| 33d Congress, 2d Session. | HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. | Ex. Doc. No. 47. |
LETTER
FROM
THE POSTMASTER GENERAL,
TRANSMITTING
Copy of a conditional mail contract; also copies of correspondence
relative to the same.
February 1, 1855.—Referredto the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, and orderedto be printed.
Post Office Department,
Washington, January 31, 1855.
Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith, in compliance with theresolution of the House of the 2d of January instant, a copy of theconditional contract made by my predecessor, Mr. Hubbard, withMessrs. Ramsey & Carmick, on the 3d of March, 1853, for the extensionof two of the trips on the New Orleans and Vera Cruz line, fromVera Cruz, Mexico, via Acapulco, to San Francisco in California;also copies of all the correspondence relative to the same, and alsorelative to the change of schedule proposed on the line from New Orleansto Vera Cruz.
My views in regard to this contract were fully stated in my annualreport to Congress of December 1, 1853, and are also contained in thecorrespondence herewith communicated. It was not deemed necessaryto answer the letter of Robert G. Rankin, president of the Mexican OceanMail and Inland Company, dated November 23, 1853, and received atthe department on the 30th of January, 1854. That they were notprepared to fulfil their conditional contract on the 23d of November,1853, nine months after its execution, is therein conceded, and thedepartment had neither the time nor desire to enter into a discussion ofthe irrelevant matters introduced into the body of that letter.
The objections which I entertained to the change of schedule on theNew 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[2]and object of my predecessor, Mr. Hubbard, in entering into the conditionalcontract with Messrs. Ramsey and Carmick—which was, tosecure an additional semi-monthly mail between the Atlantic Statesand California by alternating at regular intervals with the presentsemi-monthly line via Panama—would have been entirely frustrated;and thus, instead of having a weekly mail between the Atlantic andPacific, there would have been, as heretofore, only a semi-monthlycommunication.
2d. By changing the schedule so as to make connections at Acapulcowith the steamers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, that companywould receive not only their regular compensation under theircontract with the government, but extra pay under the contract ofRamsey & Carmick, although no additional service was really renderedby 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 andSan Francisco, to make up and send mails by the Vera Cruz andAcapulco line, containing such matter as was expressly directed to goby that line, I took the precaution to withhold from those officers theauthority to send mails without first consulting the departmen