The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-01-08 00:00:00

STEAM NAVIGATION TO THE BRAZILS.

There has been an important memorial ly►ng for signature
for some time past, at the North and South American Coffee-
house, on the subject of steam navigation between England,
Brazil, and the River de la Plata. The packet establish-
ment existing between Falmouth and Pernambuco, Bahia,
Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Ayres, is so irregular, that there
is a communication with the important putts of Pernam-
buco and Bahia only six times in the year; the trade winds
and currents of the ocean preventing any sailing packet
from touching at these places excepting during one half of
the year. To Buenos Ayres there cannot be said to be any
regular post-office packet establishment, the mails being
forwarded from Rio de .faneiro by means of any of the
smaller vessels of war, which may happen to be on the South
American station, and disengaged from more active duties at
the time. So much is the voyage usually lengthened by
these irregularities, that very few letters and passengers are
understood to be conveyed by her Majesty's packets; and
there is undoubtedly an extensive loss to the revenue from
the present obstruction of the business by the merchant
vessels, which arrive in so much shorter time from the ports
of Brazil; and, accordingly, the memorial to the treasury
sets forth these inconveniences to the merchants, and loss to
the government, and prays that a monthly line of steam
packets should be established from Falmouth to Madeira, the
Canaries, the Cape de Verd Islands, Pernambuco, Bahia,
Rio de Janeiro, Monte Video, and Buenos Ayres, thus
shortening the voyage about one-half in respect to time.
The present average passage outwards to Rio de Janeiro is
fifty six days, and homewards seventy-four ; whereas the
steam-packets, it is estimated i❑ the memorial, could very
easily accomplish the same passage in thirty days outwards
and thirty-six days home; although this, it may be ob-
served, is about double the time corresponding to the per-
formances of the Great Western steam-ship across the much
less favourable seas between England and New York. The
probability is, therefore, that the improvements in steam na-
vigation will render the passage two-thirds shorter between
Falmouth and the various ports of Brazil; and yet it would
appear that there would be no difficulty in obtaining con-
tractors for the voyage of twelve monthly mails outwards and
homewards, by first-rate steam-ships, for the allowance of
£40,000 per annum, which is now expended on the sailing,
packets on the same line. The post-office revenue, it is rea-
soned, would be very largely increased; for a change in the
system, which would cause the whole of the correspondence
to be conveyed in steam-packets, that would be only one-
third or one-half of the time upon the sea, and as the ex-
pense to the government would be the same as for the present
unsatisfactory line of sailing vessels, and as the commercial
and political advantages are evidently so extensive and
valuable, from thus bringing, as it were, so many of the
finest of the South American countries within one-third of
the present distance of England, it is to be hoped that this
important memorial may meet with proper consideration
from the treasury and board of trade. Amongst the signa-
tures are the names of Baring, Gladstone, Rothschilds, and
other eminent mercantile, banking, and manufacturing
firms.—Morning Chronic'e.