She had 6
masts, carrying 7000 yards of sail, as auxiliary to the steam power:
10 cables, some of which weighed 10 tons each. She had facilities for
accommodating 800 saloon passengers, 2000 second class, 1200 third class
and 400 officers and crew; or 5000 might have been placed on her, if
emigrants or troops. She was used for several purposes, serving as a
troop ship in 1861, as a passenger vessel, and then was permanently
chartered for laying the Atlantic cable, all of the passenger fittings
being removed in 1867. In this she proved a success, having been used,
not only for the laying of the cable named, but also for several other
important lines, in the Mediterranean, in the Red Sea, across the
Indian Ocean and elsewhere. Then she was laid up, and the last report
concerning her was that, after being run for a short time as a coal
ship, she was sold and broken up, having outlived her usefulness. The
enormous expense attendant upon the maintenance of such an ocean monster
proved a drawback to continued success from the day she was launched, at
Millwall, England, January 31, 1858.
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