Plymouth, Friday. By the arrival of the General Screw Steam Navigation Company's screw steamship Hellespont, H. Watts, commander, with the mails in charge of Commander H. M. Robertson, R.N., we have important intelligence from the Cape of Good Hope to the 4th ultimo. The Hellespont, though only of sixty-horse power, and merely placed on the line by this enterprising company before their larger and more powerful new mail ships are built, has made a splendid passage. She left Plymouth on the 15th February, [1851], and, after various delays at the place she touched at, she reached the Cape on the 29th March. She left the Cape again on the 4th of April, at noon ; arrived at Sierra Leone the 19th April, at seven A.M. ; left on the 20th, at seven P.M. : arrived at St. Vincent, 25th of April, at half-past eleven A.M. ; left same day, at half-past-two P.M. ; put into Corunna for coals on the 6th of May, at eleven A.M. ; and arrived at Plymouth on the 9th of May, at five A.M. : thus running from the Cape to Plymouth in 34 days 17 hours, Including stoppages at Sierra Leone, St Vincent, and Corunna. The contract time allowed is 38 days, including three days extra for the deviation to St. Vincent ; so that the little vessel has done her work in a manner most satisfactory to the country, as well as to the company, whose exertions to accelerate the mails at this crisis in Cape affairs, and to do even more than they stipulated, deserve public thanks.- Morning Herald.

SG & SGTL

^ back to top ^