“I remain, etc.,
“J. I. M.”
November 8, 1850.
Shortly after the arrival of the gentlemen from New York the Legislature of Newfoundland repealed the charter of the Electric Telegraph Company, in which it had been expressly stated that the line of this company is designed to be strictly an “inter-continental telegraph,” and a charter was given to the “New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company.” Not only was the title of the new company suggestive, but the first sentence expressly stated, “It is deemed advisable to establish a line of telegraphic communication between New York and London by the way of Newfoundland.” And at the same time there was granted to the company an exclusive monopoly for fifty years to lay submarine cables across the Atlantic from the shores of Newfoundland.
When this work was begun the longest submarine cable in the world was that between England and Holland, and one had never been laid in water one hundred fathoms deep.
The party of three returned to New York early in May, and on Saturday evening, the 6th, the charter was accepted, and the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company was organized; at six o’clock in the morning, on May the 8th, the papers were signed and fifteen hundred thousand dollars subscribed. This meeting lasted just fifteen minutes.
Late in the spring of 1854 Mr. Field was obliged to take his old place at the head of the firm of Cyrus W. Field & Co., his brother-in-law and partner, Joseph F. Stone, having died on the 17th of May. The following August his only son died, and it was with a heavy heart that he began this double work.
On January 25, 1855, he sailed for England to order the cable to connect Cape Ray and Cape Breton. And while he was away his children received this letter:
“Morley’s Hotel,
“London, February 25, 1855.
“My dear, dear Children,—Many thanks for your affectionate letters, which I received last week in Paris.
“I wish that you would tell your good uncle Henry that I am much obliged for his letter of January 30th, and give my warmest love to your dear grandfather and Aunt Mary, and thank them for writing to me, and tell them that if I do not get time to answer their letters I think a great deal about them, and hope that we shall soon all meet in health, and that then I shall have much to tell them of what I have seen and heard in the few weeks that I have been in Europe.