His friend and pastor, the Rev. William Adams, D.D., wrote to him on the 10th of March:
“My dear Friend,—I do not know whether your homeward thoughts ever include your minister, but mine very frequently traverse the sea towards you and your noble enterprise.... We have all watched with great interest the noble bearing of your good wife in all the sacrifices which she makes for you and the cause you so gallantly represent. These are things not so much thought of by the great world; but after all they are the chief elements in that great price which we are compelled to pay for everything good and great....
“The Niagara has sailed, and now all eyes are on you and on her. By-the-way, we all made a visit to the noble ship a week ago, and filled her full with a cargo of blessings and good wishes....
“We watch the papers with great interest to find anything which bears on the success of your undertaking; and feel a personal and national pride at every mention which reflects honor on you and your laudable exertions....
“With every good wish for you personally and for your great undertaking, I am,
“Yours very sincerely,
“W. Adams.”
The difficulties encountered by the Newfoundland and the Atlantic Cable Companies will be best understood by giving part of a letter from Mr. (later known as Sir) Edward Archibald:
“New York, March 30, 1858.
“My dear Mr. Field,—I am in receipt of yours of the 11th. I did not write you by last mail, as I had no further intelligence to communicate.
“Since I last wrote Hyde has been here and returned again to Nova Scotia. I conferred with him, and have been in correspondence with our friends at Halifax as to what was best to be done to avert the threatened loss of our exclusive privileges; for the bill is not finally disallowed, and I do think that if a deputation of your directors waited on Lord Stanley and brought the matter under the reconsideration of Her Majesty’s government we might yet succeed in inducing them to confirm the act. The ground on which I based our claim to the exclusive right in Nova Scotia was that our project, being in the nature of an invention (for its practicability is not yet fully tested), an invention of a most costly nature, in perfecting which an expenditure exceeding perhaps twice or thrice the estimated cost might have to be incurred, we were justly entitled to such protection in the nature of a patent right, for a limited period, as would secure to us the reimbursement of the outlay and a fair remuneration for risk incurred, and that others who might lie by until we had, after repeated failures, achieved success, ought not (availing themselves of all our experience and expenditure) to be allowed for a certain period to come into competition with us. Such a privilege as this, moreover, could not be abused, inasmuch as the public who are to use the telegraph (represented by the governments of Great Britain and the United States) reserve to themselves the right to regulate the tolls.