Up to 1846 the system in use by the British packet ships of Liverpool was to have a white light under the cross-trees below the foot of the foresail, with a red light on the port paddlebox and a white light on the starboard paddlebox, but apparently the Milford steam packets carried a red light on the starboard bow, a green light on the port bow and a “common light” (presumably white) at the foremast head. It is claimed that this was also the fashion adopted by the P. & O. Company. In 1846 the Royal Mail Steam Company’s ships carried masthead and bow lights, but colourless. The subject is a little difficult to elucidate, but it is certain that there were in existence different usages as late as this date, and it was not until at least two years later that any sort of uniformity came in. It has been stated by another authority that it was only as a result of the collision between the Collins liner _Arctic_ and the French ship _Vesta_ on September 21, 1854, when the former foundered with the loss of 323 lives out of 368, that the carrying of side-lights was made compulsory and not optional. Even in the American packets most of the crew were British, and often enough gaol-birds of the worst type, but the captains were pretty tough and accustomed to handling men as well as ships, and the mates were of the same order. These ships could reel off their twelve knots pretty regularly, and sometimes did the voyage in sixteen days. With their high-steeved bowsprits, their black hulls and square painted ports, and carrying plenty of canvas, even to skysails and stuns’ls in summer weather, they used to race against each other, sometimes even for very high stakes. For quite a long time the Atlantic packet ships were able to laugh at the steamships, but gradually from 1840 the progress of the marine engineer and shipbuilder wore down the competition. Regularity and reliability of running with increased comfort were bound to have their influence on the carrying of mails, passengers and merchandise. Ralph Waldo Emerson in his _English Traits_ has left on record an account of his passage across the Atlantic from Boston in 1847 aboard the packet ship _Washington Irving_. She was of 750 tons register, the mainmast measured 115 feet from deck to truck, and the length of the ship from stem to stern on deck was 155 feet. “The shortest sea-line,” he goes on to remark, “from Boston to Liverpool is 2850 miles. This a steamer keeps, saving 150 miles. A sailing ship can never go in a shorter line than 3000, and usually it is much longer. Our good master keeps his kites up to the last moment, studding sails alow and aloft, and by incessant straight steering never loses a rod of way.... Since the ship was built, it seems, the master never slept but in his day-clothes whilst on board.... Hour for hour, the risk on a steamboat is greater; but the speed is safety, or twelve days of danger instead of twenty-four.”