and Holt got its first contract to carry frozen meat from the River Plate. In 1887 the cargo steamship Thales was converted into the partnership's first refrigerated cargo ship. Also in the 1880s Lamport and Holt extended its trade to Valparaíso in Chile. This trade continued until 1896. Competition to carry Brazilian coffee In 1869 the LB&RP Steam Navigation Co's steamship Halley became the first iron-hulled ship to carry coffee from Brazil to New York. Hitherto it was believed that an iron hull would taint the flavour of coffee, so it had to be carried in wooden-hulled ships. This was the first time a Lamport and Holt ship had sailed directly between South America and the US. Lamport and Holt became a major operator on the route, establishing a triangular trade. Its ships took raw materials such as wheat from the US to the UK, manufactured goods from the UK to Brazil and coffee from Brazil to the US. A US company, the United States and Brazil Mail Steamship Company, tried to circumvent the triangular trade by taking manufactured products from the US to Brazil and coffee from Brazil to the US. But the company, popularly called simply the "Brazil Line", made the mistake of rejecting compound steam engines and continuing to use inefficient simple ones. Although both the Brazilian and US governments subsidized the Brazil Line, its high fuel costs prevented it from competing with Lamport and Holt's freight rates. In 1875 the US Government ended its subsidy to the Brazil Line, which for the moment left Lamport and Holt without a competitor. In 1877 the Brazilian Emperor Pedro II of Brazil awarded the Brazil Line a new subsidy to operate compound steamships. was built in Chester, Pennsylvania and launched in 1878. Lamport and Holt lobbied the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies to stop subsidising the Brazil Line. The Emperor temporarily paid the subsidy from his own budget. Lamport and Holt retaliated by scheduling its ships to leave Brazilian ports a few days before Brazil Line departures, and would even keep a ship stationed in Rio de Janeiro any time that a Brazil Line ship was in port. Lamport and Holt also waged a rate war against the Brazil Line. The British company thus managed to secure most of the Brazilian coffee cargoes to the US and left Brazil Line ships often sailing north only half-laden. In 1881 the Brazil