o strong to
allow us to accord the slightest weight to this disbelief. But whether
signals had passed over the wire or not, there could be no doubt that
the cable had ceased to respond to the efforts of the electricians, and
was a total failure, and the discouragement of nearly every one
connected with it was most profound.

Mr. Field and one or two others were the only persons who retained the
slightest confidence in the enterprise, and it was clear to them that
any further effort to secure the aid of private capital would be useless
just then. An appeal was made to the British Government. It was urged
that the work was too great to be undertaken by private capital alone,
and that, since it was to be more of a public than a private nature, it
was but just that the Government should undertake it. The company asked
the Government to guarantee the interest on a certain amount of stock,
even if the second attempt should not prove a complete success. The
failure of the Red Sea cable, to which the British Government had given
an unconditional guarantee, had just occurred, and had caused a
considerable loss to the treasury, and the Government was not willing to
assume another such risk. Anxious, however, for the success of the
Atlantic telegraph, it increased its subsidy from fourteen thousand to
twenty thousand pounds, and agreed to guarantee eight per cent, on six
hundred thousand pounds of new capital for twenty-five years, upon the
single condition that the cable should be made to work successfully.

This was not all, however. The Government caused further soundings to be
made off the coast of Ireland, which effectually dispelled all the fears
which had been entertained of a submarine mountain which would prove an
impassable barrier in the path of an ocean telegraph. In addition to
this, it caused the organization of a board of distinguished scientific
men for the purpose of determining all the difficult problems of
submarine telegraphy. This board met in 1859, and sat two years. The
result of its experiments and investigations was a declaration, signed
by the members, that a cable properly made, "and paid into the ocean
with the most improved machinery, possesses every prospect of not only
being successfully laid in the first instance, but may reasonably be
relied upon to continue many years in an efficient-state for the
transmission of signals."

Meanwhile, Mr. Field labored energetically to revive the company. The
w