"It appears not to have been contemplated by the British Government that there would ever be any interruption of the amicable relations between the two countries. Therefore nothing was proposed in their contract for the contingency of war. "That the two termini are both in the British dominions is true; but it is equally true that there is no other terminus on this continent where it is practicable to make that communication except in the British dominions. We have no dominions on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. There is no other route known on which the telegraphic wire could be drawn through the ocean so as to find a proper resting-place or anchorage except this. The distance on this route is seventeen hundred miles. It is not even known that the telegraphic wire will carry the fluid with sufficient strength to communicate across those seventeen hundred miles. That is yet a scientific experiment, and the Company are prepared to make it. "In regard to war, all the danger is this: There is a hazard of war at some future time, and whatever arrangements we might make, war would break them up. No treaty would save us. My own hope is, that after the telegraphic wire is once laid, there will be no more war between the United States and Great Britain. I believe that whenever such a connection as this shall be made, we diminish the chances of war, and diminish them in such a degree, that it is not necessary to take them into consideration at the present moment. "Let us see where we are. What shall we gain by refusing to enter into this agreement? If we do not make it, the British Government has only to add ten thousand pounds sterling more annually, and they have the whole monopoly of this wire, without any stipulation whatever--not only in war but in peace. If we make this contract with the Company, we at least secure the benefit of it in time of peace, and we postpone and delay the dangers of war. If there shall ever be war, it would abrogate all treaties that can be made in regard to this subject, unless it be true, as the honorable Senator from Virginia thinks, that treaties can be made which will be regarded as obligatory by nations in time of war. If so, we have all the advantages in time of peace, for the purpose of making such treaties hereafter, without the least reason to infer that there would be any reluctance on the part of the British Government to enter into that negotiation with us, if we should desire to do so. The British Government, if it had such a disposition as the honorable Senator supposes, would certainly have proposed to monopolize all this telegraphic line, instead of proposing to divide it."[A] Mr. Hale spoke in the same strain: