The company asked
the Government to guarantee the interest on a certain amount of stock,
even if the second attempt should not prove a complete success. The
failure of the Red Sea cable, to which the British Government had given
an unconditional guarantee, had just occurred, and had caused a
considerable loss to the treasury, and the Government was not willing to
assume another such risk. Anxious, however, for the success of the
Atlantic telegraph, it increased its subsidy from fourteen thousand to
twenty thousand pounds, and agreed to guarantee eight per cent, on six
hundred thousand pounds of new capital for twenty-five years, upon the
single condition that the cable should be made to work successfully.
This was not all, however. The Government caused further soundings to be
made off the coast of Ireland, which effectually dispelled all the fears
which had been entertained of a submarine mountain which would prove an
impassable barrier in the path of an ocean telegraph. In addition to
this, it caused the organization of a board of distinguished scientific
men for the purpose of determining all the difficult problems of
submarine telegraphy.
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