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 hundred thousand
pounds, Mr. Field taking ten thousand pounds. The whole amount was
raised in a short time, and the company "contracted with the Atlantic
Cable Company to manufacture and lay down a cable in the summer of 1866,
for doing which it is to be entitled to what virtually amounts to a
preference dividend of twenty-five per cent., as a first claim is
secured to them by the Atlantic Telegraph Company upon the revenue of
the cable or cables (after the working expenses have been provided for)
to the extent of one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds per annum,
and the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company undertake
to contribute from their revenue a further annual sum of twenty-five
thousand pounds, on condition that a cable shall be working during
1866.
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