A port-broadside view of the merchant steamer Hammonia, sailing gallantly on radiantly-coloured waters. Inscribed: ‘Hammonia. Hamburg – American – steamship’.

Built for the Hamburg American route, but as she was chartered on completion by Britain for transport service in the Crimean War, she did not run between Hamburg and New York until 1856. In 1867 the Allan Line bought her for their service to the St Lawrence; and later the Mississippi and Dominion Line bought her for their Gulf service, while in this service she was wrecked in 1873, but none of the passengers or crew were lost (H Parker and F C Bowen ‘Mail and Passenger Steamships of the XIXth Century’, pp. 144-5). Ships of the Hamburg American Line flew an ensign with the crest of the City of Hamburg, as shown here.