those engaged in the foreign mail service, are employed in the coasting and foreign continental trade; while some few of them run in the American merchant service, and many others in the subsidized mail service of foreign countries, such as the lines from Hamburgh and Antwerp to Brazil, and from those cities to the United States. Some of them are also engaged in the mail service between Canada and England, under the patronage of the Canadian government. (_See paper D, page 199._) If we add to this list the 271 war steamers, the 220 gunboats, and the Great Eastern, we shall find that the British Mail, Mercantile, and War Marine consists of the enormous number of two thousand one hundred and sixty-one steamers, exclusive of the large number now building. Nearly all of these are adapted to the ocean, or to the coasting service, and may be classed as sea-going vessels. It is interesting to trace this rapid progress of steam since its first application to purposes of mail transport in 1833. An intelligent writer says, "The rise and progress of the ocean steam mail service of Great Britain is second in interest to no chapter in the maritime history of the world;" and while we acknowledge a grateful pride in the triumphs of our transatlantic brethren, we must blush with shame at our dereliction in this great, and civilizing, and enriching service of modern times. The steam marine of the United States, postal, mercantile, and naval, is to-day so insignificant in extent that we do not feel entirely certain that it is a sufficient nucleus for the growth of a respectable maritime power. The few ships that we possess are among the fleetest and the most comfortable that traverse the ocean, and have excited the admiration of the world wherever they have been seen. But their number is so small, their service so limited, their field of operation so contracted, that our large commerce and travel are dependent, in most parts of the world, on British steam mail lines for correspondence and transport, or on the slow, irregular, and uncertain communications of sailing vessels. The question here naturally suggests itself: Have we progressed in ocean steam navigation in a ratio commensurate with the improvements of the age, or of our own improvement in every thing else? And has the Government of the country afforded to the people the facilities of enterprise and commercial competition which are clearly necessary to enable them to enter the contest on equal terms with other commercial countries? (_See Section VII._)