LETTER
FROM
THE POSTMASTER GENERAL,
TRANSMITTING
_Copy of a conditional mail contract; also copies of
correspondence relative to the same_.
FEBRUARY 1, 1855.—Referred to the Committee on the Post Office
and Post Roads, and ordered to be printed.
POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT,
_Washington, January 31, 1855_.
SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith, in compliance with the
resolution of the House of the 2d of January instant, a copy of the
conditional contract made by my predecessor, Mr. Hubbard, with Messrs.
Ramsey & Carmick, on the 3d of March, 1853, for the extension of two of
the trips on the New Orleans and Vera Cruz line, from Vera Cruz, Mexico,
via Acapulco, to San Francisco in California; also copies of all the
correspondence relative to the same, and also relative to the change of
schedule proposed on the line from New Orleans to Vera Cruz.
My views in regard to this contract were fully stated in my annual
report to Congress of December 1, 1853, and are also contained in the
correspondence herewith communicated. It was not deemed necessary to
answer the letter of Robert G. Rankin, president of the Mexican Ocean
Mail and Inland Company, dated November 23, 1853, and received at the
department on the 30th of January, 1854. That they were not prepared to
fulfil their conditional contract on the 23d of November, 1853, nine
months after its execution, is therein conceded, and the department had
neither the time nor desire to enter into a discussion of the irrelevant
matters introduced into the body of that letter.
The objections which I entertained to the change of schedule on the New
Orleans and Vera Cruz route, proposed, by Messrs. Harris & Morgan in
their letter of the 26th October, 1853, were two-fold:
1st. That by authorizing the change proposed the original intent and
object of my predecessor, Mr. Hubbard, in entering into the conditional
contract with Messrs. Ramsey and Carmick—which was, to secure an
additional semi-monthly mail between the Atlantic States and California
by alternating at regular intervals with the present semi-monthly line
via Panama—would have been entirely frustrated; and thus, instead of
having a weekly mail between the Atlantic and Pacific, there would have
been, as heretofore, only a semi-monthly communication.
2d. By changing the schedule so as to make connections at Acapulco with
the steamers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, that company would
receive not only their regular compensation under their contract with
the government, but extra pay under the contract of Ramsey & Carmick,
although no additional service was really rendered by them to the
department or the public.
Authority having been given by Mr. Hubbard on the 7th of March, 1853, to
the postmasters of New Orleans, San Diego, Monterey and San Francisco,
to make up and send mails by the Vera Cruz and Acapulco line, containing
such matter as was expressly directed to go by that line, I took the
precaution to withhold from those officers the authority to send mails
without first consulting the department, by instructing them, on the 23d
of September following, to report to the department before delivering
such mails, for further instructions, should the proprietors apply for
them. My object in issuing those instructions was simply to enable the
department to be fully satisfied that all mails forwarded by that route
were committed to the care and custody of competent and proper persons,
and would be safely transported through Mexico. It does not appear,
however, that any application has ever been made by Messrs. Ramsey &
Carmick for a mail to be conveyed by that route, as no report from any
postmaster to that effect has been received at this department.