yet pointed out that this was "a beautiful coincidence of nominal dates." [Illustration: Sailing of _BRITANNIA_, February 3, 1844 From a contemporary engraving] A few months later the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company was organized especially to carry the mail to the West Indies, including St. Thomas, Haiti, and Cuba, and to Chagres, to Mexico, and to the south part of the United States, as well. A branch line was to be maintained from the West Indies to Brazil. The contract (made in March, 1841) called for fourteen steamships built so as to carry "guns of the largest caliber" then in use in the navy; and the frames and planking were of a thickness to resist shot as well as a frigate--as, indeed, were those of the Cunard line. The commanders of the ships were to be naval officers. The subsidy paid was £240,000 a year. It is important to note that this line was to run regularly to Chagres, where there was not enough traffic to pay the expense of the ship while lowering a boat to carry the mail ashore, and, further, that there was not enough traffic anywhere on the route to pay any considerable part of the expense of the line. Indeed, the traffic and subsidy together proved insufficient to pay expenses. Further than that, the time allowed in all the ports was limited--to six hours at the important island of Barbados, for instance, and to twenty-four at Port Royal, Jamaica, where there was an important naval station. It was impossible to handle any valuable quantity of West India cargo in such short periods. It is therefore certain that frequent and swift voyages were wanted in the establishing of this line, rather than the carrying of cargo. And this is to say that it was established for the same reasons that brigs had been used in carrying the royal mail theretofore. It was a political and military service that the ships were to perform. Consider all these facts in connection with the political complications with the United States that have been mentioned. It was in 1840 that the British government demanded the release of McLeod on pain of war. It was at that time that the people of Maine and New Brunswick took up arms in connection with the boundary dispute. At the same time the British government was looking ahead to an increase of territory along the Spanish Main, including a canal across Nicaragua in contempt of the Monroe Doctrine.