Excerpt from Official Guide and Album of the Cunard Steamship Company In pursuance of this undertaking, the new Company entered into a contract for the fortnightly conveyance of mails between Liverpool and Halifax, Boston, and Quebec. The contract was for a term of seven years, and the ships employed under it were to be of such a build that they might be available as troop ships, or for transporting stores in time of war. F our steamers were at once commenced, the Britannia, the Acadia, the Caledonia, and the Columbia, each of one thousand two hundred tons gross register, and of four hundred and forty horse power. The first of these, the Britannia, left Liverpool on her first voyage on the 4th of July, 1840, the day known to Americans as Celebration Day, thus inaugurating the service by a happy coincidence which, although unpremedi tated, was none the less significant of future success. The Britannia entered Boston harbour after a run of fourteen days and eight hours. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.