In 1850, Government granted a renewal of the mail contract to the company for a further term of ten years from the 1st January, 1852, the conditions being, that the subsidy should be raised from 240,000_l._ to 270,000_l._ per annum, and that the company, on its part, should undertake the additional cost and expense of a monthly service to the Brazils, thus increasing the mileage to be performed from 389,448 to 547,296 miles, and, at the same time, reducing the mileage rate from 12_s._ 3_d._ to 9_s._ 10_d._ per mile. The company was also required to accelerate the speed on the West Indian line from 8 knots an hour, as originally agreed, to 10 knots an hour, and to add five new steamers to their fleet, each of 2250 tons burden and 800 horse-power. Besides an increased outlay of capital, these conditions entailed on the company a very considerable increase in the wear and tear of ships and machinery; hence their general expenditure rose in the course of the year, after these new arrangements came into force, from 264,802_l._ to 403,769_l._ per annum. [Sidenote: Fresh conditions, 1857.] In 1857, other changes were made in their contract. The first condition—a somewhat extraordinary one—had reference to an amalgamation with the European and Australian Mail Company for the conveyance of the mails, _viâ Egypt_, to and from Australia, which subsequently proved a great failure, this Company having altogether broken down; the second required an acceleration of the mails between England and Rio Janeiro from sixty-six days twenty-two hours, the time hitherto allowed for the performance of the round voyage, to fifty-five days nineteen hours. The company was, also, ordered to provide three more vessels, of 3000 tons and 800 horse-power, for the West India and Atlantic service, and a fourth of smaller dimensions to increase the speed of the mails between Rio Janeiro and the River Plate. These changes proved to be of considerable public advantage, as the time of the post between England and the isthmus of Panama was thus reduced from fifty-nine to forty-two days, while, as the homeward mails arrived three days before the departure of the outward ones, the mercantile community obtained important additional facilities for transacting their business with that part of the world. [Sidenote: Contract again renewed, 1864.]