216 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
cost might run up to twelve or fifteen million dollars. This 
seemed to many people a large amount to spend for an alter- 
nate route to China. Perhaps a cable to Siberia would be 
shorter and cheaper, it was suggested. Perry McDonough 
Collins’ overland telegraph to Russia by way of Alaska and 
Bering Strait would scarcely cost as much. As always, how- 
ever, Field was optimistic, and he won the support of Ameri- 
can capitalists associated with his previous ventures and also 
of several newcomers like Darius Ogden Mills, a Western 
banker who had “‘struck it rich.” 
Field’s growing interest in the Orient led him in June, 
1871, to go to Russia as a member of a committee from the 
Evangelical Alliance to exhort the Czar in favor of religious 
liberalism. He was still thinking of a Pacific cable, and he 
resolved to write a personal letter to the Czar. Upon his re- 
turn to England, he composed the following letter to the Rus- 
sian Grand Duke Constantine, with whom he had conferred 
and who he hoped would intercede for him with his Impe- 
rial Majesty: 
London, 11th August, 1871. 
To His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Constantine: 
Sir,—With this I have the honor to enclose a memorial ad- 
dressed to His Majesty the Emperor of Russia respecting the es- 
tablishment of a submarine telegraph communication between 
the west coast of America and the eastern shores of Russia, 
China, etc. 
I shall esteem it a great favor if your Imperial Highness will 
be so good as to forward the memorial to His Majesty, with any 
observations on the subject which may be thought desirable. 
With respect to the gentlemen mentioned in the memorial as 
prepared to join me in the enterprise, I may explain that they 
are among the very first merchants and capitalists of the United 
States. . . . As I am leaving for the United States this evening, 
my address will be Gramercy Park, New York. I would express 
my sincere thanks for the great kindness shown to myself by your 
