The capital of 1,250,000_l._ was at once subscribed, and this new undertaking now known as the West India and Pacific Steam Navigation Company (Limited), finding it necessary to re-organize the whole business and, in addition, to embrace the Colon trade, and other lines of traffic, subdivided the services into five separate branches—one to Belize, one to Tampico, one to Colon, one to St. Thomas, and one to Trinidad.[291] It was also arranged to dispatch steamers to Barbadoes and Demerara. The trunk or principal line of the company is that to Colon, in connection with the Panama railroad, and, by it, with the various steam lines on the Pacific, the company signing through bills of lading for no fewer than seventy ports, at sixteen of which their vessels call to land goods and passengers. This undertaking, which has met with considerable success, conveys the British mails to Honduras and Mexico. It now owns thirteen steamers of 24,680 tons gross register. Though inferior in size and power to the steam-ships of the other Transatlantic lines, they are a very fine class of iron screw propelled vessels, maintaining an average speed of more than 10 knots an hour, and performing the passage with great regularity from Liverpool to St. Thomas in eighteen, and to Colon in about twenty-two days. Besides those I have mentioned, various other lines of steam-ships now traverse the Atlantic north and south, as well as casual steamers and large numbers of sailing-vessels, most of the former being the property of associations carrying on business, either under the old law or under the Limited Liability Act. [Sidenote: Liverpool, Brazil, and River Plate Steam Company.] Among the largest of these may be mentioned the Liverpool, Brazil, and River Plate Steam-ship Company (Limited), which was formed in 1865, the principal shareholders being Messrs. Lamport and Holt, of Liverpool, by whom the steamers are managed, and a few of their personal friends. There is nothing, however, in their fleet of vessels requiring special notice, except that they are a very fine class of business steamers and have performed their work with great regularity. They are now thirty-one in number, of a gross tonnage of 49,294 tons,[292] and have excellent accommodation, combined with every comfort which passengers can desire, offering all the means of safety in their prudent management, and regularity of system, which can be hoped for in Transatlantic voyages.