102 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
every town great meetings are being held to pass resolutions in 
favor of the North, and the advocates of the South are pretty 
much put down. 
This is a short and hasty note... 
Believe me always 
Very truly yours, 
John Bright. 
It is significant of Field’s character and ideals that he was 
on intimate terms with the more liberal element in British 
public life. Gladstone, Cobden, and Bright were typical in 
their time as marking the rise to power of the industrial 
classes associated with trade and democratic standards, as 
opposed to the landed gentry and hereditary legislators of 
the conventional English pattern. Yet Field had also an 
aristocratic element in his nature and had friends in England 
among the conservative classes. Had he been an Englishman, 
it is likely that his flair for public service and his faculty for 
winning support by persuasive argument would have led 
him to enter politics. Unfortunately for our national welfare, 
political life in the United States was, and is, less attractive 
than in England to a man of ability and integrity. 
It is interesting to note that John Bright became a sup- 
porter of the scheme for an Atlantic cable partly because of 
his advocacy of free trade. In particular, he and his colleague 
Cobden wished to make it possible to import inexpensive 
grain and other foods for the British working man. To buy 
grain at low prices, knowledge of foreign markets and crop 
reports was helpful. An ocean cable would facilitate this. 
