The original name of the company was “The British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company,” but it soon took the less cumbrous title of “The Cunard Steamship Company, Limited.” The Cunard Line commenced its service from Liverpool to North America on the anniversary of American Independence, the 4th of July, 1840, superseding as mail-carriers the ten-gun sailing brigs of earlier days.[13] [Illustration: THE “NIAGARA,” AS A TRANSPORT IN 1855.] The first fleet consisted of four side-wheel steamers, each 207 feet long, 34⅓ feet beam and 22½ feet deep. Their wooden hulls were constructed by four different builders on the Clyde—the _Acadia_ by John Wood, the _Britannia_ by Robert Duncan & Co.; the _Caledonia_ by Charles Wood, and the _Columbia_ by Robert Steele. All four were built after the same model, closely resembling that of the _Great Western_. They were all supplied with engines of the side-lever type, by Robert Napier & Sons, 403 horse-power, nominal, with cylinders of 72½ inches diameter and 82 inches stroke. They burned about forty-four tons of coal per day, and carried a steam pressure of 9 pounds to the square inch. The _Britannia_, commanded by Captain Woodruff, R.N., sailed on her first westward voyage on July 4th, and after calling at Halifax, reached Boston on the 19th, having made the passage in 14 days, 8 hours, including detention at Halifax. So great was the enthusiasm in Boston, it is said that Mr. Cunard, who had come out in the _Britannia_, received eighteen hundred invitations to dinner during the first twenty-four hours of his stay in the city! From that time until now the service has been maintained with marvellous regularity, and the line has an unrivalled reputation for safety. During all these intervening years the ships of the Cunard Line have crossed and recrossed the stormy Atlantic without the loss of a single life. In the early days of the service, the _Unicorn_, formerly of the Glasgow and Liverpool Line, plied between Quebec and Pictou, N.S., in connection with the Atlantic steamers, and is said to have been the first transatlantic steamer to reach Boston, on June 2nd, 1840. The _Unicorn_ was commanded by Captain Walter Douglas—a great favourite with his passengers—and the boat was a very fine one indeed.