It is probable that one of the most serious blows they received in their short periods of activity resulted from the success of Samuel Cunard in securing from the British Government the contract for carrying the mails from Liverpool to Boston and Halifax. This contract, which included a fairly sizable subsidy, required that Cunard build and operate four steamships, which the subsidy enabled him to operate successfully despite the competition of the other three lines. Cunard’s steamers, being all alike and of very nearly the same speed, and being despatched at regular intervals, soon took from his competitors the little business they had, and they went out of business or transferred their ships to other duties. The Cunard Line, then, from the Fourth of July, 1840, when the _Britannia_ sailed for Boston, has been a successful transatlantic line, and is to-day the oldest transatlantic line in existence, as well as one of the finest and most powerful. At first this company was known as the “British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company,” and its first ships, the _Britannia_, the _Acadia_, the _Caledonia_, and the _Columbia_, were each 207 feet long, about 1,150 tons, and could carry 115 cabin passengers and 225 tons of cargo. In 1840 the Pacific Steam Navigation Company obtained its charter and was the pioneer steamship line along the western coast of South America. Earlier than this, however—in 1835—a firm of London merchants began to run steamers from England to the Far East. These steamers, sailing more regularly and with more dispatch than the sailing vessels, were given the contract to carry the mails. This service became the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, which is still a vigorous and enterprising line, although now it sails out and back through the Suez Canal and not by the long route around the Cape of Good Hope. One of the two oldest existing steamship lines is the General Steam Navigation Company, which I have already mentioned. Founded in 1824, this line still runs steamers from England and Scotland to the continent and the Mediterranean. In 1846 one of its ships—the _Giraffe_—carried the first cargo of live cattle to England. While the Allan Line has operated steamships only since 1852, it may be said to have been founded about 1816, when Captain Alexander Allan began running several sailing vessels between Scotland and Canada. Although this line did not adopt steamships until thirty-six years after it was founded, it has had a leading place in the development of steamships. An Allan liner inaugurated the “spar deck” in order that a clear promenade deck might be constructed. The first Atlantic steamship to be built of steel—the _Buenos Ayrean_—was an Allan liner built in 1879. The _Virginian_ and the _Victorian_ were built in 1905 and were the first transatlantic steamships propelled by turbines. Such developments as these entitle a steamship line to great credit.