The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-02 00:00:00

navies of-America and England in a speech which
testified to the good qualities of both.
The Duke of ARGYLL then gave the toast of the
evening, "Mr. Cyrus IV. Field," the formal men-
tion of whose name was greeted with continued
cheering. In the course of a very eloquent address
respecting the progress of science, and more
particularly that relating to telegraphy, his Grace
invited the numerous guests by whom he was
surrounded to return to their distinguished "guest
their warmest and heartiest acknowledgments for
the great services which he had rendered to England
and to America, and to the world, by his untiring
exertions in promoting the success of the Atlantic
Telegraph. (Cheers.) In an enterprise which was
the culminating proof, if he might so say, of many
generations of men, it was not easy to apportion,
with any very great exactitude, the merit which be-
longed to those who had been engaged in it. But

he much misunderstood the character of their dis-
tinguished guest—and he had known him for many
years--if be desired to displace any of those who
had preceded him in the course of the discoveries
which had ultimately led to the grand completion
of the Atlantic telegraph. , (Cheers.) He (the
noble chairman) regarded this triumph as one of
pure science. He thought that the success which
had attended this grand invention was a strong
incentive to others to prosecute discoveries
in the cause of science. Discoveries might
for a great many years —for a very long time
—remain useless; but this should be borne in mind,
that at any moment such new light might be ob-
tained that they would become of the greatest ser-
vice to mankind. He regarded the completion of
the Atlantic Telegraph as the greatest triumph of
engineering, mechanical, and nautical skill which
the world had ever witnessed. (Cheers.) It was
a great and noble triumph as regarded the spirit of
commercial enterprise. He sincerely believed that
the success of the enterprise might have been de-
layed for many years—perhaps for whole genera-
tions of men—if it had not been for the exertions,
for the confidence, for the zeal, for the foresight, for
the faith, amounting altogether, as he thought, to
great genius, of their guest, Mr. Cyrus Field.
(Loud cheers.) Of all the commercial enterprises
ever taken this was one in which it was evident that
those engaged in it were actuated by the purest and
noblest motives. He believed that it was the very
greatness of the enterprise which so inspired Mr.
Cyrus Field. (Cheers.) As a proof of his (Mr.
Field's) great confidence in the undertaking, he
might say that he risked every farthing of his pri-
vate fortune in promoting its success. But before
concluding he would say that Mr. Cyrus Field was
personally one of the most genial and kind-hearted
of men. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. CYRUS FIELD, on rising to respond, was re-
ceived with enthusiastic • cheering. He said :My
Lord Duke--With all my heart I thank you for the
kind words which you have spoken, and which are
the more grateful to me, coming as they do from
one who was my country's friend in the hour of
darkness and seeming disaster. To you also, my
lords, ladies, and gentlemen, I equally return my
thanks for the cordial manner in which you have
received the generous sentiments expressed by your
distinguished president. Most sincerely do I wish
that I had the power to express to you all that I
have it in my heart to say, and to make my voice
respond to the gratitude I feel for all the kindness
I have received in this country. (Cheers.) I know
how anxious you are to hear the statesman who so
ably presides over the affairs of India, that great
orator who is the friend of America because he is
the friend of mankind, and the other distinguished
gentlemen who are to follow them. I will there-
fore not detain you with any lengthened remarks
in regard to the Atlantic Telegraph, with its
more than fourteen years of varying fortunes ; nor
with any account of the anxious days and sleepless
nights which have been passed by those who were
engaged in bringing the undertaking to its final
consummation ; nor with any narrative of what has

been done to realise apparent impossibilities by so

many who are now seated around this board. The
laborious scientific investigations in the closet, the
laboratory, the workshop, upon and beneath the
sea; the accurate soundings of the Atlantic; the
careful and increasingly perfect manufacture of the
cables ; the wonderfully effective mechanical appli-
ances used to lay them, and to recover and corn -
plete the one that was lost ; the skilful seamanship
exhibited in the sure guidance of all the move-
ments of the vessels ; the unsurpassed enterprise
of the capitalists, without whose profuse expendi-
ture the Atlantic cable would still have remained
a chimera ; the ability with which the affairs of
the several companies were conducted by the
directors and officers ; the generous aid of the
English and American Governments in connec-
tion with the successive expeditions, and
that of the Government of Newfoundland in
granting valuable privileges; in a word, the un-
exampled combination of nautical, electrical, en-
gineering, financial, and executive resources—all
this is best told by the simple fact that two cables
are in
_perfect working ord r across the most stormy
ocean in the world, a d;stance of nearly 2,000 miles,
more than two-thirds of which is over two miles in
depth, and that messages are passing with lightning
speed from continent to continent. That the enter-
prise has also been a pecuniary success is best proved
by the fact that on this very clay the holders of
every description of Atlantic Telegraph Stock have
received a dividend. (Loud cheers.) The living
are too numerous to particularise, and the fame
of many of them has not reached its, climax ;
but I may be excused if I pay my reverend
tribute of gratitude to the memories of those
who have departed from amongst us, but who
live, and will ever live, in their works. In 'doing
so I gratefully record the honoured names of
Faraday, Stephenson, Brunel, Brett, Statham,
Woodhouse, Brown, Bache, Berryman, White,
and Hudson, who laboured so zealously, and
who, if living, would have rejoiced to be
with us to-night. But the past is matter of history.
Let us do all we can in the future to make the fruits
of our experience beneficial to the world. (Cheers.)
Do not, my friends, be content with having con-
nected Europe and America together by the electric
cord, but remember that India, Australia, China
and Japan, South America, and the isles of the sea,
both in the east and in the west, have yet to be
brought into instant communication with England
and America. I most fervently thank God that I
have been permitted to live to see this enterprise,
which binds your country to mine, completed ; and
that I am privileged this night with some members
of my family to meet our English friends, and with
them to rejoice over its success. (Cheers.) I re-
joice because the cable brings into closer union the
two great Anglo-Saxon nations of the world, which
have a common origin, inherit the same glorious
traditions, and are so bound together that if one
were• to receive a blow both would suffer from
the shock. I, an American, feel pride in remem-
bering that my ancestors were English citizens,
and lived and died under your flag. And do not all
true Englishmen glory in the fact that the small
expeditions which sailed from these shores some
two hundred and fifty years ago, and settled at
Plymouth and on the banks of the James River,
were so multiplied and replenished that, at the time
of the Declaration of Independence, the original
handful had increased to three millions of people ;
while in less than a century the three millions have
grown into a nation of thirty-five millions, and
now, thank God, not one slave among them, with a
territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pa-
cific, from the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes
to the Gulf of Mexico. There are undoubtedly
many now within hearing of my voice who will live
to see within the limits of the existing United
States one hundred millions of people all speaking
the English tongue. While, when I think of the
greatness of England, I always remember the words
of the American orator, who said that she "is a
power to which Rome in the height of her glory is
not to be compared ; a power which has dotted
over the surface cf the whole globe with her pos-
sessions and military posts, whose morning drum-
beat, following the sun and keeping com-
pany with the hours, circles, the earth in one con-
tinuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of
England." (Cheers.) To this I would add the

hope, that ere long evev one of the numerous and

scattered dependencies which suggested to Daniel
Webster the noble figure America has enshrined in
her classics will be united to the mother country by
the electric bond, and that it may be in the power
of the Sovereign and her Minister, or of the mer-
chant on " Change," to hold instantaneous con-
verse with all or any of the races, nations, and
tribes which yield obedience to the mild sceptre of
the good Queen Victoria. (Loud cheers.) I pray
that hereafter no jealousies may be allowed to create
a wall of separation between England and America
—that all the ill-feeling that has been engendered
between the two countries may he buried so deep
in the Atlantic that the ingenuityof man shall never
invent a grapple to drag it to the surface, and that
the only rivalry between them shall be the rivalry
of co-workers in efforts to promote peace, industry,
and commercial iuterc Arse, and to extend the bless-
ings of civil and religious liberty throughout the
world. (Loud cheers.)
Sir S. NORTHCOTE, Bart., M Secretary of
State for India, addressed the company, in a speech
of considerable length, respecting the toast of "The
Peace and Commercial Prosperity of Great Britain
and the United States," which he proposed.
Mr. BRIGHT, who, upon rising, was received with
continued cheering, said—ln attempting to respond
to the sentiment that has been submittel to us, I
have a certain anxiety with regard to a mysterious
box which is on these premises, cantaining an in-
strument by which I am told that every word that
we utter to-night, be it wise or be it foolish, will be
transmitted with more than lightning speed to the
dwellers on that portion of the world's surface
which we describe as beyond the setting sun. (A
Voice—" Speak out.") But vie are so entirely
agreed that there seems no possibility that anything
which can be said to-night that any one who hears
it can contradict, that perhaps we may avoid the
charge of saying anything that is foolish or
hasty. Sir Stafford Northcote has sub-
mitted this sentiment—" To the peace and pros-
perity of Great Britain and the United States ;"
which means, I presume, that we are here in favour
of a growing and abundant trade with America,
and at the same time have an unbroken friendship
with the people of that country. With one heart
and voice, I presume we accept that sentiment—
(great cheering)—and without any fear of contra-
diction we assert that we are on that point the true
representatives of the unanimous feeling of the
three kingdoms. (Cheers.) There are those—l
meet them frequently, for there are cavillers and
critics everywhere—there are those who condemn
the United States, and sometimes with something
like scorn and bitterness, because at this moment
the people of the United States are bearing heavy
taxation, and because they have a ruinous tariff ;
but if these persons were to look at our own posi-
tion a few years ago they would see how much al-
lowance is to be made for others. (Cheers.)
During the years which passed between 1790 and
1815, for nearly twenty-five-years, the Govern-
ment and people of this country were engaged in
a war of a most terrific character with a neighbour-
ing State. The result of that war was that which
is, I believe, the result of every war, enormous ex-
penditure, great loans, heavy taxation, growing
debts, and, of course, suffering among the people
who have to bear the weight of those burdens; and
for a space of 25 years, from 1815 to 1841, there
was scarcely anything done by the Government of
this country to remedy the gross and scandalous
inequalities of taxation, and to adopt a better sys-
tem in apportioning the necessary burdens of the
State through the various classes of the people.
Well, since 1811, as we all know, we have seen a
revolution in this country in regard to taxation and
finarce, and I need not remiud you that that has
been mainly done by the teachings of one who
is not with us to-night, but who would have re-
joiced, as we now rejoice, had the great event
which we are here to celebrate taken place in
his lifetime—he whose spirit and he whose mind
will, I believe, for years to come stimu-
late and elevate the minds of the majo-
rity of his countrymen. This revolution of
which I speak is not confined to this country, be-
cause, notwithstanding what we now see in Ame-
rica, at no remote period, I believe, it will embrace
within its own blessing and influence all the civilisa-
tion of the globe. Now the United States has had
for four years an appalling struggle and disaster.
It was a time in some sort of unspeakable grandeur,
and it has this great result, that, as it has sustained
the life of a great nation, it has given universal and
permanent freedom over the whole continent of
North America. (Loud cheers.) And as was the
case with our war, so with the American war : it
has been attended with enormous cost, with great
loans, with grievous taxation, and witb a tariff
which intelligent men will not long submit to ; but
at this moment and for some time the wounds
so inflicted are healing, freedom is secured, and the
restoration of the Union surmounts the difficulties
that have interpOsed. It is being gradually and cer-
tainly accomplished. (Cheers.) I conclude that such
a nation as the United States, such a people, so free
and so unshackled, will not be twenty-five years
before they remedy the evils of the unequal bur-
dens of their taxation and their tariff. (Hear, hear.)
They will discover, in much less time than we dis-
covered, that as a great nation they must advance
in freedom of industry and commerce ; and they
will find, further, that this freedom, like all other
kinds of freedom, is for the general good. This sen-
timent speaks of unbroken friendship. May I say
now, in the interests of calmness and of reason,
that, with regard to the United States, both our
writers and our people, and especially the more in-
fluential classcs of our people, have greatly erred.
We here forget that after all we are but one nation,
has:ing two Governments. We are of the same
noble and heroic race.. Half the English family is
on this side of the Atlantic in its ancient home, and
the other half, for which we have not roam here,
has settled on the American continent. It is so with
thousands of families throughout this country. No
member of my family has actually emigrated to
America for 40 years, but yet I have more blood rela-
tions in the United States than I have within the limits
of the United Kingdom ; and that, I believe, is
true of thousands in this country. He is an enemy
of our English race, and indeed an enemy of the
human race, who puts the slightest obstacle that
shall interfere with the permanent peace and friend-
ship between all the me:nbers of our great English-
speaking family. (Great applause.) One other
sentence upon that point. No man will dare to
say that the people of the United States or the
people of the United Kingdom are not in favour of
peace. Whence, then, could there come a chance
of war? The fact is, in dealing with nations we
do not deal on the basis of morality which we apply
to individuals. One hundred years—two hundred
years ago almost every gentleman went about car-
rying deadly weapons. There were duels and vio-
lence, and fatal encounters constantly between men
of our order in life, and in the newspapers and
magazines of that period you will find constant
reference to events of that kind. Now nothing of
that kind happens except by some lamentable acci-
dent. We have great fleets and a great army like
the other nations of Europe, for the very moment
anything happens to create the slightest dispute be-
tween any of those nations the question is, How is
the army ? How is the navy ? Have you ships ?
Have you men ? 'Have you armaments equal to
those of your imagined opponent ? Instead of turn.
ing at the moment any little dispute arises to the
question of armaments, if our dispositions were
really those of peace instead of war, we should turn
to courtesy and to negotiation, to arbitration, and
to settlement. (Cheers.) We do not in the
slightest degree lead men from the hostile passions
of war. But leaving for a moment—leaving alto-
gether, indeed, thesentiment and the toast which have
been submitted tons, you will permit me to turn more
immediately to the triumphs which have been

achieved, and which are the cause of this banquet. I
rejoice very much at this banquet, because we are met

to do honour to a man of rare qualities, who has con-
ferred upon us—and I believe upon mankind—

rare &Tykes. I have known Mr. Field for a good
many years, and although I dare say that to any
sailor who may hear me it is not too much, but to
me it see,ns a goof deal, Mr. Cyrus Field, in the
prosecution of this great work, not being a sailor,
has crossed the Atlantic more than forty times, and