HUGH ALLAN, Esq., MONTREAL. The proudest motto for the young, Or fortune's prosperous gale, "There's no such word as FAIL." COMPARATIVELY few persons could repeat the title under which the Cunard Steamship Company is incorporated. To an enquiry they would probably answer that they had only heard of it as the "Cunard Company." In like manner there are many to whom "The Montreal Ocean Steamship Company " is an unfamiliar phrase, but to whom "Allan's Line" are household words. In both cases the individual overshadows the act of Parliament; the corporate title of the company becomes merged in the name of the particular shareholder who is supposed to have originated its existence, to govern its organization, to incline its policy, and perchance to possess the greatest amount of its stock. Such appears to be the relation which Mr. Hugh Allan bears to "The Montreal Ocean Steamship Company," and such the reason why those steamships are for convenience called "Allan's Line." To the advantage of being a Scottish youth, the subject of our sketch had the further advantage of sniffing those saline breezes which bowl over the Atlantic from America, appropriating in their passage as much fog and moisture as they can carry, and then whirl and whistle their way up the Frith of Clyde to invigorate the youth whom they do not destroy. Hugh Allan was born at Saltcoats in the county of Ayr, on the 29th September, 1810. Not only did he first see the light by the margin of the sea, but he came of a seafaring race, for his father, Captain Alexander Allan, was a shipmaster who for thirty years traded as such between the Clyde and Montreal. Two of his brothers were, in like manner. engaged in maritime pursuits. Like the majority of the youth of Scotland, Hugh Allan started early in the race of life, for he left school at the age of thirteen. He at once manifested the instinct of his family, for, like a young duck, he took kindly and naturally to the water. His own desire happily harmonized with the plan of life which his father had formed for him, for it seems to have been the wish of the former that his son, like himself, should be able to command a ship. In pursuance of this object that son was placed in a shipping office at Greenock that he might acquire some experience of the manner in which the accounts and papers of ships were kept. After a year thus spent he followed up his nautical education by sailing with, and under the command of, his father, and thus acquired an exact knowledge of practical seamanship. Such knowledge he afterwards supplemented by the study of navigation. But although he qualified himself for the calling which his father followed, such calling was not regarded as the chief end of his education. The study of seamanship, as it turned out, was only a prelude to the study of ships; and the qualification of shipmaster was only an introduction to the condition of shipowner. It was not then, neither was it afterwards, sufficient in the estimation of the father that his son should know only how to sail a ship; he was anxious that he should know how to build one, and therefore it was that the attention of the latter was directed to the study of naval architecture, and the work of practical shipbuilding. As if these acquirements were insufficient, it was conjectured that a knowlege of ships without a knowlege of trade would at best be very imperfect knowlege, therefore it was shrewdly determined after a conference between the father and son, that the latter should seek for a situation in some Canadian dry goods establishment. Whereupon he obtained employment in the firm of William Kerr & Co., who were then engaged in that trade at Montreal. Having completed his engagement with Messrs Kerr & Co., he travelled through Canada and a portion of the United States, and then revisited his native land. This journey, we need hardly say, was performed in more respects than one with the traveller's eyes wide open, for the "chiel" took notes of what he saw. After a year's absence his plan of life was clearly and resolutely determined on. At the age of twenty-one he returned to Montreal, and became a clerk in the firm of James Millar & Co., who were not only commission merchants, but owners and builders of ships. Four years afterwards he was admitted as a partner, though as a junior, his identity was hidden under that mysterious commercial incognito, sometimes a fact and sometimes a fiction, but always a convenience, since it looks well as a pendant at the end of a name. However, in the case under review, the seniors, Messrs Millar and Edmonstone, possessed the unquestionable right to flourish a "Co." after their joint autograph, as Mr. Hugh Allan legally and by covenant represented the contraction. In 1838 Mr. Millar died, and the "Co" expired too; for Mr. Allan emerged from his chrysalis condition, and took a visible place as second in the firm of Edmonstone & Allan; which in the course of time, if we recollect aright, grew into Edmonstone, Allan & Co., and afterwards into Allans, Rae & Co.; under which names the firm is now known. We may here observe that although Mr. Hugh Allan had missed no opportunity of qualifying himself for the particular pursuit on which his mind was set, still when the Province was disquieted by the unhappy troubles of 1837-38 he laid aside seamanship and shipbuilding, served as a volunteer and rose to the rank of Captain. In 1841 the re-united Province had subsided into a state of comparative repose, and with the new order of things new wants, and what is more to the point, ships of a new class were needed. Thus a fair page in the book of experimental shipbuilding was opened, whose lessons were not diminished in value because they included requisitions to construct some notable steam vessels for lake and river service. It will be thus seen that Mr. IIugh Allan was, perhaps without being aware of it, educating himself for the position at which he has since arrived. His connection with the shipping office at Greenock had instructed him how to keep the accounts of ships. Under the best, or at all events under the most interested of instructors, he had acquired a knowledge of seamanship and navigation. Afterwards he studied the structure of ships, and built them in accordance with such study. Then he became the owner of ships; when his knowledge of trade, acquired in the manipulation of dry goods, helped him to make such ownership profitable. Knowledge and experience thus re-acted favorably upon one another, supplying him with nerve and pluck" to take the tide at the flood" when the enticing flood came. That it flowed to fortune was to have been expected, and we shall just note briefly the manner and direction of the drift. In 1851 the problem had been established that screw steamers could be used with success and safety on the Atlantic, and it at once occurred to some of the acute minds of Canada that such steamers might be employed in the mail and passenger service between Liverpool and the St. Lawrence. Now as a volunteer in the Queens' service Mr. Hugh Allan was never suspected of the unsoldierly habit of sleeping at his post. Nor as a merchant, in his own service, has he ever been afflicted with that kind of blindness which we shall call commercial ophthalmia. He is thoroughly aware that "eternal vigilance" is the price of wealth as well as "of liberty," and therefore he had no difficulty in seeing what the Government of the day saw less clearly, that, in conjunction with his brothers, he could undertake the contract for the establishment of a line of such steamers, as the service and the country required. The administration, however, thought otherwise, and entered into an engagement with a Glasgow firm. The inability of this firm to fulfil the contract became at once apparent. The effect of such inability on the mind of Mr. Hugh Allan was not in the slightest degree distressing, for, taking counsel with his brothers, they very cheerfully set to work to build two screw steamers for the St. Lawrence trade. Before these vessels had an opportunity of tasting the flavor of Canadian waters they were chartered by the British Government for the Black Sea, and we have no doubt they brought, as they ought to have done, no small gain to their owners from that quarter of the globe. With the advantage in hand of two steamers built expressly for the route, with the further advantage of being able to point to the utter failure of the contractors who had been preferred before him, Mr. Hugh Allan was not without a strong case when the question of a new contract was opened. Nor was he disappointed; for the Canadian Government, and he as the representative of a company, entered into engagements mutually binding, which we believe have been mutually kept. A fortnightly service with four steamships was commenced in the Spring of 1856, and was succeeded by a weekly service in the spring of 1859, which we believe has been continued without interruption to the present time. The point of success at which "Allan's Line" has now arrived has not been reached without the experience of almost unparalleled disaster, disaster more afflictive than the loss of property alone. The Company is, we are informed, its own insurer, and the pecuniary loss which the calamities we have referred to involved, was almost enough to have dismayed a less resolute man than the subject of this sketch. He pro : |