“Your letter of the 1st instant relative to the Atlantic telegraph was duly received; it will afford me pleasure to confer with you on that subject at any time you may present yourself for that purpose.”
In a letter written by Mr. Seward on the 14th of January to Mr. Adams in London he said:
“In view of the recent disturbances of feeling in Great Britain growing out of the Trent affair, we have some apprehensions that our motives in opening a correspondence upon the subject of the telegraph just now might be misinterpreted....
“If you think wisely of it you are authorized to call the attention of Earl Russell to the matter.... You may say to him that the President entertains the most favorable views of the great enterprise in question, and would be happy to co-operate with the British government in securing its successful execution and such arrangements as would guarantee to both nations reciprocal benefits from the use of the telegraphs, not only in times of peace, but even in times of war, if, contrary to our desire and expectation, and to the great detriment of both nations, war should ever arise between them.”
Mr. Field sailed for England in the steamer Arabia on January 29th, and on February 27th, at the request of Mr. Adams, sent a long letter to Earl Russell. To this letter Earl Russell replied, and appointed Tuesday, March 4th, at half-past three, as the time at which he would receive him at the Foreign Office.
On March 6th he again wrote to Earl Russell, entering into details, and at the end of his letter he referred to the two messages that were in 1858 sent for the English government, and said:
“I enclose for your information a certificate from the War Office that this business was properly and promptly executed. The experimental cable which effected for them this communication has cost the original shareholders £162,000, which sum has been unremunerative during six years. They ask no advantage in respect of that from either government, being quite content to risk the sacrifice of the whole amount if the means be now granted them for raising, by new subscriptions, the means of carrying out to a successful issue the great work intrusted to them.”
March 10th Earl Russell wrote that Her Majesty’s government “have come to the conclusion that it would be more prudent for the present to defer entering into any fresh agreement on so difficult a subject.”
It was at this time that Mr. George Saward published the article in The Electrician already referred to, and in it he said:
“Mr. Field has crossed the Atlantic twenty-five times on behalf of the great enterprise to which he has vowed himself. He has labored more than any other individual in this important cause, and he has never asked the Atlantic Telegraph Company for one shilling remuneration for his valuable services, which he was in no way bound to render them; nay more, whenever an offer of compensation was made to him he refused it.”