Prior to the year 1839 all the steampackets plying between Liverpool and Glasgow were built of wood, and these wooden steamers had established for themselves a reputation for speed and luxurious travelling not surpassed nearly three-quarters of a century later. It was, therefore, a bold thing to do on the part of the proprietors of the Glasgow and Liverpool Royal Steampacket Company to enter into competition with these famous and tried vessels, and to introduce into the trade steamers constructed not of wood but of iron. The pioneer steamer of this company, the ROYAL SOVEREIGN, sailed on her maiden voyage from Liverpool on Monday, 18th March, 1839. The company despatched their steamer twice a week from each port, and continued to do so until the end of August of the same year, when the second steamer, the ROYAL GEORGE, was placed on the station, and the sailings were increased to four times per week each way. The established lines were naturally indisposed to share the trade with an outsider, and to discourage the new enterprise they reduced the rates of freight on fine goods to 1d. per foot, and on steerage passengers to 1s. each. The Royal Steampacket Company maintained, in spite of this endeavour to drive them out of the trade, their advertised sailings, and grew in popularity with the travelling public. They decided in 1841 to increase their fleet by the addition of a third steamer, and it being evident that they had come to stay, their competitors, Messrs. MacIver and Messrs. Burns, entered into a friendly and honourable alliance with them, and uniform rates were adopted by the three lines to Glasgow. [Illustration: PRINCESS MAUD. M. Langlands & Sons.] A tradition exists in the Royal Company that when their third steamer was on the stocks the first birth in her late Majesty’s family was anticipated, and the proprietors proposed to call their new steamer the PRINCE OF WALES. The event, however, proved the name to be inappropriate, and PRINCESS ROYAL was substituted, a name which has been perpetuated by different steamships to the present day. The following paragraph respecting this steamer, which appeared in the “Glasgow Chronicle” of the 1st June, 1842, will be read with interest:—“The PRINCESS ROYAL. We feel much indebted to the agent (Mr. M. Langlands) of this splendid steamer for putting us in possession of the ‘Morning Chronicle’ of yesterday morning three hours before the arrival of the ‘London Mail’ containing the details of the attempted assassination of Her Majesty. Copies of the ‘Chronicle,’ ‘Times,’ and other London journals were, the moment the train arrived from Greenock, forwarded to the different public reading rooms in town, and altogether the public are much indebted to the proprietors and agents of the vessel at Liverpool and Glasgow for their public spirit and enterprise. The passage from Liverpool to Greenock was made in the astonishing space of 16½ hours.”