In subsidizing the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company during the earlier portion of its career to the large extent I have named, the British government were evidently actuated by reasons similar to those, which induced the government of the United States to make the like liberal concessions to the unfortunate Collins line; and there can be no doubt that the original vessels of this company were well adapted for one of the objects Government had then in view—the creation of a fleet of a class of large and strongly built merchant-steamers, which could be made use of in the event of war. Hence, all these vessels were built to carry heavy guns when necessary, so as to be serviceable for the purpose of the navy at a comparatively small subsequent outlay. A drawing is furnished on the following page of one of those ships which, in nearly all respects, resembled the government steamers of the period. [Illustration: S.S. “FORTH.”] [Sidenote: The steam-ship _Forth_.] [Sidenote: Losses of various ships of the company.] The _Forth_ was altogether a very fine vessel of her class, and the largest of any of the original fleet of the company. She was somewhere about 1900 tons gross, or builders’ measurement, 1147 tons register, and 450 nominal horse-power. She was built at Leith in 1841, by Messrs. Menzies and Co., and, as Government reserved its right of purchasing any of these ships at a valuation, she was, like the others, constructed in accordance with a specification from the Admiralty, under the survey and immediate control of officers appointed for this purpose. Indeed, the fleet of the Royal Mail Company consisted of the finest class of vessels of that description built of wood which, previous to 1841, had been sent to sea either for naval or mercantile purposes. Nor were they inferior to any vessels then afloat either in the completeness of their equipment, or in the elegance and convenience of their accommodation for first-class passengers. But, from some cause or other, arising either from those I have already ventured to suggest or from the unavoidable dangers of the ocean, the company at first was most unfortunate in the number of losses they sustained. Nor can it be urged that such disasters were due to any special dangers in their line of navigation, for they had no fogs and ice to fear, like their more northern Transatlantic voyagers: with the exception of occasional hurricanes among the West India Islands, their course was a comparatively safe one, and, yet, no fewer than six of the West India Royal Mail Company’s packets were lost in the first eight years of their career.