The United States had become involved in a tremendous war; and while the nation was struggling for life, it had no time to spend in foreign enterprises.
Continuing The Laying of the Atlantic Cable,
our selection from Cyrus W. Field. The selection is presented in four easy 5 minute installments.
Previously in The Laying of the Atlantic Cable.
Time: 1866
Other causes delayed a new attempt. The United States had become involved in a tremendous war; and while the nation was struggling for life, it had no time to spend in foreign enterprises. But in England the project was still kept alive. The Atlantic Telegraph Company kept up its organization. It had a noble body of directors, who had faith in the enterprise and looked beyond its present low estate to ultimate success. Our chairman, the Right Honorable James Stuart Wortley, did not join us in the hour of victory, but in what seemed the hour of despair, after the failure of 1858, and he has been a steady support through all these years.
All this time the science of submarine telegraphy was making progress. The British Government appointed a commission to investigate the whole subject. It was composed of eminent scientific men and practical engineers — Galton, Wheatstone, Fairbairn, Bidder, Varley, and Latimer and Edwin Clark — with the secretary of the company, Mr. Saward — names to be held in honor in connection with this enterprise, along with those of other English engineers, such as Stephenson and Brunel and Whitworth and Penn and Lloyd and Joshua Field, who gave time and thought and labor freely to this enterprise, refusing all compensation. This commission sat for nearly two years and spent many thousands of pounds in experiments. The result was a clear conviction in every mind that it was possible to lay a tele graph across the Atlantic. Science was also being all the while applied to practice. Submarine cables were laid in different seas — in the Mediterranean, in the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. The last was laid by my friend Sir Charles Bright.
When the scientific and engineering problems were solved, we took heart again and began to prepare for a fresh attempt. This was in 1863. In the United States—though the war was still raging—I went from city to city, holding meetings and trying to raise capital, but with poor success. Men came and listened and said it was all very fine and hoped I would succeed but did nothing. In one of the cities they gave me a large meeting and passed some beautiful resolutions and appointed a committee of “solid men” to canvass the city, but I did not get a solitary subscriber! In New York city I did better, though money came by the hardest effort. By personal solicitations, encouraged by good friends, I succeeded in raising three hundred fifty thousand dollars. Since not many had faith, I must present one example to the contrary, though it was not till a year later. When almost all deemed it a hopeless scheme, one gentle man came to me and purchased stock of the Atlantic Telegraph Company to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars. That was Mr. Loring Andrews. But at the time I speak of, it was plain that our main hope must be in England, and I went to London. There, too, it dragged heavily. There was a profound discouragement. Many had lost before and were not willing to throw more money into the sea. We needed six hundred thousand pounds, and with our utmost efforts we had raised less than half, and there the enterprise stood in a deadlock. It was plain that we must have help from some new quarter. I looked around to find a man who had broad shoulders and could carry a heavy load and who would be a giant in the cause.
At this time I was introduced to a gentleman, whom I would hold up to the American public as a specimen of a great hearted Englishman, Mr. Thomas Brassey. In London he is known as one of the men who have made British enterprise and British capital felt in all parts of the earth. I went to see him, though with fear and trembling. He received me kindly but put me through such an examination as I never had before. I thought I was in the witness-box. He asked me every possible question, but my answers satisfied him, and he ended by saying it was an enterprise that should be carried out, and that he would be one of ten men to furnish the money to do it. This was a pledge of sixty thousand pounds sterling! Encouraged by this noble offer, I looked around to find another such man, though it was almost like trying to find two Wellingtons. But he was found in Mr. John Pender, of Manchester. I went to his office in London one day, and we walked together to the House of Com mons, and before we got there he said he would take an equal share with Mr. Brassey.
The action of these two gentlemen was a turning-point in the history of our enterprise; for it led shortly after to a union of the well-known firm of Glass, Elliot and Company with the Guttapercha Company, making of the two one concern known at The Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, which included not only Mr. Brassey and Mr. Pender, but other men of great wealth, such as Mr. George Elliot and Mr. Barclay of London, and Mr. Henry Bewley of Dublin, and which, thus reinforced with immense capital, took up the whole enterprise in its strong arms. We needed, I have said, six hundred thousand pounds, and with all our efforts in England and America we raised only two hundred eighty-five thousand pounds. This new company now came forward and offered to take the whole remaining three hundred fifteen thousand pounds, besides one hundred thousand pounds of the bonds, and to make its own profits contingent on success. Mr. Richard A. Glass was made man aging director and gave energy and vigor to all its departments, being admirably seconded by the secretary, Mr. Shuter.
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