94 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
“I regret exceedingly to find a most bitter feeling in this 
country against England. Mr. Seward is almost the only 
American that I have heard speak kindly of England or Eng- 
lishmen since I arrived.” 
A few days later, Field wrote to Seward as Secretary of 
State, asking him to direct Adams in London to press again 
upon the British Government the importance of an Atlantic 
cable. He was now convinced that the laying of the cable was 
his life work. In his early forties, he was at the height of his 
powers, and he lost no opportunity to advance his arguments. 
Writing to one of the directors of the Company in London, he 
said in part: ‘Four weeks ago this evening I arrived from Eng- 
land, and almost every moment of my time since I landed has 
- been occupied in working for the Atlantic Telegraph, either 
in seeing the President of the United States, or one of his 
Cabinet, or some member of the Senate or House of Repre- 
sentatives, or an editor of one of our papers, or writing to the 
British provinces, or doing something which I thought would 
hasten on the time when we should have a good submarine 
telegraph cable working successfully between Ireland and 
Newfoundland, and if we do not get it laid in 1863 it will be 
our own fault. Now, now is the golden moment, and I do beg 
of you and all the other friends of the Atlantic telegraph to 
act without a moment’s unnecessary delay. . . . I hardly think 
of anything but a telegraph across the Atlantic.” 
Field’s association with President Lincoln and his cabinet 
was not based entirely on his advocacy of an ocean cable, or on 
his advice about telegraphy for the military operations of the 
war. Because of his acquaintance with the leaders of thought 
and national policy in England, he was able to inform the 
cabinet members in Washington what London opinion was 
likely to be on any particular question. Similarly when in 
England, he explained American conditions to influential 
leaders there. His version of diplomacy included a wide exten- 
sion of such personal exchanges of ideas through the medium 
