212 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
The court of arbitration at Geneva continued its work in 
as judicial a spirit as possible, and finally fixed the amount of 
damages that England must pay the United States at about 
fifteen million dollars. This amount represented actual losses 
inflicted on Northern shipping and disregarded the extrava- 
gant claims by American politicians for “indirect losses” 
caused by the Confederate privateers. England paid the 
amount in 1873—a large sum for such a violation of neu- 
trality—and statesmen on both sides heaved a sigh of relief. 
It had been the humiliation of criticism as much as the money 
that angered the British. Field’s unofficial suggestions had 
helped, especially the suggestion for a special commission of 
British negotiators to come to Washington, and for a final 
decision by judicial arbitrators. For an amateur, Field was a 
diplomatist of no small ability. 
When Field was in England during the winter of 1869-70, 
he was able to carry out some of the reforms in organization 
of the telegraph companies that had been advocated by Crom- 
well Varley in his letter to Peter Cooper over a year before. 
The friction and jealousies between the officials of the Anglo- 
American and the Atlantic Telegraph companies were finally 
surmounted by a consolidation of the two, in which the latter 
lost its name and entity. Field also helped to bring about a 
working arrangement between the New York, Newfoundland 
& London Company, the Anglo-American Company, and the 
new French company that had laid a cable from France to 
St. Pierre and thence to Massachusetts. The Anglo-American 
Company absorbed the Newfoundland company in 1873, thus 
gaining its valuable rights for exclusive use of the island’s 
shores for thirty-one additional years. The original charter 
for fifty-year rights had been granted in 1854, so that the 
monopoly extended to 1904. The Anglo-American Company 
was finally absorbed by Western Union. 
A typical example of Field’s humanitarian use of the cable 
occurred in the autumn of 1871, when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow 
