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NEW YORK, _December 20, 1854_.
SIR: Your letter of the 30th ultimo was duly received. In referring to
the contract between the department and ourselves, you say that, on the
9th of July, 1853, you made known your disapproval of the contract in a
communication in answer to a letter from R. G. Rankin; and if we have
expended money after that time, on account of the contract, we have done
so with a full knowledge of your views.
We were not informed, by your letter of the 9th of July, that you had
any intention of annulling our contract. We had completed all our
arrangements for stocking the road across Mexico prior to the receipt
of your letter; and, on account of the same, have expended the sum of
ninety-eight thousand dollars, ($98,000;) and our surety for the faithful
performance of the contract had been given, and we were bound to be ready
to carry the mails.
Your letter certainly did not annul the contract; for then our sureties
would have been released from all responsibility on our account, and we
absolved from all reproach for the failure of the enterprise. On the
contrary, the department still considered the contract binding upon us,
as is apparent from the subsequent correspondence with Messrs. Harris
& Morgan. The steamers belonging to these gentlemen were carrying the
United States mail between that city and Vera Cruz. They had addressed
you on the subject of a change in the days of departure from each port,
so as to connect, by means of our line across Mexico, with the Panama
steamers, at Acapulco, running to San Francisco; and thus supplying
additional facilities for a more rapid and frequent transmission of
intelligence to and from California. The advantage of this arrangement
would have been immense to the Atlantic and Pacific cities, without any
inconvenience to the department, and moreover without one dollar expense
to it; of course, this arrangement was intended to continue only until
the appropriation should be made under our contract, when steamers were
to be placed on the line between Acapulco and San Francisco.
The wishes of Messrs. Harris & Morgan, as well as those of the Pacific
Mail Steamship Company, desiring this temporary change in the schedule
time between New Orleans and Vera Cruz, were fully communicated in
writing to the department. But in your letter to Messrs. Harris & Morgan
of the 3d of November, 1853, you refused to accede to this request;
predicating your refusal on our contract made with your predecessor,
Mr. Hubbard, for the transmission of a semi-monthly California mail, in
which it was not contemplated that the mails sent from New Orleans, via
Vera Cruz and Acapulco, should go forward to California by the Panama
steamers, but by another line running only between Acapulco and San
Francisco; and which contract was awaiting the sanction of Congress.
You add: “No such sanction has yet been given by Congress; but apart
from this, and without troubling you with my views on the subject, it
is simply necessary for me to say, that there can be no recognition by
the department of any arrangement by which the additional semi-monthly
mail, clearly contemplated by the then Postmaster General, can be
dispensed with.” In this there is a positive recognition of our contract
or arrangement with Mr. Hubbard as still existing, which the department
would not “dispense with,” although it would, while our appropriation was
pending, have shortened the time some ten days to and from California by
connecting with the Panama steamers touching at Acapulco.
When the annual report of the Post Office Department, in December, 1853,
was transmitted to Congress, we were led to believe, for the first time,
that you had decided virtually to annul our contract, as the estimate for
an appropriation under the contract was not sent in by you, but another
route for a semi-monthly mail was recommended. You will thus perceive we
were not apprized of the intentions of the department until the close
of the year 1853, when all our expenses had been incurred, and when, in
consequence of the official report, our operations ceased.
In conclusion, the department, by its action, having virtually annulled
the contract, and having assumed to do that which, by the terms of the
contract, was left to Congress, we therefore deem ourselves grievously
damaged, and have more than an equitable claim for redress.
Very respectfully, your obedient servants,
ALBERT C. RAMSEY.
E. H. CARMICK.
Hon. JAMES CAMPBELL, _Postmaster General_.