While engaged in these negotiations, Mr. Field took his family to Paris, and there met with a great loss in the sudden death of a favorite sister, who had accompanied them abroad. Full of the sorrow of this event, and unfitted for business of any kind, he returned to London to find an invitation to go into the country and spend a few days with Mr. James Wilson, then Secretary to the Treasury, a man of great influence in the Government, at his residence near Bath; there to discuss quietly and at length the proposed aid to the Atlantic Telegraph. Though he had but little spirit to go among strangers, he felt it his duty not to miss an opportunity to advance the cause he had so much at heart. The result of this visit was the following letter, received a few days later:
"Sir: Having laid before the Lords Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury your letter of the 13th ultimo, addressed to the Earl of Clarendon, requesting, on behalf of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company, certain privileges and protection in regard to the line of telegraph which it is proposed to establish between Newfoundland and Ireland, I am directed by their lordships to acquaint you that they are prepared to enter into a contract with the said Telegraph Company, based upon the following conditions, namely:
"1. It is understood that the capital required to lay down the line will be three hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
"2. Her Majesty's Government engage to furnish the aid of ships to take what soundings may still be considered needful, or to verify those already taken, and favorably to consider any request that may be made to furnish aid by their vessels in laying down the cable.
"3. The British Government, from the time of the completion of the line, and so long as it shall continue in working order, undertakes to pay at the rate of fourteen thousand pounds a year, being at the rate of four per cent. on the assumed capital, as a fixed remuneration for the work done on behalf of the Government, in the conveyance outward and homeward of their messages. This payment to continue until the net profits of the Company are equal to a dividend of six per cent., when the payment shall be reduced to ten thousand pounds a year, for a period of twenty-five years.
"It is, however, understood that if the Government messages in any year shall, at the usual tariff-rate charged to the public, amount to a larger sum, such additional payment shall be made as is equivalent thereto.
"4. That the British Government shall have a priority in the conveyance of their messages over all others, subject to the exception only of the Government of the United States, in the event of their entering into an arrangement with the Telegraph Company similar in principle to that of the British Government, in which case the messages of the two Governments shall have priority in the order in which they arrive at the stations.
"5. That the tariff of charges shall be fixed with the consent of the Treasury, and shall not be increased, without such consent being obtained, as long as this contract lasts.
"I am, sir, your obedient servant,
"Cyrus W. Field, Esq., 37 Jermyn street."
With this encouragement and promise of aid, the projectors of a telegraph across the ocean now went forward to organize a company to carry out their design. Mr. Field, on arriving in England, had entered into an agreement with Mr. Brett to join their efforts for this purpose. With them were afterward united two others – Sir Charles Bright, as engineer, and Dr. Whitehouse, as electrician. These four gentlemen agreed to form a new company, to be called The Atlantic Telegraph Company, the object of which should be "to continue the existing line of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company to Ireland, by making or causing to be made a submarine telegraph cable for the Atlantic."
As they were now ready to introduce the enterprise to the British public, Mr. Field issued a circular in the name of the Newfoundland Company, and as its Vice-President, setting forth the great importance of telegraphic communication between the two hemispheres.
The next step was to raise the capital. After the most careful estimates, it was thought that a cable could be made and laid across the Atlantic for £350,000. This was a large sum to ask from a public slow to move, and that lends a dull ear to all new schemes. But armed with facts and figures, with maps and estimates, with the opinions of engineers and scientific men, they went to work, not only in London, but in other parts of the kingdom. Mr. Field, in company with Mr. Brett, made a visit to Liverpool and Manchester, to address their Chambers of Commerce. I have now before me the papers of those cities, with reports of the meetings held and the speeches made, which show the vigor with which they pushed their enterprise. This energy was rewarded with success. The result justified their confidence. In a few weeks the whole capital was subscribed. It had been divided into three hundred and fifty shares of a thousand pounds each. Of these, a hundred and one were taken in London, eighty-six in Liverpool, thirty-seven in Glasgow, twenty-eight in Manchester, and a few in other parts of England. The grandeur of the design attracted public attention, and some subscribed solely from a noble wish to take part in such a work. Among these were Mr. Thackeray and Lady Byron. Mr. Field subscribed £100,000, and Mr. Brett £25,000. But when the books were closed, it was found that they had more money subscribed than they required, so that in the final division of shares, there were allotted to Mr. Field eighty-eight, and to Mr. Brett twelve. Mr. Field's interest was thus one-fourth of the whole capital of the Company.
In taking so large a share, it was not his intention to carry this heavy load alone. It was too large a proportion for one man. But he took it for his countrymen. He thought one fourth of the stock should be held in this country, and did not doubt, from the eagerness with which three fourths had been taken in England, that the remainder would be at once subscribed in America. Had he been able, on his return, to attend to his own interests in the matter, this expectation might have been realized; but, as we shall see, hardly did he set foot in New York, before he was obliged to hurry off to Newfoundland on the business of the Company, and when he returned the interest had subsided, so that it required very great exertions, continued through many months, to dispose of twenty-seven shares. Thus he was by far the largest stockholder in England or America – his interest being over seven times that of Mr. Brett, who was the largest next to himself – and being more than double the amount held by all the other American shareholders put together. This was at least giving substantial proof of his own faith in the undertaking.
But some may imagine that after all this burden was not so great as it seemed. In many stock companies the custom obtains of assigning to the projectors a certain portion of the stock as a bonus for getting up the company, which amount appears among the subscriptions to swell the capital. It is indeed subscribed, but not paid. So some have asked whether this large subscription of Mr. Field was not in part at least merely nominal? To this we answer, that a consideration was granted to Mr. Field and his associates for their services in getting up the Company, and for their exclusive rights, but this was a contingent interest in the profits of the enterprise, to be allowed only after the cable was laid. So that the whole amount here subscribed was a bona-fide subscription, and paid in solid English gold. We have now before us the receipts of the bankers of the Company for the whole amount, eighty-eight thousand pounds sterling.
The capital being thus raised, it only remained to complete the organization of the Company by the choice of a Board of Directors, and to make a contract for the cable. The Company was organized in December, 1856, by the choice of Directors chiefly from the leading bankers and merchants of London and Liverpool. The list included such honored names as Samuel Gurney, T. H. Brooking, John W. Brett, and T. A. Hankey, of London; Sir William Brown, Henry Harrison, Edward Johnston, Robert Crosbie, George Maxwell, and C. W. H. Pickering, of Liverpool; John Pender and James Dugdale, of Manchester; and Professor William Thomson, LL.D., of Glasgow. With these English Directors were two of our countrymen, Mr. George Peabody and Mr. C. M. Lampson, who, residing