The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

by Henry M. Field

It may well be believed that it was no small affair to equip such an expedition. Beside the enormous burden of the cable itself, the Great Eastern had to take on board seven or eight thousand tons of coal, enough for a fleet, to feed her fires. Then she carried about five hundred men, for whom she had to make provision during the weeks they might be at sea. The stores laid in were enough for a small army. Standing on the wheel-house, and looking down, one might fancy himself in some large farm-yard of England. There stood the motherly cow that was to give them milk; and a dozen oxen, and twenty pigs, and a hundred and twenty sheep, while whole flocks of ducks and geese, and fowls of every kind, cackled as in a poultry-yard. Beside all this live stock, hundreds of barrels of provisions, of meats and fruits, were stored in the well-stocked larder below. Thus laden for her voyage, the Great Eastern had in her a weight, including her own machinery, of twenty-one thousand tons—a burden almost as great as could have been carried by the whole fleet with which Nelson fought the battle of Trafalgar.

As the time of departure drew near, public curiosity was excited, and there was an extraordinary desire to witness the approaching attempt. The Company was besieged by applications from all quarters for permission to accompany the expedition. Had these requests been granted, on the scale asked, even the large dimensions of the Great Eastern could hardly have been sufficient for the crowds on board. The demand was most pressing for places for newspaper correspondents. These came not only from England, but from France and America. Almost every journal in London claimed the privilege of being represented. The result was what might have been expected. As it was impossible to satisfy all, and to discriminate in favor of some, and exclude others, would seem partial and unjust, they were finally obliged to exclude all. Of course this gave great offence. There was an outcry in England and in the United States at what was denounced as a selfish and suicidal policy. But it is doubtful whether any other possible course would have given better satisfaction.

Whether the Managers erred in this or not, it should be said that they applied the same inexorable rule to themselves—even Directors of the Company being excluded, unless they had some special business on board.

It should be borne in mind that the expedition was not under the control of the Atlantic Telegraph Company at all, but of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, which had undertaken the work in fulfilment of a contract with the former Company to manufacture and lay down a cable across the Atlantic, in which it assumed the whole responsibility, not only making the cable, but chartering the ship and appointing the officers, and sending its own engineers to lay it down. Of course it had an enormous stake in the result. Hence it felt, not only authorized, but bound, to organize the expedition solely with reference to success. It was not a voyage of pleasure, but for business; for the accomplishment of a great and most difficult undertaking. Hence it was right that the most strict rules should be adopted. Accordingly there was not a man on board who had not some business there. As the voyage promised to be one of the utmost practical interest to electricians and engineers, several young men were received as assistants in the testing-room or in the engineers' department; but there was no person who was not in some way engaged on the business of one or the other company, or connected with the management of the ship. Except Mr. Field, not an Atlantic Telegraph Director accompanied the expedition; and he represented also the Newfoundland Company. Mr. Gooch, M.P., was at once a Director of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, and Chairman of the Board that owned the Great Eastern, and so represented both those companies which had so great a stake in the result.

Thus the whole business was in the hands of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company. It had its own officers to man the expedition—the captain and crew to sail the ship—its engineers to lay the cable—and its electricians to test it. Even the eminent electricians, Professor Thomson and Mr. Varley, who were on board in the service of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, were not allowed to interfere, nor even to give advice unless it were asked for in writing, and then it was to be given in writing. Their office was only to test the cable when laid, to pass messages through it from Newfoundland to Ireland, and to report it complete.

So rigorous were the rules which governed this memorable voyage. The whole enterprise was organized as completely as a naval expedition. Every man had his place. As when a ship is going into battle, everybody is sent below that has not some business on deck, so it is not strange that in such a critical enterprise they did not want a host of supernumeraries on board.

Yet the Company was not unmindful of the anxiety of the public for news, and since it could not give a place to many correspondents, it engaged one, and that the best—W. H. Russell, LL.D., the well-known correspondent of the London Times in the Crimea and in India. This brilliant writer was engaged to accompany the expedition—not to praise without discrimination, but to report events faithfully from day to day. He was accompanied by two artists, Mr. O'Neill and Mr. Dudley, to illustrate the scenes of the voyage. Thus the Company made every provision to furnish information and even entertainment to the public. Several of these gentlemen afterward wrote accounts for different magazines—Blackwood, Cornhill, and Macmillan's. Their different reports, and especially the volume of Dr. Russell, which combines the accuracy and minuteness of a diary kept from day to day, with brilliant descriptions, set off by illustrations from drawings of Mr. Dudley, furnish the public as full and complete an account as if there had been a special correspondent for every journal of England and America.

But if the public at large were very properly excluded, the organization on board was perfect and complete. At the head was Captain Anderson, of whom we have already spoken. As his duties would be manifold and increasing, he had requested the aid of an assistant commander, and Captain Moriarty, R. N., who had been in the Agamemnon in 1858, was permitted by the Admiralty to accompany the ship, and to give the invaluable aid of his experience and skill. The government also generously granted two ships of war, the Sphinx and the Terrible, to attend the Great Eastern. Thus the whole equipment of the expedition was English. Of the five hundred men on board the Great Eastern, there was but one American, and that was Mr. Field.

The engineering department was under charge of Mr. (now Sir) Samuel Canning, who, as the representative of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, was chief in command of all matters relating to laying the cable. For this responsible position no better man could have been chosen. Before the voyage was ended, he had ample opportunity to show his resources. He was ably seconded by Mr. Henry Clifford. Both these gentlemen had been on board the Agamemnon in the two expeditions of 1858. They had since had large experience in laying submarine cables in the Mediterranean and other seas. It was chiefly by their united skill that the paying-out machinery had been brought to such perfection, that throughout the voyage it worked without a single hitch or jar. They had an invaluable helper in Mr. John Temple.

The electrical department was under charge of Mr. De Sauty, who had had long experience in submarine telegraphs, and who was aided by an efficient corps of assistants. Professor Thomson and Mr. Varley, as we have said, were there to examine and report for the Atlantic Company. All these gentlemen had been unceasing in their tests of the cable in every form, both while in the process of manufacture and after it was coiled in the Great Eastern. The result of their repeated tests was to demonstrate that the cable was many times more perfect than the contract required. With such marvellous delicacy did they test the current of electricity sent through it, that it was determined that of one thousand parts, over nine hundred and ninety-nine came out at the other end!