But others there were—sharp, shrewd men—who thought they could see through a mill-stone farther than their neighbors, who shook their heads with a knowing air, and said: "It was all a stock speculation." One writer stepped before the public with this solemn inquiry: "Now that the great cable glorification is over, we should like to ask one question: How many shares of his stock did Mr. Field sell during the month of August?" This he evidently thought was a question which could not be answered, except by acknowledging a great imposition on the public. If this brilliant inquirer after truth really desired to be informed, we could have referred him to Messrs. George Peabody & Co., of London, with whom was deposited all of Mr. Field's stock at the time, and who, during that memorable month of August, sold just one share, and that at a price below the par value, which had been paid by Mr. Field himself. Whether this was an object sufficiently great to set two hemispheres in a blaze, we leave him to judge.
To those who have followed this narrative, all these conjectures and suspicions will appear very absurd. The personal reflections of course deserved and received only the contempt with which a man of character always scorns an imputation on his personal honor. But while these anonymous scribblers might be despised, many honest people not disposed to think evil were sorely perplexed. That the cable should continue to work for three or four weeks, and then stop the very day of the celebration, was certainly a singular, if not a suspicious circumstance; and it was not to be wondered at that it should excite a painful feeling of doubt. The distrust is quite natural, and ought not to be matter either of offence or surprise. On the contrary, those who are fully satisfied of the facts, ought rather to be glad of the opportunity which such questions afford, to present the amplest vindication.
To relieve all doubts, it is only necessary to give a very brief history of the working of the Atlantic cable. It was landed on both sides of the ocean on the fifth of August. The last recorded message passed over it on the first of September, one day short of four weeks. Within that time there were sent exactly four hundred messages, of which two hundred and seventy-one were from Newfoundland to Ireland, and one hundred and twenty-nine from Ireland to Newfoundland. Of these, the greater part were merely between the operators themselves, respecting the adjustment of instruments, and working the telegraph, which, while they furnished decisive evidence to them, were of no force to the public. Of course an operator, working with a battery on the shore at Valentia, or at Trinity Bay, watching his instrument, and seeing the little tongue of light reflected from the moving mirror of the galvanometer, needed no other evidence of an electric current that had passed through the cable. He saw it, and knew, as if he saw the flash of a gun on the coast of Ireland, that it was a light which had come from beyond the sea. But these private assurances were nothing to the outside world. What they needed was public messages, conveying news from one hemisphere to the other. Of these, there were not a great number, for obvious reasons. The cable, during the four weeks of its existence, never worked perfectly—that is, as a land line works, transmitting messages freely and rapidly, and with perfect accuracy. It was subject to frequent interruptions for reasons which may satisfy any one that the wonder is, not that it did so little, but that it did so much.
1st. To begin with, the cable was not constructed in the most perfect manner. Its makers, though the best then in the world, had had but little experience in making deep-sea cables. No line over three hundred miles long had ever been laid. 2d. It had been made more than a year before. After it was finished, part of it had been coiled out of doors, where it was exposed to a burning sun, by which, as was afterward found, the gutta-percha had been melted in many places till the insulation was nearly destroyed. 3d. It had been put on board the ships in 1857, and after the first failure, had been taken out and coiled on the dock at Plymouth, and then re-shipped in 1858. Thus it had been twisted and untwisted, some portions of it as many as ten times. Then the Agamemnon was so shaken in the terrible gale of June, that the cable on board of her was seriously injured, and some portions were cut out and condemned. Taking all these things together, the wonder is, not that the cable failed after a month, but that it ever worked at all!
Owing to this impaired state of the cable, it did not work perfectly. Probably it would not have worked at all with ordinary instruments. But the galvanometer of Professor Thomson, that instrument of marvellous delicacy, drew faint whispers from its muttering lips. Signals came and went, which showed that the electric current passed from shore to shore, and gave promise that with delicate handling it could be taught to speak plainly. But for the present it spoke slowly and with difficulty. It often took hours to get through a single despatch of any length. Witness the delay in transmitting the Queen's message! These frequent interruptions were ascribed to various causes. Sometimes it was earth-currents; at others, a thunderstorm was raging. Thus, on the morning of Thursday, the twenty-sixth of August, there was a violent storm in Newfoundland, heavy rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning. At three o'clock, the lightning was so intense that for an hour and a half the end of the cable had to be put to the earth for protection. After that the storm cleared away, and at seven o'clock the weather was reported as very fine. But aside from these local and temporary causes, the real difficulty was in the cable itself, whose insulation had been fatally impaired, and which was now wearing out its life on the rocks of the sea. These causes made its speech difficult and broken. Yet sometimes it flashed up with sudden power. In one case, a message was sent from the office at Trinity Bay to Ireland and an answer received back in two minutes! Such incidents excited the liveliest hopes that all difficulties would be speedily overcome, and justified the messages which were sent to the New York papers from day to day, that the instruments were being adjusted, by which it was expected that the line would soon be put in perfect working order, and be thrown open to the public. But these flashes of light proved to be only the flickering of the flame, that was soon to be extinguished in the eternal darkness of the waters.
But the question which perplexed not only skeptics, but the truest friends, was not whether the cable worked fast or slow, but whether it ever worked at all. Happily, this is a question which can easily be settled, since it is one simply of facts and dates, which can be ascertained by referring to the files of the English and American papers. Of course the only proof must be in messages containing news. Mere congratulations between the Queen and the President, or the Mayor of New York and the Mayor of London, prove nothing, for these might have been prepared beforehand, if we suppose a design to impose on the credulity of the public. But the decisive test is this: Was there at any time within that month published in the English or American journals news which could not be matter of guess or conjecture, and within a time too short for its possible transmission in any other way? If this can be proved beyond all doubt, even in a few instances, the question is decided, for the argument is just as strong with a dozen cases as with a thousand. We give, therefore, a few dates, the accuracy of which can be tested by any one who will take the trouble to examine the English and American papers:
On Saturday, the fourteenth of August, the steamships Arabia and Europa, the former bound for New York and the latter for Liverpool, came into collision off Cape Race. The accident was not known in New York until Tuesday, the seventeenth, since it could not be telegraphed till the Arabia reached Halifax or the Europa St. John's, into which port she put for repairs. As soon as the news reached New York, the agent of the Company, Mr. Nimmo (Mr. Cunard himself being then in England), at once prepared a despatch to be sent to relieve immediate anxiety. This was not forwarded to Newfoundland, as peremptory orders had been given not to transmit any private business messages to go through the cable until the line was fully open to the public. But the next day Mr. Field arrived in New York, and Mr. Nimmo applied to him. Seeing the urgency of the case, he ordered it to be forwarded. It was accordingly sent, and arrived in London on the twentieth, giving the first news that was received of the accident. This was repeatedly stated by the late Sir Samuel Cunard, of London, and confirmed by his son Mr. Edward Cunard, of New York. The message was published in the London papers of the twenty-first, as follows:
"Arabia in collision with Europa, Cape Race, Saturday. Arabia on her way. Head slightly injured. Europa lost bowsprit, cutwater stem sprung. Will remain in St. John's ten days from sixteenth. Persia calls at St. John's for mails and passengers. No loss of life or limb."
This first news message was not only a very decisive one as to the fact of telegraphic communication, but one which showed the relief given by speedy knowledge in dispelling doubt and fear. Mr. William E. Dodge, of New York, says: "I was in Liverpool at the time, and expecting friends by the Europa. Any delay in the arrival of the ship would have caused great anxiety. But one morning, on going down to the Exchange, we saw posted up this despatch received the night before by the Atlantic Telegraph. All then said, if the cable never did any thing more, it had fully repaid its cost." Well may he add with devout feeling: "It seemed as if Divine Providence had permitted the event, to furnish a testimony which could not be denied, to the reality and the benefit of this new means of communication between the two continents."