The good-fortune which favored us in our ship favored us also in our commander, Captain Anderson, who was for years in the Cunard Line. How well he did his part in two expeditions the result has proved, and it was just that a mark of royal favor should fall on that manly head. Thus organized, the work of making a new Atlantic cable was begun. The core was prepared with infinite care, under the able superintendence of Mr. Chatterton and Mr. Willoughby Smith, and the whole was completed in about eight months. As fast as ready, it was taken on board the Great Eastern and coiled in three enormous tanks, and on July 15, 1865, the ship sailed.
I will not stop to tell the story of that expedition. For a week all went well; we had paid out one thousand two hundred miles of cable, and had only six hundred miles farther to go, when, hauling in the cable to remedy a fault, it parted and went to the bottom. That day I never can forget - how men paced the deck in despair, looking out on the broad sea that had swallowed up their hopes; and then how the brave Canning for nine days and nights dragged the bottom of the ocean for our lost treasure, and, though he grappled it three times, failed to bring it to the surface. The story of that expedition, as written by Doctor Russell, who was on board the Great Eastern, is one of the most marvellous chapters in the whole history of modern enterprise. We returned to England defeated, yet full of resolution to begin the battle anew. Measures were at once taken to make a second cable and fit out a new expedition; and with that assurance I came home to New York in the autumn.
in December I went back again, when lo! all our hopes had sunk to nothing. The Attorney- General of England had given his written opinion that we had no legal right, without a special act of Parliament (which could not be obtained under a year), to issue the new 12 per cent. shares, on which we relied to raise our capital. This was a terrible blow. The works were at once stopped, and the money which had been paid in returned to the subscribers. Such was the state of things when I reached London on December 24, 1865, and the next day was not a "merry" Christmas to me. But it was an inexpressible comfort to have the counsel of such men as Sir Daniel Gooch and Sir Richard A. Glass, and to hear stout-hearted Mr. Brassey tell us to go ahead, and, if need were, he would put down sixty thousand pounds more. It was finally concluded that the best course was to organize a new company, which should assume the work; and so originated the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. It was firmed by ten gentlemen who met around a table in London and put down ten thousand pounds apiece. The great Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, undaunted by the failure of last year, answered us with a subscription of one hundred thousand pounds. Soon after the books were opened to the public, through the eminent banking-house of J. S. Morgan and Company, and in fourteen days we had raised the six hundred thousand pounds. Then the work began again, and went on with speed. Never was greater energy infused into any enterprise. It was only the last day of March that the new company was formed, and it was registered as a company the next day; and yet such was the vigor and despatch that in five months from that day the cable had been manufactured, shipped on the Great Eastern, stretched across the Atlantic, and was sending messages, literally swift as lightning, from continent to continent.
Yet this was not "a lucky hit " - a fine run across the ocean in calm weather. It was the worst weather I ever knew at that season of the year. The despatch that appeared in the New York papers read, "The weather has been most pleasant." I wrote it "unpleasant." We had fogs and storms almost the whole way. Our success was the result of the highest science combined with practical experience. Everything was perfectly organized to the minutest detail. We had on board an admirable staff of officers, such men as Halpin and Beckwith; engineers long used to this business, such as Canning and Clifford and Temple; and electricians such as Professor Thomson of Glasgow and Willoughby Smith and Laws. Mr. C. F. Varley, our companion of the year before, remained with Sir Richard Glass at Valentia, to keep watch at that end of the line, and Mr. Latimer Clark, who was to test the cable when done.
“What a blessed condition is a true believer in! When he dies, he goes to God; and while he lives, everything shall do him good. Affliction is for his good. What hurt does the fire to the gold? It only purifies it.”
–Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial