On and from the 1st of January, 1875, the mails were carried on an entirely fresh basis. The contract with the Government was for a service twice a month from Southampton: payment to be according to the weight of postal matter conveyed by the steamers, and the contract was terminable by six months’ notice given by either party to the contract. Although on the North Atlantic screw steamers had been employed in rapidly increasing numbers since 1850, it was not until twenty years later that the Directors of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. substituted screw steamers for paddle-wheel steam packets in their service. The first fleet of the Company consisted of vessels built of wood, but so indeed were the pioneer steamers of the Cunard, P. & O., and other historical steamship companies. The course taken by the Company’s vessels was free from the dangers from ice and fogs, such as are encountered by steamers engaged in the North Atlantic trades, yet during the first eight years of the Company’s operations it lost no fewer than six of its steamers. The ISIS struck on a reef off the coast of Bermuda and sank on the 8th October, 1842. The SOLWAY was lost 20 miles west of Corunna on the 15th April, 1843. The MEDINA was wrecked on a coral reef near Turk’s Island on the 12th May, 1844. The TWEED was totally lost on the 12th February, 1847; and in 1849, the FORTH was wrecked on the same reefs that had caused the destruction of the TWEED. The ACTÆON was lost in 1850 on a shoal near Carthagena; and in 1852 there was lost by fire the AMAZON. [Illustration: R.M.S. PORT ANTONIO leaving Avonmouth for Kingston, Jamaica.] An event occurred on the 8th November, 1861, which occasioned considerable public excitement, both in Great Britain and in the U.S.A. It was during the struggle between the Northern and Southern States, and two of the Commissioners of the Confederate States were forcibly removed from the Royal Mail steamer TRENT, while on their way to Europe, by the officers and crew of the Federal man-of-war SAN JACINTO. This high-handed action, which was not repudiated by the Federal Government, was inexcusable, and the tone adopted by a great portion of the press of the Northern States was ludicrous, and unworthy of a great people. In 1871 there was launched from the yard of Messrs. John Elder & Co. two splendid screw steamers to the order of the Royal Mail Co. These steamers were the TAGUS and the MOZELLE, both steamers being 3,252 tons gross register and 600 nominal horse-power. On her official trial trip the TAGUS attained an average mean speed of 14·878 knots per hour, a result which was slightly surpassed by her sister ship the MOZELLE, the average mean speed of the latter on her trial trip being 14·929 knots per hour.