"I now propose a toast: 'The memory of Richard Cobden, who proposed to the late Prince Consort that the profits of the exhibition of 1851 should be devoted to the establishment of telegraphic communication between England and America, and who, later, desired that the English government should supply one-half of the capital necessary to establish telegraphic communication across the Atlantic.' Mr. Cobden's argument was this: 'I am opposed to the government giving an unconditional guarantee, because it is a bargain all on one side. If you fail, then government pays the loss; if you succeed, you reap all the benefit. But I will advocate, with all my power, that the government shall supply one-half the money necessary to establish telegraphic communication between England and America, and in the event of success that they should have half the profit.' If the government had followed his advice they would to-day be receiving half the dividends on the Anglo-American and Atlantic telegraph stocks. I hope this consideration may lead them to pursue a liberal policy in regard to the extension of the telegraph to India, China, and Australia." This toast was drunk in silence, all present rising. Before dinner this note was handed to the chairman: "HOUSE OF COMMONS, _March 10, 1868_, 7 P.M. "_My dear Sir_,--I have cherished to the last the hope of coming to see you, but unhappily it is now arranged that Lord Mayo will not speak until after dinner, and I therefore fear that my presence at the only time of the evening when it would have been of use will be impossible. I should have much enjoyed, and I had greatly coveted, the opportunity your kindness offered--speaking a word of good-will to your country--but I am detained here by a higher duty; for there is in my judgment, no duty for public men in England which at this juncture is so high, so sacred, as that of studying the case of Ireland, and applying the remedies which I believe it admits. "We shall lie here until midnight, but not without thoughts of your festival and of the greatness of the country with which it is connected. You are called upon to encounter difficulties and to sustain struggles which some years ago I should have said were beyond human strength. But I have learned to be more cautious in taking the measure of American possibilities; and, looking to your past, there is nothing which we may not hope of your future. "I remain, my dear sir, most faithfully yours, "W. E. GLADSTONE. "CYRUS W. FIELD, Esq." In one of the weekly letters sent to him from New York there is this announcement: "A circular has been received from the State Department, dated June 3d, stating that they have received for you from Paris 'A Grand Prize and Diploma.'"