HISTORY OF ELECTRICITY IN AMERICA 129 



desired. In this view, it is not so much to be wondered at 

 that in 1816 the British admiralty should have declared the 

 existing system of telegraphy to be quite good enough. No 

 human being, at that time, could have foreseen the immense 

 demands for a commercial telegraphic service which would 

 arise as soon as there was a source of supply. It remained 

 for electricity both to create the supply and to prove in land 

 service that a telegraphic system could be made to yield a 

 generous return on the necessary investment. 



Without that lesson, the larger venture of an Atlantic 

 telegraph would hardly have been realized so soon as it was. 

 The scheme of connecting two of the greatest nations of the 

 world by a system of telegraphic intercommunication would 

 have seemed to be the proper occasion for the tradition of 

 government control to reassert itself; but the conditions had 

 fortunately become so altered that this gigantic enterprise 

 was taken up by a few wealthy capitalists as a promising 

 investment, while the governments interested looked on and 

 waited. That was a marvellous revolution to have taken 

 place within a dozen years ! 



Be it said to the credit of the men who risked their dol- 

 lars in laying the first Atlantic cable, that the hope of gain 

 was supplemented by a large measure of genuine public spirit. 

 Dr. Henry M. Field, the historian of the enterprise, calls at- 

 tention to this on the occasion of describing Mr. Cyrus W. 

 Field's first proposition to Peter Cooper. 



'The first man whom he addressed was Mr. Peter Cooper, 

 who was then and is still [1869] his next door neighbor. Here 

 he found the indisposition which a man of large fortune — 

 now well advanced in life — would naturally feel to embark 

 in new enterprises. The reluctance in his case was not so 

 much to the risking of capital, as to having his mind occupied 

 with the care which it would impose. These objections 

 slowly yielded to other considerations. As they talked it 

 over, the large heart of Mr. Cooper began to see that, if it were 

 possible to accomplish such a work, it would be a great public 

 benefit; this consideration prevailed, and what would not 

 have been undertaken as a private speculation was yielded 

 to public interest." 



Vol. 7-9 



