Hon. JAMES CAMPBELL.
* * * * *
OFFICE OF THE MEXICAN OCEAN MAIL AND INLAND CO.,
_November 23, 1853_.
SIR: In accordance with a request from Messrs. Ramsey and Carmick, the
contractors named in the contract hereinafter mentioned, I have the honor
of reporting to your department _the real character of the relations this
company sustains to the contract; the obstacles to the non-fulfilment of
it by a date as early as was anticipated; and a few remarks explanatory
of the route_.
On the 15th day of February, 1853, a contract was made by the United
States government, acting by the Postmaster General, with Albert C.
Ramsey and Edward H. Carmick, of Pennsylvania, to carry the United States
mails between San Francisco and Vera Cruz, at certain definite and
specific periods mentioned in the schedule of the contract, for the sum
of $424,000 per year, for the period of four years, with the privilege
of extending it one year if the Post Office Department thought proper.
This contract was not of that liberal form heretofore characteristic of
all the other ocean mail contracts, but was in a form of that specific
and detailed character peculiar to any short land service, where time
might be insured to a minute. The contract was, in fact, so stringent
as to be incompatible with any but an honest intention to fulfil its
spirit and letter, in which spirit it was, in fact, assumed by the
parties associated in its performance. This contract was printed and
sent to the Senate at its last session, and is now on its files. By the
5th section of the law of 1848 it is illegal for contractors to assign
their contracts; and although aware that the department is not bound to
recognise any but the contractors, yet, frankness enforces the propriety
of saying that, by specific covenants, this company have agreed with
Messrs. Ramsey and Carmick to fulfil all the conditions of the contract
on their part, to be kept and performed in relation to the land service
between Vera Cruz and Acapulco, and that similar covenants have been
made with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company (William H. Aspinwall,
esq., president) for the sea service between Acapulco and San Francisco.
The contract distinctly specified that its schedule time (and in fact
the spirit of the contract) was to the intent that it should form part
and parcel of the contract for the gulf service, being an extension
of two of the trips between New Orleans and Vera Cruz, made (under a
specific law, August 30, 1852) with Mr. Carmick, so as to form, in its
own language, “_one through-line in sixteen days between New Orleans
and San Francisco_.” The gulf contract is without any condition as to
an appropriation; but the larger or Pacific contract is made contingent
upon an appropriation by Congress for its approval. The question might
be gravely raised, in looking at one contract as an integral part of
the other, whether the appropriation by Congress of $70,000 (a trifle
more than it was bid for and taken by Mr. Carmick, viz: $69,750) for the
gulf service, was not an approval in terms of the Pacific contract, and
discharged the condition of approval contained in it. But inasmuch as the
parties associated in the enterprise have no covert policy to pursue,
and have not yet been able to carry the mails in contract schedule time
between Acapulco and San Francisco, (although they have carried it
repeatedly in six days, or two days less than schedule time, between New
Orleans and Acapulco,) they have no disposition to raise issues or ask
for unearned appropriations. They presented their claims to the last
administration on the sole integrity, feasibility, and celerity of their
route; the proposals for the service were regularly advertised, and the
contract awarded to the parties as the lowest bidders, but not until
the most critical, searching, and minute examination was made of the
practicability of the whole route. The investigation was pursued by the
late Postmaster General Hubbard with a critical acumen that must have
detected any imperfection. The grants made to this company by the Mexican
government, and authenticated according to the highest forms known to
the Mexican laws, were not only critically examined, but verified at
Washington by the Mexican legation. These grants, instead of interfering
with treaty stipulations, will, if honestly developed, prove most
conservative elements in sustaining such stipulations by the promotion
of commercial, social, and domestic intercourse, and by the infusion of
fraternal comity in political and civil relations.
_The obstacles to the non-fulfilment of the Pacific service._—As before
stated, the contractors, this company, and the Pacific Mail Steamship
Company, entered into mutual covenants, by which the latter company
obligated themselves to carry the mails between San Francisco and
Acapulco according to the contract and schedule time as therein set forth
by the department. At the date of the contract the Pacific Mail Steamship
Company were running a weekly line of steamers between Panama and San
Francisco, in the weeks intervening with their semi-monthly mail; and the
late administration intended, by this weekly line and the Vera Cruz and
Acapulco route, to send a weekly instead of semi-monthly mail to San
Francisco, and in sixteen days from New Orleans instead of twenty-eight
days (the average at that time of the semi-monthly mails) from New York.
The Pacific Mail Steamship Company withdrew their weekly line, which of
course prevented the execution of the Pacific service in contract time
until steamers could be placed on the line between Acapulco and San
Francisco, and which this company are making arrangements to effect, not
only in reference to the line from New Orleans, but from New York, so
as to carry passengers in sixteen or eighteen days from New York to San
Francisco. In consequence, however, of the (early) non-performance of the
Pacific service in schedule time, it is understood that your department
rescinded the order made by the late Postmaster General Hubbard for the
postmasters at New Orleans, San Francisco, San Diego, Monterey, and to
forward letters by this route. The disappointment of the contractors
by the withdrawal of the weekly line was great and embarrassing,
and disordered the whole arrangements of this company; and while we
respectfully defer to the abstract correctness of the position taken by
the Post Office Department on account of it, we yet hope that a great
enterprise, so eminently calculated to benefit our commerce, and one so
earnestly demanded by our southern and western citizens, as intimately
connected with their interests, might have a little further time to place
itself right before Congress and the department.
It is respectfully suggested, in this connexion, that the Gulf service
is punctually performed twice a month, and will be three times a month
as soon as the steamer “Vera Cruz,” now nearly ready, can be finished;
that the land-service, _as will be hereafter shown_, (see appendix,) has
been performed, carrying an independent mail in sixty hours, (instead
of one hundred and twenty hours, schedule time;) that this company have
not asked for any special favors from the department—no advance on the
appropriations—as other ocean mail companies have done; that no pay is
asked for until the service is performed, and the money honestly and
equitably earned; and that the 2d section of the law of March 3, 1851,
is applicable to our case, viz: that the Postmaster General by this law
“_shall be bound to select the speediest, safest, and most economical
route_.”
We deprecate a negation of the contract by the department until further
time is allowed us; and it is believed, in view of these facts and the
spirit of the law last referred to, that our enterprise may receive an
impartial consideration and presentation in your annual report on the
Post Office Department. An official condemnation, emanating from the
department under your administration, would be a serious obstacle in
the development of the Mexican grants. _It is believed by many that the
department had full power under the law to make the contract without
the intervention of Congress for its approval_; but having been made
with that contingency, it is now only asked that this enterprise may go
before Congress on its own merits and integrity. A spirit of frank and
honorable dealing renders it necessary for the undersigned to say, that a
difference exists among the associated parties as to the real value and
bearing of a government contract on this enterprise, and this difference
may have reached the ears of the department.
Some of the parties believe that a government contract nationalizes the
route, and gives it an importance superior to mere individual enterprise,
and that the imperative necessity of “_making time_” insures more
despatch. Others of the parties believe that a line of fast steamers
from New Orleans to Vera Cruz, for the increasing southern and western
travel from the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, (composing
the source of nearly seven-tenths of the whole resident population of
California out of the city of San Francisco,) and another fast line of
steamers from New York to Vera Cruz in six or seven days, by steamers
built expressly for mail and passenger service, (and not naval service,)
of about one thousand tons, in connexion with similar steamers from
Acapulco to San Francisco in six days, would form a line that would take
precedence of all others for celerity and certainty. Experience has
exploded the idea that the mail and naval service can be performed by the
same steamers, and an examination of the steamers now in the employ of
the United States and mail-service department verifies the position that
steamers suitable for a marine battery are too slow for “mail-service,”
and that the light and fast steamer which can be propelled three
hundred and fifty miles in twenty-four hours is not suitable for a
battery corresponding with her tonnage or power adequate to such speed.
They believe that such a line, by this overland route, in sixteen, or
eighteen, or twenty days, with an independent mail, would seriously
diminish the postage receipts of the government, if not virtually
supersede them, and render the present mail contracts a sinecure in the
hands of the parties holding them. If offices should be opened in proper
places for the receipt of mail-matter by advertisements, and the company
should enclose that mail-matter in government-stamped envelopes, and
guaranty the delivery of the mail by this route in six, eight, or ten
days earlier than by the present government route, it is evident that the
great bulk of the mail-matter would go by the quickest route, even at
double, triple, or perhaps quadruple the present charge for postage. Such
an independent mail (_clearly within the law_) would, it is confidently
believed, measurably supersede the government mail, and reduce the
postage to a pittance. Moreover, such an independent line, not being
trammeled by government time, might connect with it English, West India,
Australian, and Asiatic mails, all of which are specifically allowed by
the several Mexican grants held by this company; and it is believed that
the time is not far distant when an English express independent mail
in forty-seven days, with Australia, will be in operation. It is also
thought by some, that this company should be entirely disembarrassed in
order to give an exclusive right to certain foreign interests.
Having frankly stated the difference of opinion on this subject among
the associates in this enterprise, it is proper to say that a route
nationalized by a public contract is the true official expression of the
company’s opinion, and the one which is now before the department. In
conclusion on this point, it is respectfully suggested that this route
is to be one of the great inter-oceanic routes of Atlantic, California,
and Asiatic travel; that this enterprise may be fully developed by the
present administration of our government without expense in its initial
operations, but mainly by a prudent forbearance and official approbation,
and by an order to carry such mail matter as our citizens may choose to
send by it.
The enterprise is emphatically a southern and western one; although
originated by Pennsylvanians, yet its vitality is due to New Orleans and
southern influence, as the very numerous memorials on the files of the
department or Congress, and signed by southern and western senators and
members, will attest. The steamer Texas, which has been performing the
Gulf service during the last summer, has carried a large amount of specie
into New Orleans, (at the rate of one million and a quarter per annum;)
and soon as the specie and express wagons of this company are fully at
work, millions of dollars will flow into the New Orleans mint from the
gold placers and silver mines of Mexico now being worked by American and
Mexican combined skill.
_Of the practicability of the route._—The direct mail route runs from
Vera Cruz, by the way of Orizava, Cordova, Puebla, Matamoras, Chietla,
Mitapec, Kalcozotitlan, Chilapa, Tixtla, to Acapulco, with branches from
Puebla up to Mexico and via Cuernavaca.
This road was called by Humboldt the “_Asiatic road_,” as indicative of
the maritime commerce of Spain; _and is the oldest road on the continent
of America_. This route is no new thing, as many suppose, but the whole
enterprise is but a recast of one developed long before our country had
its name or a place among the nations of the earth.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been received by the government of
Old Spain, transported over this road, in the interchange of productions
between the flotas of Spain and the galleons of the Indies, and millions
of American commerce are yet to be rolled over it in the progress of
American enterprise. The distance direct (as will be seen by the annexed
itinerary) from Vera Cruz to Acapulco is 404 miles, and via the city of
Mexico 517. Colonel Ramsey has since shortened this distance to under 390
miles, and it will be reduced to less than 350.
Over this road the materials and machinery for the vast coffee and sugar
plantations of Mexico have to be transported, and these plantations for
magnitude and productions are almost unequalled.
From the fact that the current of foreign travel has been turned towards
the capital of Mexico, by the way of Jalapa and Perote, and also from
the further fact that the very _limited amount of American_ knowledge of
Mexico is associated with the line of operations of the American army
during the late war, less is publicly or _correctly_ known of our lower,
or more southern route, than of the upper or northern route. The lower
and shorter route presents the facilities of being six hours shorter
to Puebla, and of having lower grades, and a climate unequalled for
healthfulness, salubrity, and intertropical luxuriance of productions.
There are features about the roads of Mexico generally that distinguish
them from our northern roads; they are not muddy, having no frosts to
produce periodic deterioration; they are only slightly disturbed during
the rainy months of June, July, and August. The rains during these rainy
months are not continuous, all-day rains, but fall in showers seldom
longer than an hour, generally in the afternoons and at night, and the
intervals between these showers are unclouded and salubrious. The whole
geological formation of Mexico is eccentric, and the soil generally
composed of the debris of matter of volcanic origin. Such materials
form the best roads, and with an exemption from frosts, dust, mud, and
rain, except in the rainy seasons, and with no fences to obstruct the
facilities for turnpike, road-making, and travelling, presented in this
part of Mexico, are unequalled.
It should be remembered that this company are not encumbered with the
necessity of enormous expenditures for making canals, building railroads
and plank-roads, to develop their resources; they have only to expend
under $50,000 to make one of the finest roads in the finest climate of
North America, to travel smoothly and pleasantly, at the rate of seven
and ten miles per hour, from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean.
From the certificate of Mr. Blumenkron, (see Appendix A,) a gentleman
intimately acquainted with the whole route from personal observation,
it will be seen that the facilities for the transportation of mails
and passengers across the republic is the work of but little effort
and expense; and from the extracts of Colonel Ramsey’s letter, (see
Appendix B,) it will be seen what has actually been done. From these
statements—and they are daily corroborated by Americans and Mexicans who
have passed over the route—it appears that the mails have been carried
over (at the worst of all seasons, the rainy ones) in 50, 60, 70, 80,
and 81 hours; that the letter of Mr. Tyler announces their arrival at
Acapulco in six days from New Orleans, and that the mail time across may
be reduced to 48 hours, and passenger time to 54.
The difficulties, dangers, and expense of mail transportation over this
route are not comparable with the Panama route, as it formerly was, or
even as it now is, as to the 17 miles yet uncovered by railroad; and this
company confidently believe that they will be able to carry the mails
over this route for a sum 50 per cent. per mile less than by the Panama
route, and in a time under three days.
The company have placed a portion of their rolling stock upon the road,
at present equal to the transportation of fifty passengers per week
from ocean to ocean. This rolling stock consists of the very best built
Albany and Troy post-coaches, Concord (New Hampshire) passenger, baggage,
express and specie wagons, and about 500 horses and mules, (at the last
report 493.)
It is hoped the next advices from Colonel Ramsey will give information
that this rolling stock is in operation. It is intended to increase the
rolling stock with the increase of travel. The local travel and business
in Mexico will alone pay a large interest on the investment; and were
there no connexion with steamers on either side, and as a mere stage
route, the profits will be large, especially when that portion of the
route through the State of Guerrero is properly worked and widened, and
over a portion of the route the company hold the exclusive right of
passage, ferries, tolls, &c., for fifty years.
This company apprehend no difficulty in transporting any mails on account
of the weight, inasmuch as the company will be prepared to transport the
English mails, between England and Australia, in under 47 days; and those
mails, it is said, weigh 11 and 12 tons.
The remarkable feature in this route is, that it passes through a
constant succession of cities, villages, ranches, &c., (few scarce ten
miles apart,) and through a population as dense as might have been found
on the old turnpike mail road from Albany to Buffalo before the age of
railroads, or on any of the great leading mail routes of New York and
Pennsylvania of a ratable distance; and the annexed itinerary, taken from
official Mexican documents, verifies the position.
Fears have been expressed that robberies might endanger the mail,
passengers, or property. This difficulty has been wondrously magnified,
and is provided against, as the vehicles of this company are all armed
with blunderbusses and revolvers; and small, but strong, light, iron
boxes for specie, jewelry, and valuables, are securely attached as
fixtures in each coach. The material fact, however, on this point is,
that this line of route is seldom visited by robbers, owing to the more
peaceful, permanent, and dense character of the population, and the
consequent exposure to detection. General Santa Ana has, moreover, made a
decree that the inhabitants of each district shall be responsible for the
damages by such depredations.
Much more might be said in relation to this route, but this memorial has
already become too long. Reiterating our former assertion, that we only
ask the opportunity of placing ourselves honorably before Congress, on
our own integrity, we hope that our enterprise may receive such official
sanction from the Post Office Department as may be most compatible with
the interests of the government and the benefit of the community.
With great respect, your obedient servant,
ROBERT G. RANKIN,
_President M. O. M. & I. Co._
Hon. JAMES CAMPBELL, _Postmaster General_.