In 1851 John Inman entered the trade with his "Inman Line" of transatlantic screw steamers, which were to carry general cargo and emigrant passengers, then a steadily increasing business, and to be independent in all respects of either the Admiralty or the Post-Office.[AL] The unsubsidized line prospered. The next year (1852) the Cunard Company increased their liners' horsepower, and the Admiralty again increased their subsidy. The contract, now made to run for ten years, provided a subsidy of one hundred and seventy-three thousand three hundred and forty pounds per fifty-two round trips a year. The Americans were pressing them closer. Now freight rates were cut, and the British premier is quoted as advising the Cunard Company to run without freight if necessary to "beat off the American line."[AM] The increasing subsidies occasioned a Parliamentary investigation. The committee, evidently impressed by the gravity of the American competition, reported that "the cost of the North American service was not excessive," but they advised that all contracts thereafter "be let at public bidding."[AN] This recommendation was not heeded. In 1857, upon the plea that the Americans were about to build larger and more powerful liners, the Cunard Company asked a five years' extension of the contract of 1852. The extension was promptly granted. At the same time they were awarded an additional subsidy of three thousand pounds for a monthly mail service between New York and Nassau in the Bahamas.[AO] The next year (1858) after suffering crushing disasters in the loss of two of their steamers, and the withdrawal of their subsidy, the Collins Company failed, and their line was abandoned.[AP] So this competition ended. Meanwhile complaints of the Admiralty's partiality in the allotment of the contracts had been renewed more vigorously, with wider criticism of grants for mail carriage largely in excess of the postage received; and in 1859-60 another Parliamentary investigation was made. The ultimate result of this inquiry was a radical change in the system. The management of the ocean mail-service was taken from the Admiralty and placed wholly in the hands of the Post-Office Department; and at the expiration of the Cunard Company's extended contract, the service was thrown open to public competition, as the Parliamentary committee of 1846 had advised.