100 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
> 
his “‘officious letter,’ as he called it, to be sent to the Secre- 
tary of State at Washington; President Lincoln was interested 
in it also. Of Among the Pines, Gladstone said in a later let- 
ter, that “it seems to open to view more aspects of society and 
character in the slave States than Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and to 
be written without any undue and bewildering predominance 
of imagination.” 
In a somewhat pompous closing sentence, Gladstone added: 
“We all vie with one another in fervently desiring that the 
Almighty may so direct the issue of the present crisis as to 
make it effective for the mitigation and even for the removal 
of a system which ever tends to depress the blacks into the 
condition of the mere animal, and which among the whites 
at once gives fearful scope to the passions of bad men and 
checks and mars the development of character in good ones.”’ 
Gladstone’s liberal mind believed in the legal right of the 
Southern States to secede, although he deprecated slavery and 
its evils. 
While in England, Field was hospitably received by many 
prominent personages. Although he was known to be a re- 
tired merchant—to have been “in trade’’—his services in be- 
half of an Atlantic telegraph were recognized as disinterested 
and distinguished. The British had heard that when the At- 
lantic Telegraph Company asked him to act as general man- 
ager for laying the cable of 1858, “it was unanimously re- 
solved,” as the minutes of the Board of Directors stated, “‘to 
tender him, in respect to such services, the sum of £1000 
over and above his travelling and other expenses, as remun- 
eration.””’ When he promptly declined this sum, accepting 
only his expenses, the action did not seem typical of the crass 
Americans against whom the British aristocracy had been 
warned. They found Field an interesting and modest man. 
The Dowager Duchess of Sutherland invited him to her 
home frequently and was a cordial friend. Others who enter- 
