Cables, Submarine -- History; Field, Cyrus W. (Cyrus West), 1819-1892; Inventors -- United States -- Biography
"I propose to take no further notice of them than to place copies
in your possession and in the hands of the Attorney-General, that
such action may be taken in regard to them as may be deemed
necessary."
After this there was no further suggestion of trouble.
This very characteristic business note was found among his papers of
this year:
"As we are all liable to be called away by death at any time, I
should esteem it a favor if you would indorse the amount paid you
by C. W. Field & Co. on the 5th instant, on my bond, and send the
same to my office, as you proposed."
It was on May 1st that he addressed the American Geographical and
Statistical Society, and it is possible to make but a short extract from
his speech:
"The London _Times_ said truly: 'We nearly went to war with America
because we had not a telegraph across the Atlantic.' It is at such
a moment that England feels the need of communicating with her
colonies on this side of the ocean. And here I may mention a fact
not generally known--that, during the excitement of the _Trent_
affair a person connected with the English government applied to
Messrs. Glass, Elliott & Co., of London, to know for what sum they
would manufacture a cable and lay it across the Atlantic; to which
they replied that they would both manufacture and lay it down for
£675,000, and that it should be in full operation by the 12th day
of July of this year. Well might England afford to pay the whole
cost of such a work; for in sixty days' time she expended more
money in preparation for war with this country than the whole cost
of manufacturing and laying several good cables between
Newfoundland and Ireland."
On his return he had found that the feeling against England was very
intense, and on April 29th he wrote to Mr. Thurlow Weed, who was in
London:
"I regret exceedingly to find a most bitter feeling in this country
against England. Mr. Seward is almost the only American that I have
heard speak kindly of England or Englishmen since I arrived."
And to Mr. Seward his next letter is addressed:
"NEW YORK, _May 5, 1862_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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