Cables, Submarine -- History; Field, Cyrus W. (Cyrus West), 1819-1892; Inventors -- United States -- Biography
On March 17th he addressed the produce merchants of New York, and on the
18th the Board of Brokers. It is quite impossible to give the names of
the persons, companies, or corporations to whom he wrote, or from whom
he solicited assistance, or the cities to which he went, making
speeches, and urging every one he saw to subscribe to the stock of the
new Atlantic cable, and early in June he was able to say: "The total
subscriptions in America to the Atlantic telegraph stock to date are
£66,615 sterling. Every single person in the United States and British
North American provinces that owns any of the old stock of the Atlantic
telegraph has shown his confidence in the enterprise by subscribing to
the stock."
These extracts are made from three letters written on March 24th, March
27th, and May 8th:
"For the last three weeks I have devoted nearly my whole time to
obtaining subscriptions to the Atlantic telegraph stock, and, when
you consider the rate of exchange on England, I think you will say
that we have done well. At all events, I have worked very hard,
going from door to door."
"I never worked so hard in all my life."
"We must all work until the necessary capital is subscribed. Within
the last two weeks I have travelled over fifteen hundred miles,
visiting Albany, Buffalo, Boston, and Providence on business of
the Atlantic telegraph, and I have promises of subscriptions from
all these places."
The remarkable statement that follows is copied from a letter to Mr. C.
F. Varley, dated March 31, 1863:
"There is a carriage-road all the way to California, and the mail
is carried daily in wagons, and emigrants are constantly passing
over the road alongside of which the telegraph line is built. The
Indians are friendly and do not to injure the line."
The week before he sailed for England, on the 27th of May, he wrote a
letter to his firm and gave these directions:
"During my absence in Europe you will please not sell any rags or
paper manufacturers' stock except for cash, as in these times we
had much better keep our goods than to sell them even on a few
days' credit. Any manufacturer that is A No. 1 can get all the
money he wants at interest, and will prefer to buy cheap for
cash.... I would only purchase such papers as I wanted for
immediate sales and could sell at a good profit."
Cyrus W. Field & Co. wrote on July 18th and gave their weekly statement,
and from the end of their letter this is copied:
"Our books have been balanced for the six months by the following
entries:
PROFIT AND LOSS--CR.
Merchandise $3,293 67
58 Cliff Street 18,820 83
Commission 628 75
---------
$22,743 25
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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