Chapter XVIII, of Cassells Illustrated History of England, Volume 9 page 3

From this time no incident of much moment marked the progress of the expedition. As the Great Eastern neared Newfoundland, the weather became foggy, and the Albany was sent on to Heart's Content, a harbour in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, to clear the north-east side of the harbour of shipping, and place a boat with a red flag for Captain Anderson to steer to for anchorage. By dint of good management - the men-of-war forming a line of communication between the shore and the Great Eastern, and that one which was nearest to her guiding her through the fog by the repeated firing of guns - she was piloted into Trinity Bay without accident on the morning of the 27th of July. The shore end was quickly laid, and the electric union of Europe and America was at last complete. On the 28th, Lord Carnarvon telegraphed to Lord Monck at Ottawa felicitations on the happy result of an enterprise which could not fail to draw closer the ties of amity and fellowship uniting Canada to England; and on the 30th congratulatory messages were exchanged between the Queen and President Johnson.

But this was not all. The task of fishing for the broken end of the cable of 1865, which the loss of all her spare rope had, as we have seen, compelled the Great Eastern to abandon in the previous September, was now resumed with all the eager hope and confidence engendered by success. The cable had been lost at a depth of about 2,000 fathoms, and experience had shown that to pick it up at one lift from that enormous depth was impracticable, the mere weight of the cable, in its resistance to. the force employed by the picking-up machinery, being sufficient to snap it. It was arranged, therefore, that the Great Eastern herself, and the attendant men-of-war, tracing back the cable for the space of several miles from the point of fracture, should grapple for it, and when found raise it, not to the surface, but to various heights from the bottom, so that several miles of cable should be raised to an altitude intermediate between the bottom and the surface, and secured there by buoys attached to the grappling ropes; and thus the final lift, being only from this intermediate altitude, might present reasonable chances of success. But this plan of operations, simple though it be in the telling, involved a great amount of anxious and exhausting labour, and mechanical and practical difficulties of various kinds. We will let the Secretary describe the joyous termination of the enterprise in his own words.

"The grapnel went down for the fifteenth time at 10 A.M. [September 1]. Save that there was a long swell, as there always is in the Atlantic, the sea was like a mill-pond, and as we saw the grapnel go down we could not help remarking to each other that the circumstances under which we were going to make another effort to preserve the cable were as favourable as they could possibly be. In fact, it was felt that if we did not succeed on such a day as this, there was very little chance of our succeeding at all.... From 3.45 P.M., when we began to haul up, the strain on the dynamometer varied from 9 to 11. After dinner, we received a signal from the Medway " (which had been stationed two miles to the westward of the Great Eastern, and therefore so much nearer to the broken end) " that she, having hooked the cable, had hauled it up about 500 fathoms. We told her to heave up as rapidly as possible, and, in fact, to break the cable, so that we might have the strain taken off our portion of it, and so increase our chance of raising it to the surface. To the eastward, the same effect would be produced by the bight we lifted the day before, and buoyed on the bight buoy. The picking up went on with its usual certainty and precision, and by twelve o'clock (midnight) the bows of the ship were crowded, not only by those actually on watch, but by nearly all the hands, who turned out to see the result of this attempt to recover the cable.... Precisely at 12.50 this morning, the cable made its appearance upon the grapnel; and save when the voice of Captain Anderson or Mr. Canning was heard giving an order, one could almost hear a pin drop, such was the perfect silence which prevailed. No excitement, no cheering, as there was on the day when we lifted it before; all was calm and quiet; the men scarcely spoke above their breath." With some difficulty the cable was disengaged from the tenacious hold of the grapnel, and then - " the signal being given to haul up, the western end of the bight was cut with a saw, and grandly and majestically the cable rose up the frowning bows of the Great Eastern, slowly passing round the sheave at the bow, and then over the wheels on the fore-part of the deck. Even then there was no excitement; but now men were seen to cross the platform and to touch the rope, in order to feel satisfied that success had been achieved."

But although the cable had been recovered, the momentous question was still unanswered: What is its electrical condition - can signals be sent through it to and from Valentia? Certain necessary measures of precaution took up a considerable time, but at last it became evident that the end of the cable would soon be passed down into the electrician's room. " There, awaiting its arrival, were Mr. Gooch, M.P., Mr. Cyrus Field, Captain Hamilton, Mr. Canning, Mr. Clifford, Professor Thomson, Mr. Deane, and others. At last, Mr. Willoughby Smith, the chief electrician, made his appearance at the door with the end of the cable in his hand, and, the connections having been made, he sat down opposite the instrument. A breathless silence prevailed; not a word was spoken, all eyes being directed upon the experienced operator, whose expression of countenance indicated the deep anxiety he felt in making the test. At the expiration of some ten minutes he relieved our suspense by stating that, as far as he had then gone, he believed the tests to be perfect; but another minute had scarcely elapsed when he took off his hat and gave a cheer, which was lustily taken up in the room; and, having been heard outside, it was echoed from stem to stern of the ship with a heartiness which every Englishman can appreciate.... Mr. Canning at once sent a message to Mr. Glass, the managing director of the Telegraph Construction Company, expressing the pleasure he felt at speaking to him through the cable of 1865, and the operator at Valentia telegraphed back his congratulations."

What remained to be done was quickly accomplished. The recovered cable was spliced on to the cable coiled on board the Great Eastern; the paying out then commenced, and was brought to a successful close at Heart's Content, on the 8th September. When the shore end had been landed, Mr. Gooch sent the following message to Lord Stanley: " Mr. Gooch has the pleasure to inform Lord Stanley that the cable of 1865 was recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic on the 2nd of this month, and has been safely landed to-day in Heart's Content, the recovered cable being in the most perfect condition." Telegraphic communication was thus opened between the two continents, and it is surely safe to predict that our descendants will never allow it to be again interrupted.

The miscarriage of Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill led to periodical demonstrations during the summer and autumn in favour of the extension of the franchise. An organised agitation provided that mass meetings should be held in several of the largest cities in Great Britain, at convenient intervals of time. The riots in and near Hyde Park arose, as we have seen, out of a Reform demonstration; and the irrepressible Mr. Beales, whom Mr. Walpole's exquisite sensibility on the subject of broken heads had probably rather emboldened than mollified, arranged, in concert with the London Working Men's Association, a great Reform meeting in the Guildhall, on the 8th August. The Lord Mayor took the chair, and opened the proceedings with the melodramatic declaration that " the man must have a heart of stone who could witness this magnificent sight without the deepest emotion." Mr. Beales, in moving the first resolution, feelingly alluded to the perils which he had undergone in the cause of the people on the 23rd July. " Lord Derby, for whom individually, as possessing great powers in debate and high literary eminence, he (Mr. Beales) had the greatest respect, had said, at a recent banquet in the City,' that no cause, however good, was ever otherwise than injured in public opinion, and in the opinion of Legislature, if supported by anything which bore the appearance of intimidation or violence.' " (Mr. O'Connell had years before expressed nearly the same sentiment, in much fewer words, when he said, " The man that commits a crime gives strength to the enemy.") " He (Mr. Beales) cordially assented to every word thus uttered, and the truth of the principle thus laid down brought vividly back to his recollection the memorable scene of the 23rd July last, when his request for admittance to Hyde Park was met by intimidation, and the uplifted truncheons of an army of police on foot, acting under the orders of the

Government of which Lord Derby himself is the chief, whilst a magnanimous Chief Commissioner of the same body did his best to place him (Mr. Beales) under the gentle pressure of his horse's hoofs." The learned gentleman concluded by saying, " The prohibition of the League meeting on the 23rd July, and the exclusion of the public from Hyde Park on that day, have done far more than a hundred such meetings could have done to advance the cause of Reform, and unite the people in its support.... No half-and-half measure of Reform will now be listened to. The banner of the League, having inscribed on it, ' Residential and Registered Manhood Suffrage, and the Ballot,' is now hailed in all quarters."

Mr. Odger, whose now celebrated name had not, we believe, till then been heard of, seconded the next resolution, which menaced the existing Government with the withdrawal of all sympathy and support on the part of the Reformers if they did not speedily introduce a bill for the amendment of the representation of the people. Mr. Coffey also, and Mr. Bradlaugh, spoke in the course of the evening. About six weeks after this (September 24) a meeting, supposed to be larger than any that had been ever assembled in England, was held at Manchester. Bodies of men from the numerous manufacturing towns and villages in the neighbourhood were marching into Manchester all the morning, carrying flags inscribed with the words " National Reform Union," and proceeded to the large open space called Campfield, where six platforms had been erected. Notwithstanding the torrents of rain which continued throughout the day, the numbers assembled were estimated at between 100,000 and 200,000 persons. In connection with each of the six platforms three identical resolutions were moved and passed, the general effect of which was to identify the people of Manchester, in opinions and political action, with Mr. Beales and his fellow-agitators. A high tribute was paid to some of the members of the late Government, and other friends of Reform, particularly Mr. Bright, in the third resolution, which ran thus: - "That this meeting tenders its warmest and most grateful thanks to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, John Bright, Esq., John Stuart Mill, Esq., and all friends of Reform, who, throughout the late discussions in Parliament, vindicated the character and protected the rights of the people; and further expresses confidence in the honesty and ability of Mr. John Bright to champion the people's cause in Parliament during the coming parliamentary struggle." A resolution, passed in the evening at a great meeting in the Free Trade Hall, showed how deeply the eloquent and sarcastic invectives of Mr. Lowe were felt and resented by their objects: - " This meeting, while recording its indignation at the insults offered in Parliament and by the press to the working classes and their advocates, calls on the people of this country to allow themselves no longer to be trifled with by an oligarchic few, and to rally round those men who have upheld their cause." On the 8th October, a great Reform meeting was held at Leeds. The dreary open space above the town, called Woodhouse Moor, was the scene of the gathering, at which it was estimated that not less than 200,000 persons were collected. Resolutions of a similar character to those adopted at Manchester were passed; several speakers fiercely abused Mr. Lowe, and vindicated the character of the working men from the aspersions which had been heaped upon it; nor was the usual vote of confidence in Mr. Bright forgotten. A similar demonstration took place in Edinburgh in November. An immense working man's meeting had been arranged for the 3rd December, to be held at Beaufort House, Kensington, but it proved to be less imposing than the promoters had intended, not much more than an eighth of the 200,000 working men whose presence had been reckoned upon, actually making their appearance. An excited glass-blower, named Leicester, spoke as follows: - " Every stage of that contest had called forth its martyrs, and they had a martyr before them in Mr. Beales. The question was, Would they suffer these little-minded, decrepit, hump- backed, one-eyed scoundrels who sat in the House of Commons to rob and defraud them any longer of their rights - whether those who had squandered the people's earnings like water should continue to do so? From one end to the other of this land their fiat had gone forth that they meant to be free. What had Lord Derby done? He had translated Homer. But lie could not make one of those beautiful specimens of glass-work which had been carried in procession that day. There was not a stocking-weaver in Leicester, or a clodhopper in the kingdom, rendering service to the State, who was not quite as useful as Lord Derby. What the people meant to do was to drive the devil out of the House of Commons, and let God Almighty in." Such foul-mouthed ribaldry, proceeding from the murky and obstructed cogitations of a soul naturally ignoble, and perverted - by the indulgence of the passions of vanity and envy - to a deliberate preference of the mechanical to the spiritual, of the hand to the soul, seemed to lend some colour to the too sweeping assaults of Mr. Lowe against the character of the working class. It is, however, satisfactory to reflect that the speaker does not appear to have found imitators; and an incident which occurred on the following evening showed that there was a natural fairness and manliness about the English working man, which such speakers as the glass-blower at Beaufort House were very far from representing. At a Reform meeting of the London Trades in St. James's Hall (Dec. 4), Mr. Ayrton was understood to censure the Queen for not recognising the people when they gathered in such numbers in front of one of her palaces. In reply to these remarks, Mr. Bright said: - " I am not accustomed to stand up in defence of those who are possessors of crowns, but I could not sit and hear that observation without a sensation of wonder and of pain. I think that there has been, by many persons, a great injustice done to the Queen in reference to her desolate and widowed position. And I venture to say this, that a woman - be she the Queen of a great realm, or be she the wife of one of you labouring men - who can keep alive in her heart a great sorrow for the lost object of her life and affections, is not at all likely to be wanting in a great and generous sympathy with you." Every sentence of this vindication was greeted with cheers, and at its close there was loud and prolonged cheering, amidst which the body of people in the hall arose and sang a verse of " God save the Queen."