CYRUS FIELD CARRIES ON 101 
tained him included Sir Culling Eardley (who had given the 
féte champétre for the crew of the Agamemnon), Russell 
Sturgis (the American architect), Julius Reuter (of the tele- 
graph agency), and Lady Franklin. He also met Sir Charles 
Wheatstone (the scientist), Captain Douglas Galton (the 
engineer), Charles Francis Adams (the American minister), 
and John Bright (the great liberal statesman, not the tele- 
graph engineer), and Bright’s colleague, Richard Cobden, 
renowned exponent of free trade. 
Shortly after his return home in the winter of 1863, he re- 
ceived a letter from John Bright, who was one of the few 
Englishmen in strong sympathy with the North and to whom 
Field had sent documents and books explaining the Northern 
stand in the war. This letter from the famous English cham- 
pion of the middle classes expressed anxiety for the disturbed 
conditions in America but told of a change of British senti- 
ment in favor of the Northern cause. Such a change in sym- 
pathy was what Field had been working for; in fact he was an 
important influence in bringing it about. Bright’s letter was 
as follows: 
London, February 27, 1863. 
My dear Sir,—I have to thank you for forwarding to me Mr. 
Putnam’s four handsome volumes of the Record of the Rebel- 
lion. I value the work highly, and have wished to have it. I shall 
write to Mr. Putnam to thank him for his most friendly and ac- 
ceptable present. 
We are impatient for news from your country. There is great 
effort without great result, and we fear the divisions in the North 
will weaken the government and stimulate the South. Sometimes 
of late I have seemed to fear anarchy in the North as much as 
rebellion in the South. 
I hope my fears arise more from my deep interest in your con- 
flict than from any real danger from the discordant elements 
among you. If there is not virtue enough among you to save the 
State, then has the slavery poison done its fearful work. But I 
will not despair. Opinion here has changed greatly. In almost 
