ABSTRACT
James W. Taylor had been commissioned by the Court of Directors to make certain investigations of the Suez route as a steam passage, but he was primarily interested in establishing a commercial line of steamers on either side of Egypt, between England and Calcutta. His rival, Thomas Waghorn, also car ried despatches from the Court of Directors addressed to the authorities in Bombay, and hinted darkly at being personally commissioned to examine the practicability of the route. Chesney became the great apostle of a steam route to India by the Euphrates River and the Persian Gulf, Waghorn became a leading exponent of the Suez line, while Taylor lost his life in an attempt to determine the relative advantages of the two proposed routes. Calcutta, therefore, became the eastern rendezvous of those who aspired to be founders of large and opulent steam corporations employing either the Cape or the Red Sea route to Europe.
