three.' The call was vociferously responded to, and the chairman then handed a medal to Mr. Cyrus Field, Sir James Anderson, and Mr. Willoughby Smith, each of whom was loudly applauded on rising to receive it. "Mr. Field said: 'Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the kind manner in which you have spoken of me, and you gentlemen for the flattering way in which you have responded to the toast.... I think I may safely affirm that never before were so many men brought together in one enterprise who were so pre-eminently fitted by diversified endowments and by special knowledge and experience to solve the problem of the Atlantic telegraph. Most fortunate, moreover, were we in finding such a ship as the _Great Eastern_, and such a commander as Sir James Anderson. The man was made for the ship, and both were made for us. I would also give expression to the sense of gratitude we must all feel to the press of England and America for its support in adversity as well as in good fortune, and to the statesmen of all parties on both sides of the Atlantic, whose cordial sympathy and encouragement were never once withheld.... Nor must I forget that, during the thirteen years to which I have referred, prayers for our success perpetually ascended to the Almighty from Christian men and women who, although most of them had nothing to gain or to lose by the undertaking, were drawn towards it by the deep-felt conviction that, if it were realized, it could not fail to serve their Divine Master's cause by promoting 'Peace on earth and good-will among men.'" The _Great Eastern_, in which steamship he sailed for home, arrived in New York late in the first week in April, and the spring and early summer of this year were passed with his family and friends. From one of the latter he received this note, written on paper which bore the red cross and the words "American Association for the Relief of Misery of Battle-fields": "NEW YORK, _May 16, 1867_. "Many thanks, dear Mr. Field, for your letter. I shall hope to have the pleasure of meeting you abroad. But in any event I wish you and your family prosperity and increase of your well-earned honors, and your rightful self-complacency in your victories over time and space, and at last over this world and its last enemy. "Affectionately yours, "H. W. BELLOWS." July 1, 1867, he writes: "Left last Wednesday for Canada and the provinces; to-day at Ottawa. Returned to New York for a few days, and then for six weeks was in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland; on August 15th at the Government House, St. John's, Newfoundland." Many minor trials came to the telegraph companies during these first years of ocean telegraphy, and this letter refers to some of them: "NEW YORK, _October 1, 1867_.