Whatever might have been the consequence of a strict interpretation of the law, as intimated by the postmaster general, the deputy postmaster general did not discontinue the convenient, and, to him, profitable practice of providing for the transmission of unpaid letters from the United States addressed to Canada. So far from that, Sutherland improved on this arrangement. At the solicitation of Canadian merchants, he obtained the consent of the United States department to having British mails, landed at New York, passed on to Canada without being held for the United States postage. The postage due for the conveyance of the letters through the United States was collected by the deputy postmaster general, and transmitted by him to Washington, and the delays incident to having this work done in the United States were avoided.[186] On the 15th of February, 1825, a memorial[187] was addressed to the British government by the Marquess of Ormonde, the Knight of Kerry and Simon McGillivray, proposing to establish communication between Great Britain and the British North American colonies by steam vessels, and asking for the exclusive privilege of providing such a service for fourteen years. At this time steamboats were in pretty general use in the inland and coastal waters of Great Britain, United States and Canada, but nothing had up to this time been done to demonstrate that it would be practicable to cross the Atlantic by a steamboat. In 1819, a sailing vessel, the "Savannah," fitted up with a boiler and engine and provided with a pair of paddles which could be hauled on deck at will, started from Savannah, Georgia, for Liverpool. The voyage occupied twenty-seven days. Only for three days and eight hours was the "Savannah" under steam. There was nothing in this experiment to induce the conviction that steam could be successfully employed as a means of propulsion on the transatlantic service, and as a matter of fact the machinery was removed from the "Savannah" on her return to her American port, and she spent the rest of a short existence as an ordinary sailing vessel between New York and Savannah. Lord Ormonde and his associates were convinced of the practicability of steam navigation across the Atlantic, but to make an enterprise of that kind a success, they would have to satisfy the public on the point, and this would involve a large outlay. In asking for a fourteen years' monopoly, they argued that their proposition would not produce the ordinary ill-effects of a monopoly, as any tendency they might exhibit towards excessive charges would be held in check by sailing vessels, and by steamships, which would inevitably be run between the United States and ports on the continent of Europe.