoned; and, after some others proposed by the Government had been also abandoned, on account of the expense, or being otherwise found impracticable, the Managing Directors submitted a plan and proposal for transmitting the Bombay branch of the India Mail between Southampton and Alexandria, _viâ_ Malta, _without causing any additional expense to the public_.