Before a company was formed he addressed a letter to Lord Clarendon, then Foreign Secretary, and the answer to it was a request for a personal interview. Professor Morse was in London, and he went with Mr. Field to the Foreign Office, where they remained for over an hour.

Lord Clarendon seemed to be at once interested, and among the questions asked was, “But suppose you do not succeed, that you make the attempt and fail, your cable lost at the bottom of the ocean, then what will you do?” “Charge it to profit and loss and go to work to lay another,” was the answer. Lord Clarendon on parting desired that the requests made should be put in writing, and spoke words of encouragement.

The Atlantic Telegraph Company was organized December 9, 1856. It was decided that for this work $1,750,000 must be raised. Mr. Field put his name down for $500,000 (100 shares). He counted upon aid from America, and did not intend to hold this large amount of stock individually. As more money was subscribed than had been called for, but eighty-eight shares were allotted to him. This was fortunate, for on his return to New York he was able to dispose of but twenty-one shares.

Mr. George Saward wrote to The Electrician on the 28th of March, 1862: “Mr. Field in starting the Atlantic Telegraph Company took upon his own account eighty-eight shares of £1000 each. Upon all of these he paid into the coffers of the company in cash the first deposit of £17,600, and upon sixty-seven of them he paid the entire amount of calls, amounting to £67,000. This I am in a position to verify. A great number of these have been sold at a loss; but Mr. Field is still the largest holder of shares in the company paid up in cash.” Among the original subscribers in England were Lady Byron and Thackeray, and in America Archbishop Hughes.

Mr. Field sailed for America on December 10th, and arrived in New York on Christmas Day.

On December 23d the Senate had requested President Pierce, “if not incompatible with the public interest, to communicate such information as he may have concerning the present condition and prospects of a proposed plan for connecting by submarine wires the magnetic telegraph lines on this continent and Europe,” and on December 29th Mr. Pierce sent to the Senate the letter that had been addressed to him on December 15th by the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company. The substance of this letter was that “The contracts have been made for the manufacture of a submarine telegraphic cable to connect the continents of Europe and America.” ... That “it is the desire of the directors to secure to the government of the United States equal privileges with those stipulated for by the British government.” ... That “the British government shall have 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 station.” ...

“Her Majesty’s government engages to furnish the aid of ships to make what soundings may still be considered needful, or to verify those already taken, and favorably to consider any request that may be made to furnish aid by their vessels in laying down the cable.” ... “To avoid failure in laying the cable, it is desirable to use every precaution, and we therefore have the honor to request that you will make such recommendation to Congress as will secure authority to detail a steamship for this purpose, so that the glory of accomplishing what has been justly styled ‘the crowning enterprise of the age’ may be divided between the greatest and freest governments on the face of the globe.”

The bill was drawn by Mr. Seward, and was “An act to expedite telegraphic communication for the uses of the government in its foreign intercourse.” The great contest over its passage was not until early in the next year, 1857.

The suggestion made to the St. John’s Courier in 1850 by Bishop Mullock, and which Mr. Gisborne had tried to carry out, had not been lost sight of, as the following letter shows:

“Treasury Chambers, 19th November, 1856.