In May 1836 the _Monarch_ was launched from the shipyard of Rubie and Blaker, Northam, and was the largest steam vessel which had been constructed on the Itchen. Her dimensions were 140 feet long, 23 feet beam, 360 tons, and she was built in four months. Her engines, of 120 horse-power, were supplied by Horseley and Co. of Tipton, near Birmingham, and the vessel was sent to London to receive them. The _Monarch_ was placed on the Havre station by her owners, the South of England Steam Navigation Company. On June 2, 1836, the _Atalanta_, of 400 tons and 120 horse-power, was launched from the yard of Mr. Thomas White, West Cowes. She began running on the Channel Islands station for the South of England Steam Navigation Company during the month of July. The _Atalanta_ was lengthened by Mr. White some years later, her bows being cut off and up-ended in his yard for a workmen’s shelter. She ended her days as a coal-hulk in Jersey. In July 1836 the _Watersprite_, a vessel of 200 horse-power, was put on the Channel Islands station by the British and Foreign Steam Navigation Company, which two years later became the Commercial Steam Packet Company. This company owned also the _Grand Turk_, a vessel of 500 tons and 300 horse-power, and she was reputed to be the fastest and most handsomely furnished ship of her day. Her saloon was 50 feet in length by 30 feet wide. She ran both to Havre and the Channel Islands, and in 1841-1842 had opposed to her the steamer _Robert Burns_. The _Grand Turk_ was chartered in 1848 for two years to run between Alexandria, Beyrout, Tripoli, and other Mediterranean ports with passengers and mails. On her return she plied between Southampton and Morlaix for the South-Western Steam Packet Company. The _Transit_, another of the old steamers of the South-Western Steam Packet Company, was running in 1836 under the ownership of the British and Foreign Steam Navigation Company, between Southampton and Spanish ports, carrying cattle and general cargo. She is recorded to have made the passage from Lisbon to Falmouth in three and a half days during the winter of 1836. When withdrawn from this trade she was run to the Channel Islands by the South-Western Steam Packet Company, and she, too, ended her days as a coal-hulk. Between 1838 and 1845 the mail service between England and the Channel Islands appears to have been performed by a steam-packet service from Weymouth, of which no reliable records can be discovered. The transfer of this mail service to the steamers of the South-Western Steam Packet Company from Southampton took place on April 1, 1845. But in October 1899, when the steamers of the London and South-Western Railway Company from Southampton and the Great Western Railway Company from Weymouth were joined in the Channel Islands service the mails were once more carried via Weymouth three days a week during the winter months.