Then recall the fact that the use of steam for driving war-ships was yet in the experimental stage. Many able naval men believed that sails were yet to be preferred, but the English were especially anxious to learn all about the new power in order to keep abreast with the progress of the age--to preserve their _naval_ superiority. It is of significance that young naval officers were detailed to command all of the West India ships and to accompany those of the Cunard line. Further than that, it is to be noted that the Admiralty insisted that the subsidized ships be built of wood not only then, but for years after iron had proved cheaper and more efficient for merchant ships, and this was done because it was fully believed that a wooden ship was best for naval uses. In short, the subsidizing of ships was begun chiefly as a military and diplomatic measure. Any candid review of the facts shows it. It was done, too, with a full knowledge that paying a subsidy was against the interests of the other owners of steamships that were already plying between Liverpool and New York. In fact, the Cunard line had hardly learned the way to Boston when the Great Western line made such loud complaints about the destruction of private enterprise through the subsidizing of the Cunard that a committee of Parliament took up the whole matter and concluded that the other steamers would not be put out of the trade. There were men on both sides of the Atlantic who saw at that time that steam would eventually drive sails from the packet routes. E. K. Collins was one of these men. But no one supposed at that time that subsidizing a single mail line from Liverpool to Boston would do it. And even the optimistic Cunard directors made no effort to interfere with the traffic of the New York and Liverpool sailing packets until it was seen that American capitalists were about to put on a line of steamers between New York and Liverpool. With these facts in mind, we may now comprehend the full story of the first American steam-packet lines that ran across the Atlantic Ocean. CHAPTER XIV DEEP-WATER STEAMSHIPS--PART II The success of the British steamers that crossed the Atlantic in 1838 led a number of New York capitalists to form what they called the American Atlantic Steam Navigation Company, of which James de Peyster Ogden was chairman, and on March 22, 1839, calls for subscriptions to the capital stock were published in the New York papers. The answers to the calls were few, and the enterprise was abandoned.