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 W. 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 gues's by whom he was
surrounded to return to their distinguished guest
their warmest and heartiest acknowledgments for
the great services which he bad 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 be 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 he 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 be 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, ou 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 be 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 impoisibilities 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-
an3es used to lay them, and to recover and com-
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 distance 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 day 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 pastis 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 ciser union the
two great Anglo-Saxon nations of the world, which
have a common origin, Linherit 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 fiag. And do not all
true Englishmen glory in the fact that the small
expeditions which sailed from these shore 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 of 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 erelong every one of the numerous. and