- That with a steam-engine attached to the paying-out machinery, should a fault be discovered on board whilst laying the cable, it is possible that it might be recovered before it had reached the bottom of the Atlantic, and repaired at once.
It was now placed beyond the possibility of a doubt that the cable would be laid within the next year. More than this, it was determined not only to lay a new cable between the two continents, but to fish up the cable of 1865, splice it and continue it to Newfoundland, thus giving the company two working lines.
It was necessary, however, to raise more capital, and in this effort Mr. Field again put forth his restless and indomitable energies. As the public confidence in the scheme had been effectually restored, it was resolved to raise six hundred thousand pounds of new capital by the issue of one hundred and twenty thousand shares of five pounds each, which should be preferential shares, entitled to a dividend of twelve per cent, before the eight per cent, dividend to be paid on the former preference shares, and the four per cent, on the ordinary stock. They at once proceeded to issue these bonds, when they were informed by the Attorney-General that the proceeding was contrary to law.
In this dilemma work on the new cable was at once stopped, and the money which had been paid in returned to the subscribers. As Parliament was not in session, and a new issue of stock could not be made by the company without its authorization, and as to wait for this would be to postpone the laying of the cable for another year, Mr. Field was now advised by Mr. Daniel Gooch, M.P., that the only way out of the difficulty was to organize a new company at once, which should assume the work, issue its own shares, and raise its own capital. Eminent legal gentlemen sustained Mr. Gooch in this opinion, and Mr. Field again set to work to organize a new company, under the name of the "Anglo-American Telegraph Company." The capital was fixed at six