PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZEN 233 
work cut out for me in other regions of a more free and open 
atmosphere. 
As respects the political position, it has been one perfectly hon- 
orable for us, inasmuch as we are dismissed for or upon having 
done what we undertook or were charged to do; and as respects 
the new ministry, they show at present a disposition to be quiet. 
Believe me, my dear Mr. Field, 
Yours very faithfully, 
W. E. Gladstone. 
After a trip to California with his wife and a party of 
friends, Field sailed once again for England in June of 1874. 
Having heard of a special celebration in Iceland, he resolved 
to satisfy an old curiosity to visit this island of the North At- 
lantic, south of which he had passed so often in his cable voy- 
ages, and which had once been given consideration as a half- 
way station for an Atlantic cable. During that summer, the 
people of Iceland were celebrating a thousand years of settle- 
ment of the island, and a royal party from Denmark was ex- 
pected. 
An American journalist, Murat Halstead, had been invited 
by Field to meet him in London and accompany a select party 
to Iceland. Somewhat jokingly Halstead called on Field at 
the Buckingham Palace Hotel. To his surprise he found a 
party really organizing to go, including several scientists and 
the noted author Bayard Taylor, who was to describe the 
millennial celebration for the New York Tribune. The party 
chartered a tiny steam yacht, instead of taking the monthly 
boat from Copenhagen that stopped at Leith in Scotland. 
The registered tonnage of the little vessel in which they 
braved the sub-arctic seas was less than a hundred fifty tons. 
Before sailing, Field and Halstead toured the Highlands 
and met the others at Aberdeen, where the regulations re- 
quired that they all enlist as British seamen, to be paid a 
shilling each for the voyage. Field enrolled as electrician. 
Stops were made at the Orkney, Shetland, and Faroe Islands; 
at the last place they met the fleet of the Danish king. After a 
