As the Peninsular packets had to call at Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, and Cadiz, in their passage to and from Gibraltar, and the Government packets were of inferior power (about 140 horses) and speed, the transmission of the India Mails by this route was very tardy, occupying generally from three weeks to a month in their passage between England and Alexandria. Imperfect as this mode of transmission was, it probably would have been continued for an indefinite period, had not some circumstances occurred to render an alteration of it imperative. About the middle of the year 1839, the British Government effected a convention with the French Government, for transmitting letters and despatches to and from India, &c., overland, through France, _viâ_ Marseilles, from whence a British Admiralty packet conveyed them to Malta. From thence this portion of the Mail, and the larger and heavier portion, forwarded by the Peninsular and Admiralty packets, _viâ_ Gibraltar, were carried together to Alexandria by another Admiralty packet. The portion of the Mails forwarded through France was despatched from the Post-office on the 4th of every month, while the main, or heavier portion, continued to be forwarded from Falmouth, by the Peninsular packets, every fourth Saturday; this arrangement was found, in the course of a few months, to work very awkwardly, inasmuch as the portion of the Mail forwarded, _viâ_ Gibraltar, had become a fortnight or more in advance of that forwarded _viâ_ Marseilles, and had to wait that time at Malta for the arrival of the Marseilles packet. This irregularity, which every succeeding Mail increased, together with the suspicion that the British despatches, in their transit through France, were not altogether safe from being tampered with, rendered the Government very desirous of establishing a more accelerated means of transmission, _viâ_ Gibraltar, for the main portion of the India Mails and the public despatches. The Managers of the Peninsular steamers were applied to, to submit a plan for this object. They proposed to establish a line of large and powerful steamers, to run direct from England to Alexandria, and _vice versa_, touching at Gibraltar and Malta only, and, by such an arrangement, to transmit the Mails in a time that should not exceed by more than two to three days that occupied by the overland route through France; and undertook to execute such service, with vessels of 450-horse power, for a sum which should not exceed the cost to the public of the small and inefficient Admiralty packets then employed in the same service. The plan was examined and adopted by the Government; but, as in the case of the Peninsular Contract, the execution of it was put up to public tender, by advertisement. And, as appears by the evidence of Mr. T. C. Croker, of the Admiralty (see his answer to question No. 2,033), no less than four competitors tendered for the Contract, viz.:--