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1
378
The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph
·
Henry M. Field
319
At
length
all
these
preparations
were
completed,
and
on
Thursday,
the
9th
of
August,
the
Great
Eastern
and
the
Medway
put
to
sea.
The
Governor
of
Newfoundland,
who
had
come
around
from
St.
John's
and
been
received
with
the
honors
due
his
rank,
accompanied
them
in
the
Lily
down
the
broad
expanse
of
Trinity
Bay,
and
then
bore
away
for
St.
John's
while
the
Great
Eastern
and
Medway
kept
on
their
course
to
join
their
companions
in
the
middle
of
the
Atlantic.
They
had
a
little
over
six
hundred
miles
to
run
to
the
"fishing
ground,"
and
made
it
in
three
days.
On
Sunday
noon
they
came
in
sight
of
the
appointed
rendezvous,
and
soon
with
glasses
made
out
the
Albany
and
the
Terrible,
which
had
arrived
a
week
before
and
placed
buoys
to
mark
the
line
of
the
cable,
and
then,
like
giant
sea-birds
with
folded
wings,
sat
watching
their
prey.
The
sea
was
running
high,
so
that
boats
could
not
come
off,
but
the
Albany
signalled
that
she
had
not
toiled
for
nothing;
that
she
had
once
hooked
the
cable,
but
lost
it
in
rough
weather.
The
history
of
this
first
attempt,
though
brief,
was
cheering.
When
the
Albany
left
Heart's
Content,
Captain
Moriarty
went
in
her.
He
had
been
in
the
Great
Eastern
the
year
before,
and
saw
where
the
cable
went
down,
and
had
had
his
eye
on
the
spot
ever
since.
He
claimed,
with
Captain
Anderson,
that
he
could
go
straight
to
it
and
place
the
ship
within
half
a
mile
of
where
it
disappeared.
At
this
old
sailors
shook
their
heads,
and
said,
"They'd
like
to
see
him
do
it;"
"No
man
could
come
within
two
or
three
miles
of
any
given
place
in
the
ocean."
Yet
the
result
proved
the
exactness
of
his
observations.
With
unerring
eye
he
went
straight
to
the
spot,
and
set
his
buoys
as
exactly
as
a
fisherman
sets
his
nets.
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