If the Post Office was unwilling to support Portpatrick, they were not opposed to taking advantage of a route that did not need massive capital expenditure, and from March 1871 they agreed to pay £1,500 annually for the carriage of mail over the PPR, on the basis of trains running in direct connection with night mail trains on the main line. This encouraged the PPR to support a Larne and Stranraer Steamboat Company in running a daily return crossing on that route, from 1 July 1872; the vessel was the "Princess Louise". This improved the finances of the PPR considerably, and the Company agreed to the use of a small shunting engine to take passenger coaches on to the East Pier at Stranraer; the flimsy structure had not previously been used and passengers had to walk along the unsheltered jetty to the ships.