"The performance of the vessel and of her machinery has fully come up to the most sanguine expectations. She is now on her way to London. By the recent news from England we learn that the British authorities have detailed three steamers to assist in laying the submarine cable and make soundings along the route. The _Agamemnon_, a ninety-gun ship, in connection with the Niagara will take the cable on board." Very little rest was allowed him on his return from Washington--but two weeks at his home. He sailed for Liverpool on the 18th of March, leaving his wife with a baby four days old. He remained in England barely a fortnight; he was at home on the 22d of April, and on the 8th of July he was a passenger on the steamship _Persia_, once more bound for England. Early in July the _Niagara_ had received her share of the cable from the manufactory of Messrs. Newall & Co., and the _Agamemnon_ hers from the works of Messrs. Glass, Elliott & Co. Almost immediately on his arrival he was a guest at a _fête champêtre_ given by Sir Culling Eardley, at Belvidere, near Erith. Following is the card of invitation: _Sir Culling Eardley requests the Company of_ =Cyrus W. Field, Esq.,= _at Belvidere, on Thursday, July the 23d, on the occasion of the departure of The Electrical Telegraph Cable for the Atlantic Ocean. Messrs. Glass, Elliott & Co., the Contractors for the Cable, also request the honor of_ =Cyrus W. Field, Esq.'s= _Company at Dinner with the Directors and Friends of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, the Officers and Crew of H.M.S._ Agamemnon,_ and the Artisans of the Cable_. _An early answer is requested to Sir Culling Eardley, Belvidere, Erith._ It was at this _fête_ that he read this note: "WASHINGTON, _3d July, 1857_. "_My dear Sir,_--Accidental circumstances which I need not detail prevented your kind letter of the 19th ultimo from being brought to my notice until this morning. I now hasten to say in reply that I shall feel myself much honored should the first message (as you propose) sent across the Atlantic by the submarine telegraph be from Queen Victoria to the President of the United States, and I need not assure you he will endeavor to answer it in a spirit and manner becoming the great occasion. "Yours very respectfully, "JAMES BUCHANAN. "TO CYRUS W. FIELD, Esq." The following account is copied from a letter written to the London _Times_ on August 3, 1857: "During the progress of the _Agamemnon_ to the Downs the mechanical appliances for regulating the delivery of the cable into the sea were kept continually in motion by the small engine on board, which is connected with them; the sheaves and gearing worked with great facility and precision, and so quietly that at a short distance from them their motion could scarcely be heard.