In providing for these lines Congress had been influenced chiefly by a desire to meet the British diplomacy in establishing the Royal Mail Line to the West Indies, the Isthmus, and Mexico. But the desire to provide ships fit for war was also in mind, and some enthusiasts supposed that the line would in some way increase American commerce with the countries of the Pacific coast, especially those at the south of the Isthmus, where an American named William Wheelwright had established a coast line with British capital. It is seen now, that neither of these lines could have made money under the contracts, and that none of the hopes of Congress would have been satisfied but for the discovery of gold in California and the consequent rush of emigrants to the gold-fields. Because of the traffic thus supplied both lines were immensely profitable. The Pacific Mail made money in spite of the fact that coal cost $30 a ton (one lot $50), and there were no shops anywhere on the coast for the repair of ships until the company established works of the kind. In fact, the enormous profits brought unsubsidized steamers into competition with both the lines. Commodore C. Vanderbilt, who had earned fame as a steamship man on the Hudson River and Long Island Sound, was one of the "interlopers," and he was paid, at one time, $56,000 a month to keep his ships out of the traffic (_Cong. Globe_, June, 1858). The Panama railroad, which was completed at midnight, January 27, 1855, was built as a connecting link between these two lines; and one gets an idea of the extent of the traffic thereafter from the fact that in the first seven years it was operated (including the traffic on the uncompleted line beginning in 1852) the earnings amounted to $5,971,728.66 (Otis, _Isthmus of Panama_). Brief space will suffice for the stories of the unsubsidized transatlantic steamships of the period. In 1848 the owners of the Black Ball Line of sailing packets attempted to substitute steam for sail by building the steamer _United States_, a ship of 1904 tons, which they despatched to Liverpool. But because of the competition of the subsidized ships it was not possible to make her pay. The subsidized ships were able to cut rates on all kinds of traffic, of course, and this was naturally done when the new ship was seeking cargo. This fact seems to be of much importance. It is a fact beyond dispute that subsidies to a few favored lines greatly injured all other shipping trading to the same ports--it injured British as well as American shipping. In fact, the British ship-owners, as already noted, were injured so much that they made emphatic protests to their government, but they were, in the long run, able to survive the effects of the unfair practice. In the United States the paying of subsidies to the few lines simply killed private enterprise on the North Atlantic.