“On the present occasion the undertaking has been benefited very greatly by your presence, and the contracts now about to be entered into are in their present position mainly on account of your exertions. But they are not completed. Even if accepted to-day there will be a great many points, when they come to be arranged in a legal form, which I shall have to battle with the contractors and others, and in doing which your aid will be most invaluable to me. There are also arrangements to be made for securing the regular and proper progress of the work, so as to give security that nothing is neglected that will secure the success of the cable in 1865, and I feel that if you remain I shall have security for getting them into proper position. I therefore on every ground ask you not to leave us until you have seen with your own eyes the cable actually commenced and everything organized for its due continuance. You can then leave with a comfortable assurance that all will go well.
“I know how hard all this is for Mrs. Field, and you, who know how much I love my own home, will, I am sure, believe me when I say how much I sympathize with you and her in the sacrifices involved in these continual separations; but it must be borne in mind that you have been marked out by the Ruler of all things as the apostle of this great movement, and this is a high mission and a noble distinction, in which I am sure Mrs. Field herself would deeply regret that you should come short of success, independently altogether of the very large results to herself and family from the pecuniary success or failure of the undertaking, all concerned in which have hitherto been compelled to make greater or smaller sacrifices in its behalf.
“I leave this for your consideration, having felt it a duty to say thus much to you in my private capacity upon what I consider a most important subject.
“I am, very dear sir,
“Very truly yours,
“George Saward].
“Cyrus W. Field, Esquire, Palace Hotel, Buckingham
Gate.”
At the end of the report made to the shareholders of the Atlantic Telegraph Company on March 16th, the Right Hon. James Stuart Wortley said:
“Without saying anything to detract from my deep source of gratitude to the other directors, I cannot help especially alluding to Mr. Cyrus Field, who is present to-day, and who has crossed the Atlantic thirty-one times in the service of this company, having celebrated at his table yesterday the anniversary of the tenth year of the day when he first left Boston in the service of the company. Collected round his table last night was a company of distinguished men—members of Parliament, great capitalists, distinguished merchants and manufacturers, engineers, and men of science—such as is rarely found together, even in the highest home in this great metropolis. It was very agreeable to see an American citizen so surrounded. To me it was so personally, as it would have been to you, and it was still more gratifying inasmuch as we were there to celebrate the approaching accomplishment of the Atlantic telegraph.”
And at a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company on May 4th, it was unanimously resolved, on the motion of Mr. Lampson:
“That the sincere thanks of this board be given to Mr. Cyrus W. Field for his untiring energy in promoting the general interests of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, and especially for his valuable and successful exertions during his present visit to Great Britain in reference to the restoration of its financial position and prospects of complete success.”
His friend of many years wrote:
“House of Commons, 27th April, 1864.