The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph. Field Henry Martyn
than a third of a century, did much in the commercial capital of the world to support the honor of the American name. Mr. Peabody's firm subscribed £10,000, and Mr. Lampson £2,000. The latter gave more time than any other Director in London, except Mr. Brooking, the second Vice-Chairman, who, however, retired from the Company after the first failure in 1858, when Mr. Lampson was chosen to fill his place. The whole Board was full of zeal and energy. All gave their services without compensation.
It was the good fortune of the Company to have, from the beginning, in the important position of Secretary, a gentleman admirably qualified for the post. This was Mr. George Saward – a name familiar to all who have followed the fortunes of the telegraph, in England or America, since he has been the organ of communication with the press and the public; and with whom none ever had occasion to transact business without recognizing his intelligence and courtesy.
The Company being thus in working order, proceeded to make a contract for the manufacture of a cable to be laid across the Atlantic. For many months the proper form and size of the cable had been the subject of constant experiments. The conditions were: to combine the greatest degree of strength with lightness and flexibility. It must be strong, or it would snap in the process of laying. Yet it would not do to have it too large, for it would be unmanageable. Mr. Brett had already lost a cable in the Mediterranean chiefly from its bulk. Its size and stiffness made it hard to unwind it, while its enormous weight, when once it broke loose, caused it to run out with fearful velocity, till it was soon lost in the sea. It was only the year before, in September, 1855, that this accident had occurred in laying the cable from Sardinia to Algeria. All was going on well, until suddenly, "about two miles, weighing sixteen tons, flew out with the greatest violence in four or five minutes, flying round even when the drums were brought to a dead stop, creating the greatest alarm for the safety of the men in the hold and for the vessel." This was partly owing to the character of the submarine surface over which they were passing. The bottom of the Mediterranean is volcanic, and is broken up into mountains and valleys. The cable, doubtless, had just passed over some Alpine height, and was descending into some fearful depth below; but chiefly it was owing to the great size and bulk of the cable. This was a warning to the Atlantic Company. The point to be aimed at was to combine the flexibility of a common ship's rope with the tenacity of iron. These conditions were thought to be united in the form that was adopted.11 A contract was at once made for the manufacture of the cable, one half being given to Messrs. Glass, Elliot & Co., of London, and the other to Messrs. R. S. Newall & Co., of Liverpool. The whole was to be completed by the first of June, ready to be submerged in the sea. The company was organized on the ninth of December, and the very next day Mr. Field sailed for America, reaching New York on the twenty-fifth of December, after an absence of more than five months.
CHAPTER VII.
SEEKING AID FROM CONGRESS
When Mr. Field reached home from abroad, he hoped for a brief respite. He had had a pretty hard campaign during the summer and autumn in England, and needed at least a few weeks of rest; but that was denied him. He landed in New York on Christmas Day, and was not allowed even to spend the New Year with his family. There were interests of the Company in Newfoundland which required immediate attention, and it was important that one of the Directors should go there without delay. As usual, it devolved upon him. He left at once for Boston, where he took the steamer to Halifax, and thence to St. John's. Such a voyage may be very agreeable in summer, but in mid-winter it is not a pleasant thing to face the storms of those northern latitudes. The passage was unusually tempestuous. At St. John's he broke down, and was put under the care of a physician. But he did not stop to think of himself. The work for which he came was done; and though the physician warned him that it was a great risk to leave his bed, he took the steamer on her return, and was again in New York after a month's absence – a month of hardship, of exposure, and of suffering, such as he had long occasion to remember.
The mention of this voyage came up a year afterward at a meeting of the Atlantic Telegraph Company in London, when a resolution was offered, tendering Mr. Field a vote of thanks for "the great services he had rendered to the Company by his untiring zeal, energy, and devotion." Mr. Brooking, the Vice-Chairman, had spent a large part of his life in Newfoundland, and knew the dangers of that inhospitable coast, and in seconding the resolution he said:
"It is now about a year and a half ago since I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of my friend Mr. Field. It was he who initiated me into this Company, and induced me to take an interest in it from its earliest stage. From that period to the present I have observed in Mr. Field the most determined perseverance, and the exercise of great talent, extraordinary assiduity and diligence, coupled with an amount of fortitude which has seldom been equalled. I have known him cross the Atlantic in the depth of winter, and, within twenty-four hours after his arrival in New York, having ascertained that his presence was necessary in a distant British colony, he has not hesitated at once to direct his course thitherward. That colony is one with which I am intimately acquainted, having resided in it for upward of twenty years, and am enabled to speak of the hazards and danger which attend a voyage to it in winter. Mr. Field no sooner arrived at New York, in the latter part of December, than he got aboard a steamer for Halifax, and proceeded to St. John's, Newfoundland. In three weeks he accomplished there a very great object for this Company. He procured the passage of an Act of the Legislature which has given to our Company the right of establishing a footing on those shores. [The rights before conferred, it would seem, applied only to the Newfoundland Company.] That is only one of the acts which he has performed with a desire to promote the interests of this great enterprise."
The very next day after his return from Newfoundland, Mr. Field was called to Washington, to seek the aid of his own Government to the Atlantic Telegraph. The English Government had proffered the most generous aid, both in ships to lay the cable, and in an annual subsidy of £14,000. It was on every account desirable that this should be met by corresponding liberality on the part of the American Government. Before he left England, he had sent home the letter received from the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury; and thereupon the Directors of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company had inclosed a copy to the President, with a letter asking for the same aid in ships, and in an annual sum of $70,000, [equivalent to £14,000,] to be paid for the government messages, the latter to be conditioned on the success of the telegraph, and to be continued only so long as it was in full operation. They urged with reason that the English Government had acted with great liberality – not only toward the enterprise, but toward our own Government. Although both ends of the line were in the British possessions, it had claimed no exclusive privileges, but had stipulated for perfect equality between the United States and Great Britain. The agreement expressly provided "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."
The letter to the President called attention to this generous offer – an offer which it was manifestly to the advantage of our Government to accept – and added: "The Company will enter into a contract with the Government of the United States on the same terms and conditions as it has made with the British Government." They asked only for the same recognition and aid which they had received in England. This surely was not a very bold request. It was natural that American citizens should think that in a work begun by Americans, and of which, if successful, their country would reap largely the honor and the advantage, they might expect the aid from their own Government which they had already received from a foreign power. It was, therefore, not without a mixture of surprise and mortification that they learned that the proposal in Congress had provoked a violent opposition, and that the bill was likely to be defeated. Such was the attitude of affairs when Mr. Field returned from Newfoundland, and which led him to hasten to Washington.
He now found that it was much easier to deal with the English than with the American Government. Whatever may be said of the respective methods of administration, it must be confessed that the forms of English procedure furnish greater facility in the despatch of business. A contract can be made by the Lords of the Treasury
On his return to America, many inquiries were addressed to Mr. Field in regard to the form and structure of the cable, in answer to which he wrote a letter of explanation in which he said: "No particular connected with this great project has been the subject of so much comment through the press as the form and structure of the telegraph cable. It may be well believed that the Directors have not decided upon a matter so all-important to success, without availing themselves of the most eminent talent and experience which could be commanded. The practical history of submarine telegraphs dates from the successful submersion of the cable between Dover and Calais in 1851, and advantage has been taken of whatever instruction this history could furnish or suggest. Of the submarine cables heretofore laid down, without enumerating others, the one between Dover and Calais weighs six tons to the mile; that between Spezzia and Corsica, eight tons to the mile; that laid from Varna to Balaklava, and used during the war in the Crimea, less than three hundred pounds to the mile; while the weight of the cable for the Atlantic Telegraph is between nineteen hundred pounds and one ton to the mile. This cable, to use the words of Dr. Whitehouse, 'is the result of many months thought, experiment, and trial. Hundreds of specimens have been made, comprising every variety of form, size, and structure, and most severely tested as to their powers and capabilities; and the result has been the adoption of this, which we know to possess all the properties required, and in a far higher degree than any cable that has yet been laid. Its flexibility is such as to make it as manageable as a small line, and its strength such that it will bear, in water, over six miles of its own weight suspended vertically.' The conducting medium consists not of one single straight copper-wire, but of seven wires of copper of the best quality, twisted round each other spirally, and capable of undergoing great tension without injury. This conductor is then enveloped in three separate coverings of gutta-percha, of the best quality, forming the core of the cable, round which tarred hemp is wrapped, and over this, the outside covering, consisting of eighteen strands of the best quality of iron-wire; each strand composed of seven distinct wires, twisted spirally, in the most approved manner, by machinery specially adapted to the purpose. The attempt to insulate more than one conducting-wire or medium would not only have increased the chances of failure of all of them, but would have necessitated the adoption of a proportionably heavier and more cumbrous cable. The tensile power of the outer or wire covering of the cable, being very much less than that of the conductor within it, the latter is protected from any such strain as can possibly rupture it or endanger its insulation without an entire fracture of the cable."