"Great Britain now had the advantage of this country in the carrying trade of the world, not because the vessels constructed were superior to ours _in model_, but _because of the great superiority of their marine engines_. The English have built the finest and best marine engines in the world. _We have always been inferior to her in that respect._" Senator Rusk, of Texas, who was chairman of the Senate "Committee on the Post Office and the Post Roads," in the course of a report made to the Senate under date of June 15, 1852, described at some length the difficulties under which the Collins Line was then laboring in spite of the subsidy it was receiving. In laying special stress upon the expense of running these ships he said that it was in part due to "the well-known fact that, at the period when they were commenced, there were no machine shops in this country in which castings of the size required could be made, _nor were there on this side of the Atlantic, experienced practical engineers competent to take charge of marine engines of such immense size_.... It is not to be supposed that engines of such vast dimensions could have been constructed in a country _where there were, as yet, no workshops adapted to the purpose_ and where labor is very high, as cheaply as in a country where every appliance of the kind already existed and where the prices of labor are proverbially low. _Nor can it be reasonably imagined that vessels of this description could have been navigated upon as good terms by men taken from this country._" (Sen. Rep. Com. 267, 32 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 3-4). That the iron screw steamer was steadily driving all American ships from the sea, was plainly seen several years before the war, and sufficient warnings were printed in the periodicals of the day. Said the _Scientific American_ on May 16, 1857:--