1840年7月4日，轮船 不列颠 从利物浦出发进行处女航, 带着邮件前往哈利法克斯和波士顿, 乘客, 和运费. In Boston, as reported in the Courier, citizens were “aghast with impatience” for her arrival. 15天后，在哈利法克斯短暂停留后 不列颠 and her owner Samuel Cunard arrived and were greeted by a massive fireworks display. A banquet for 1800 people was held at East Boston’s Maverick House in Cunard’s honor, described as “one of the most splendid entertainments of the kind ever undertaken in this quarter of the union.威廉·福勒在书中写道 蒸汽巨头，随着的到来 不列颠“考纳德热席卷了波士顿. 战胜她的宿敌纽约的胜利气息也是如此.”

在蒸汽动力引入之前, 帆船往返于大西洋, 载着乘客, 运费, and 邮件 and completing three or so round trips per year dependent on the vagaries of wind and weather. 单船, 据福勒说, 能在一年内轻松完成十几次往返旅行吗, 明显的优势. 在1840年赢得皇家邮政的运输合同后 , 塞缪尔·库纳德在利物浦至波士顿的航线上投入了四艘船, 确保人员和货物的正常和及时流动. 这些船每两周开一班，除了在冬季的几个月里，它们每月一班.

1844年冬天

的 不列颠 arrived on schedule in Boston Harbor on 22 January 1844 after a 17-day passage from Liverpool. 的 weather then turned unseasonably cold with harbors up and down the eastern seaboard as far as Washington freezing solid. 波士顿港，还有 不列颠 在港口，也不例外. 随着时间的临近 不列颠的 回归之旅, it became clear that the weather would not cooperate and the ship would not be able to depart on schedule. 1月30日, a group of Boston merchants—keen to prove the city’s worth as a port—met “to take into consideration the expediency of adopting immediate measures to break out a ship passage, 穿过阻塞我们港口的巨大冰层.”

失传的采冰技艺

Although there are a few places today where one can see ice harvested from lakes and ponds—缅因州的南布里斯托尔就是其中之一—mechanical freezers (and climate change) have made such activity redundant. 但是在1844年, cutting ice from ponds and lakes would have been a common method of stocking the city’s iceboxes. 的 merchants immediately called upon the skills of the team that harvested ice from Fresh Pond in Cambridge. 的 波士顿阿特拉斯 of 2 February 1844 described the process of cutting the passage in great detail

首先划出一条宽约六十英尺的水道, 然后被分成大约30平方英尺的街区. 的 sections marked are then ploughed, by which the ice is cut nearly down to the water. 用于此目的的犁由七个不同的犁头组成, 完美的平, 非常尖锐, 犁地之后, 冰被锯开了, 这样才能把蛋糕完全分开, 然后在蛋糕上粘上两根钩子, and they are hauled under the stationary ice by a gang of about one hundred and fifty men, some fifteen or twenty men standing on the cake in order to sink it sufficiently to make it pass under. 的 blocks of ice on one side only are thus disposed of … forming a channel of thirty feet in width … the ice is from six to eight inches in thickness in the upper harbor.

经过切冰工人的巨大努力，运河终于建成了 不列颠 was able to depart roughly on schedule, much to the satisfaction and relief of the Boston merchants.

这是波士顿和纽约之间又一场竞争

在背景下 不列颠的 困境是纽约和波士顿之间的长期竞争. 来自欧洲的船只带来了乘客, 运费, 邮件, and world news which in the ensuing days would be disseminated around the country. 作为欧洲轮船的西部终点站, 波士顿首先收到并发布了这个消息, as well as having early access to cargoes—a fact which no doubt rankled New Yorkers, who were keen to have the steamers bypass Halifax and Boston and come directly to New York. 第二天 不列颠 1844年1月21日停靠波士顿 波士顿阿特拉斯 发布了以下内容

Of the pretended intention of changing the running the lines of steamers from Boston to New York, 欧洲 次 pronounces the following emphatic contradiction: “We notice several of the New York papers continually asserting that the steamers of the British and North American Mail Company are about to change their port from Boston to New York. 的 report is without any or the least foundation … No change whatever is contemplated … and we have no doubt that the same triumphant success will attend their future doings, 正如我们已经从他们过去的成就中看到的那样.

1月28日 《利记手机官网》 weighed in on the controversy under the headline “的 Cunard Steamships” in a masterpiece of disingenuousness

谁会把科德角误认为安角呢? 每个人都会问这个问题. 为什么? 因为负责轮船的领航员 不列颠 她最后一次去波士顿, “plumped” her ashore in the neatest manner and the most frightful to think about. 她在吧台上呆了大约半个小时, 然后, fortunately she got off and went into Boston … Mishaps like this are to be expected as long 随着 Cunard steamers run to Boston. 科德角和安角将是他们的锡拉和卡律布狄斯, 虽然都很安静, 无害的斗篷. We do not want the steamers to come to this city because we do not wish to be bothered with them, 但看到这么好的器皿被扔掉，我们应该感到遗憾, 随着 哥伦比亚 一直. 把他们拯救给世界, we would be willing to suffer a little inconvenience and make room for one at a time at some wharf up town. 除非我们这样做，否则他们会怎么样呢?

Even 随着 heroic effort to clear a passage for the 不列颠 got underway, 纽约的记者无法抑制贬低波士顿的冲动. 2月1日 《利记手机官网》 opined “All this ice and all these troubles prove … that no steam 邮件 ship connecting this country with Europe, 我应该从波士顿这样一个偏僻的地方出发.” 的 writer conveniently neglected to mention that ports up and down the eastern seaboard were either iced in or had dangerous floes of ice in their harbors—including New York Harbor.

Frozen harbor aside, Boston would soon lose the transatlantic steamer business to New York City. In 1848, Cunard doubled its fleet and instituted service to New York—just two years later, 到1868年，进入纽约的货物价值是波士顿的三倍, 冠纳德已经完全停止了波士顿航线.