The national pride of the Americans had been touched by the commercial success of British steam-ships frequenting their ports, and they determined, vulgarly speaking, “to have a piece of the pie.” American genius and enterprise had sent forth a fleet of steamers to trade on their coasts, lakes, and rivers, which a leading English authority considers “were marvels of naval architecture, unsurpassed in speed, and in the splendour of their equipment.” Their clipper-sailing ships “were the finest the world had then produced, while their perfection in the art of ship-building had even reached so high a point that they constructed steamers to ascend rivers where there was hardly depth of water for an Indian canoe; indeed, it was proverbially said, in honour of their skill in the art, that their vessels would traverse valleys if only moistened by the morning dews.” Why should they not have a great ocean line? It was looked upon in Congress and by the country generally as almost a national question, and it resulted in a heavy mail subsidy to Mr. Collins and his colleagues. They immediately made arrangements for the construction of four large vessels. Later, the Government increased the subsidy by over one-third (from $19,250 per trip to $33,000) _but increased speed was required in return_. How much this may have had to do with the two terrible disasters about to be related will no doubt strike the reader. The Collins Line commenced its voyages in 1850. “A voyage across the Atlantic,” says Lindsay, “must ever be attended with greater peril than almost any other ocean service of similar length and duration; arising, as this does, from the boisterous character and uncertainty of the weather, from the icebergs which float in huge masses during spring along the northern line of passage, and from the many vessels of every kind to be met with either employed in the Newfoundland fisheries, or in the vast and daily-increasing intercourse between Europe and America. “In such a navigation the utmost care requires to be constantly exercised, especially by steam-ships. Nevertheless, although the Collins Line of steamers performed this passage with a speed hitherto unequalled, they encountered no accidents worthy of notice during the first four years of their career; but terrible calamities befell them soon afterwards.”