“We are also disposed to believe,” they added, “that a steam communication by the Red Sea, and still more, if it should be found practicable, by the Persian Gulf and the River Euphrates, would open the way to other improvements, and would ultimately redound to the benefit of this country as well as of India; and, if our finances were in a flourishing state (they were always poor, though ever rolling in wealth), we might probably feel it a duty to incur even the enormous outlay which we have specified (100,000_l._). In the present condition of our resources, we cannot, however, think the probable difference of time in the mere transmission of letters a sufficient justification for the expense. We cannot anticipate that the return in postage and passengers would pay more than a very small portion of the charge.” But happily, after other observations, they concluded by saying that, “at the same time we deem the subject too important to be lost sight of or hastily dismissed.”[309] [Sidenote: Official report of the first voyages of the _Hugh Lindsay_, 1830.] In the meantime the _Hugh Lindsay_ (a war steam-vessel, built of teak at Bombay in 1829 for the service of the East India Company), had fortunately been despatched[310] by the Bombay Government under command of Captain J. H. Wilson, from Bombay to Suez and back—a voyage, I may add, which was twice repeated before the Court of Directors gave any instructions on the subject, though one, too, materially tending to solve some at least of the difficulties they had contemplated. It was on the second of these occasions that Sir John Malcolm and his suite made the overland passage to England. “When it was determined,” remarks Captain Wilson, “that the _Hugh Lindsay_ should attempt the voyage to Suez, it became necessary to put on board double the quantity of coal the vessel was built to carry, to do which, a great part of the space originally intended for accommodation was appropriated to the stowage of coal; water also was necessary, sufficient for use until the vessel should reach land in the event of a break-down between Bombay and the first depôt; as also stores and provisions for the whole voyage to and from the Red Sea.”[311]