“Very respectfully, etc.,
“George B. McClellan.”
This expression is copied from a letter dated London, December 28, 1861: “The rebels are waiting with great anxiety for the arrival of the steamer Africa and her news about the Trent affair.”
On January 1, 1862, he wrote to Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State:
“The importance of the early completion of the Atlantic telegraph can hardly be estimated. What would have been its value to the English and United States governments if it had been in operation on the 30th of November last, on which day Earl Russell was writing to Lord Lyons, and you at the same time to Mr. Adams, our minister in London?
“A few short messages between the two governments and all would have been satisfactorily explained. I have no doubt that the English government has expanded more money during the last thirty days in preparation for war with this country than the whole cost of manufacturing and laying a good cable between Newfoundland and Ireland.
“At this moment you can telegraph from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to every town of importance in British North America and to all the principal cities in the loyal States, even to San Francisco, on the Pacific, a distance by the route of the telegraph of over fifty-four hundred miles. From Valentia, in Ireland, there is also now telegraph communication with all the capitals of Europe, and to Algiers, in Africa, about twenty-one hundred miles; to Odessa, on the Black Sea, twenty-nine hundred and forty miles; to Constantinople, thirty-one hundred and fifty miles, and to Omsk, in Siberia, about five thousand miles.
“All that is now required to connect Omsk, in Siberia, with San Francisco, California, on the Pacific, and all intermediate points, is a telegraph cable from Valentia Island to Newfoundland, a distance of sixteen hundred and forty nautical miles.
“What could the governments of Great Britain and the United States do so effectually to bind the two countries in bonds of amity and interest as to complete at the earliest possible moment this connecting link between the two countries?...
“Will you pardon me for suggesting to you the propriety of opening a correspondence with the English government upon the subject, and proposing that the Atlantic Telegraph Company should be aided or encouraged to complete their line, and that the two governments should enter into a treaty that in case of any war between them the cable should not be molested?”
Mr. Seward answered on January 9th: