The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

CHAPTER V. MAIL-PACKETS. The employment of vessels for the conveyance of mails seems to have passed through three several stages, each no doubt merging into the next, but each retaining, nevertheless, distinct features of its own. First, there was the stage when Government equipped and manned its own ships for the service; then there was an age of very heavy subsidies to shipping companies who could not undertake regularity of sailing without some such assistance; and now there is the third stage, when, through the great development of international trade and the consequent competition of rival shipowners, regularity of sailing is ensured apart from the post, and the Government is able to make better terms for the conveyance of the mails.