Page 557 - INDIANNAVYV1

HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY, 525

dary dawk," with tliL' increased advantage of a line of steamers
to run between the two ports of Bussurah and Bombay ; but
he was before the age, and the Governor-General was as clearly
behind it. Lord Auckland was not a Wellesley, and we are
told by Chesney, "that he thought it advisable to postpone the
opening of the overland route, and that he was not prepared to
carry out his previous intention of }>lacing steamers on the
river Indus."
We find that in 17'J8, Lord Nelson* communicated the intel-
ligence of his victory of the Nile to the Bombay Government,
by the overland route, viii Bagdad, the Company's cruiser 'Fly'
bearing the oflicer he had despatched with the news, from Bus-
sorah to Bombay. Some years after that date, the Red Sea
route, via Cosseir, came into vogue, and a regular communica-
tion was established by the Company's cruisers between that
port and Bombay, though despatches continued to be sent also
to the Persian Gulf, as we find that the ' Ternate ' arrived at
Bond)ay on the 22nd of February, 1833, with overland
despatches from Bussorah. By the Red Sea route many dis-
tinguished officers had journeyed to England, or joined their
appointments in Lidia, proceeding from Cosseir in the Com-
pany's cruisers. An)ong tlie number we may mention the
Commander-in-chief at Bombay, Sir Miles Nightingall, who
proceeded home by this route, in the ' Teignni(.)Uth,' in LSl'J,
accompanied by his wife. In December of the same year the
' Prince f)f Wales ' took a party to Cosseir, returning thence to
Bombay early in March, 1820, with Captain Sadleir, who had
been sent on a mission to Ibrahim Pasha, after the Expedition
to the Persian Gulf against the Ras-ul-Kliymah pirates in the
preceding year. In 1825, Sir Hudson Lowe—Napoleon's
custodian at St. Helena— proceeded to take up his ajipointment
as Governor and Commander of the Forces in Ceylon. i>y
the Cosseir route; and, in Novend)er of the same year, (ieneral
Sir Charles Colville, Connnander-in-chief at Bombay, returned
to England as far as Cosseir in the ' Palinurus.' Sir John
Malcolm had gone home by this route in December, 1S21, in
the ' Teignmouth,' the ' Antelope' having (piitted Bombay in
the preceding month with some more of his party and the
despatches, which were regularly transmitted by Cosseir, the
remainder of the route to Ghenna being made on camels, ami
thence to Alexandria by the Nile.
]\lr. i\lountstuart El|)hinstone, in 1823, was the first to make
a distinct t)i]icial projjosilion for the establishment of steam
connnunication between Bond>ay and England, r/«/ the Red
Nel.-ioii always ninintaiiud Iricnilly rcliitions with tlu« K«>t India
* Tlic great
Company, and it is an interoiilinm' fact, of tlio Inilli of wliioli wo Imve bri-n n»»uroil
on liifjh" uutliority, that sonio years before tliis period, when tlio fnlare vietor of
the Kile and Trafalgar was in embarrassed eircnm-^lanees, he Wiu* u eundidulv for
the appointment of Superintendent of the JLJonibuy Marine.