"_My dear Mr. Field_,--I am in receipt of yours of the 11th. I did not write you by last mail, as I had no further intelligence to communicate. "Since I last wrote Hyde has been here and returned again to Nova Scotia. I conferred with him, and have been in correspondence with our friends at Halifax as to what was best to be done to avert the threatened loss of our exclusive privileges; for the bill is not _finally_ disallowed, and I do think that if a deputation of your directors waited on Lord Stanley and brought the matter under the reconsideration of Her Majesty's government we might yet succeed in inducing them to confirm the act. The ground on which I based our claim to the exclusive right in Nova Scotia was that our project, being in the nature of an _invention_ (for its practicability is not yet fully tested), an invention of a most costly nature, in perfecting which an expenditure exceeding perhaps twice or thrice the _estimated_ cost might have to be incurred, we were justly entitled to such protection in the nature of a patent right, for a limited period, as would secure to us the reimbursement of the outlay and a fair remuneration for risk incurred, and that others who might lie by until we had, after repeated failures, achieved success, ought not (availing themselves of all our experience and expenditure) to be allowed _for a certain period_ to come into competition with us. Such a privilege as this, moreover, could not be abused, inasmuch as the public who are to use the telegraph (represented by the governments of Great Britain and the United States) reserve to themselves the right to regulate the tolls. "A telegraph under the Atlantic Ocean is vastly different from a submarine telegraph between England and the Continent. It is _in effect_ an invention (if it succeeds) and entitled to the same protection, at least, as would be granted to the invention of a new mode of propelling ships, or as is granted every day to the fabrication of such trifles as patent boot-jacks or corkscrews. "I really think that, as there is a _locus penitentiæ_ and a new administration, it may be well to have an interview with the colonial secretary on the subject.... "My wife and family are fairly well. They unite in kind regards to you and ardent wishes for your success. "Most truly yours, "E. M. ARCHIBALD." This subject seems to have been often agitated during the years that follow. On April 25th, 1862, Mr. Field writes to Mr. Saward: