146 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
from Placentia in eastern Newfoundland to Sydney, Nova 
Scotia. This cable would make it unnecessary to use the 
Newfoundland land line on which Matthew Field had ex- 
pended so much effort during two and a half years in the 
backwoods. 
After his return to America, Cyrus Field went to Canada 
and Newfoundland for several weeks. There were many 
minor troubles to straighten out. For example, complaints 
were made frequently at first of mistakes in the cablegrams. 
One message saying “Protect our drafts’ was delivered as 
“Protest our drafts’ —a serious change of meaning. Another 
message saying “Letter thirteen received, you better travel” 
was delivered in Paris as “Letter thirteen received, son pretty 
well.” 
The early cables were not managed efficiently. Autocratic 
British officials antagonized the public, especially in Ameri- 
ca. Field protested vigorously against such untactful manage- 
ment and spoke his mind freely. ‘There was much criticism, 
for example, of the Anglo-American Company’s early oppo- 
sition to code messages. The officials in London, apparently 
in a fit of suspicion or officiousness, decreed that no secret 
meanings should lower the dignity of their hard-won cables. 
Field considered this a mistaken policy. He believed in satis- 
fying the customers, rather than treating them suspiciously 
as the British tended to do. In a letter to the Secretary of the 
Company in London, he criticized the prohibition and argued 
for a more genial attitude, which his long experience as a 
merchant had shown him was the best method of attracting 
and holding customers. This letter, as reproduced here, in- 
dicates something of the difference in commercial policies 
that was to distinguish British and American business methods 
for several generations to come, and that was to enable the 
United States to forge ahead so rapidly in world trade. The 
letter was as follows: 
