"I am proud to see Professor Morse this side of the water. I beg to give you 'The health of Professor Morse,' and may he long live to enjoy the high reputation he has attained throughout the world!"

Soon after this, with these flattering words still ringing in his ears, he and his party sailed for New York and, once arrived at home, the truth of the trite saying that "A prophet is not without honor save in his own country" was soon to be brought to his attention. While he had been feted and honored abroad, while he had every reason to believe that his petition to the European governments for some pecuniary compensation would, in time, be granted, he returned to be plunged anew into vexatious litigation, intrigues and attacks upon his purse, his fame, and his good name. On November 27, 1856, he refers to his greatest cross in a letter to Mr. Kendall:—

"I have just returned from Boston, having accomplished the important duty for which I alone went there, to wit, to say 'yes' before a gentleman having U.S. Commissioner after his name, instead of 'yes' before one who had only S. Commissioner after his name; and this at a cost of exactly twenty dollars, or, if the one dollar thrown away in New York upon the S. Commissioner be added, twenty-one dollars and three days of time, to say nothing of sundry risks of accidents by land and water travel.

"Well, if it will lead to a thorough separation of all interests and all intercourse with F.O.J., I shall not consider the time and money lost, yet, in conversation with Mr. Curtis, I have little hope of a change in Judge Curtis's views of the point in which he decides that Smith has an inchoate right, and our only chance of success is in the reversal of that decision by the Supreme Bench, and that after another year's suspense....

"I wish there was some way of stopping this harassing, paralyzing litigation. I find my mind wholly unfit for the studies which the present state of the Telegraph requires from me, being distracted and irritated by the constant necessity for standing on the defensive. Smith will be Smith I know, and, therefore, as he is the appointed thorn to keep a proper ballast of humility in S.F.B.M. with his load of honors, why, be it so, if I can only have the proper strength and disposition to use the trial aright.... Write me some encouraging news if you can. How will the present calm in political affairs affect our California matters?"

The calm to which he referred was the apparent one which had settled down on the country after the election of Buchanan, and which, as everybody knows, was but the calm before the storm of our Civil War. He has this to say about the election in a letter to the Honorable John Y. Mason, our Minister to France:—

"I may congratulate you, my dear Sir, on the issue of the late election. My predictions have been verified. The country is quiet, and, as usual after the excitement of an election, has settled down into orderly acquiescence to the will of the majority, and into general good feeling. Europeans can hardly understand this truly anomalous phase of our American institutions; they do not understand that it is characteristic that 'we speak daggers but use none'; that we fight with ballots and not with bullets; that we have abundance of inkshed and little bloodshed, and that all that is explosive is blown off through newspaper safety-valves."

The events of the next few years were destined to shatter the peaceful visions of this lover of his country, for many daggers were drawn, the bullets flew thick and fast, and the bloodshed was appalling.

It is difficult to follow the history of the telegraph, in its relation to its inventor, through all the intricacies involved in the conflicting interests of various companies and men in this its formative period.

Morse himself was often at a loss to determine on the course which he should pursue, a course which would at the same time inure to his financial benefit and be in accordance with his high sense of right. Absolutely straightforward and honest himself, it was difficult for him to believe that others who spoke him fair were not equally sincere, and he was often imposed upon, and was frequently forced, in the exigencies of Business, to be intimately associated with those whose ideas of right and wrong were far different from his own. The one person in whose absolute integrity he had faith was Amos Kendall, and yet he must sometimes have thought that his friend was too severe in his judgment of others, for I find in a letter of Mr. Kendall's of January 4, 1857, the following warning:—

"I earnestly beseech you to give up all idea of going out again on the cable-laying expedition. Your true friends do not comprehend how it is that you give your time, your labor, and your fame to build up an interest deliberately and unscrupulously hostile to all their interests and your own.... I believe that Peter Cooper is the only man among them who is sincerely your friend. As to Field, I have as little faith in him as I have in F.O.J. Smith. If you could get Cooper to take a stand in favor of the faithful observance of the contract for connection with the N.E. Union Line at Boston, he can put an end to all trouble, if, at the same time, he will refuse to concur in a further extension of their lines South."

In spite of this warning, or, perhaps, because Peter Cooper succeeded in overcoming Mr. Kendall's objections, Morse did go out on the next cable-laying expedition, and yet he found in the end that Mr. Kendall's suspicions were by no means unjustified. But of this in its proper place.

The United States Government had placed the steam frigate Niagara at the disposal of the cable company, and on her Morse, as the electrician of the American Company, sailed from New York on April 21, 1857. Arriving in London, he was again honored by many attentions and entertainments, including a dinner at the Lord Mayor's. The loading of the cable on board the ships designated for that purpose consumed, necessarily, some time, and Morse took advantage of this delay to visit Paris, at the suggestion of our Minister, Mr. Mason, in order to confer with the Premier, Count Walewski, with regard to the pecuniary indemnity which all agreed was due to him from the nations using his invention. This conference bore fruit, as we shall see later on.

In a letter to his wife from Paris he makes this amusing comment on the fashions of the day, after remarking on the dearth of female beauty in France:—

"You must consider me now as speaking of features only, for as to form, alas, that is under such a total crinoline eclipse that this season of total darkness in fashion's firmament forbids any speculation on that subject. The reign of crinoline amplitude is not only not removed, but is more dominant than ever. Who could have predicted that, because an heir to the French throne was in expectancy, all womankind, old and young, would so far sympathize with the amiable consort of Napoleon III as to be, in appearance at least, likely to flood the earth with heirs; that grave parliaments would be in solemn debate upon the pressing necessity of enlarging the entrances of royal palaces in order to meet the exigencies of enlarged crinolines; that the new carriages were all of increased dimensions to accommodate the crinoline? But so it is; it is the age of crinoline.... Talk no longer of chairs, they are no longer visible. Talk no longer of tete-a-tetes; two crinolines might get in sight of each other, at least by the use of the lorgnette, but as for conversation, that is out of the question except by speaking trumpets, by signs, and who knows but in this age of telegraphs crinoline may not follow the world's fashion and be a patroness of the Morse system."

All the preparations for the great enterprise of the laying of the cable proceeded slowly, and it was not until the latter part of July that the little fleet sailed from Liverpool on its way to the Cove of Cork and then to Valencia, on the west coast of Ireland, which was chosen as the European terminus of the cable. Morse wrote many pages of minute details to his wife, and from them I shall select the most important and interesting:—

"July 28. Here we are steaming our way towards Cork harbor, with most beautiful weather, along the Irish coast, which is in full view, and expecting to be in the Cove of Cork in the morning of to-morrow.... We left Liverpool yesterday morning, as I wrote you we should, and as we passed the ships of war in the harbor We were cheered from the rigging by the tars of the various vessels, and the flags of others were dipped as a salute, all of which were returned by us in kind. The landing stage and quays of Liverpool were densely crowded with people who waved their handkerchiefs as we slowly sailed by them.

"Two steamers accompanied us down to the bar filled with people, and then, after mutual cheering and firing of cannon from one of the steamers, they returned to port.... We shall be in Cork the remainder of the week, possibly sailing on Saturday, go round to Valencia and be ready to commence on Monday. Then, if all things are prosperous, we hope to reach Newfoundland in twenty days, and dear home again the first week in September. And yet there may be delays in this great work, for it is a vast and new one, so don't be impatient if I do not return quite so soon. The work must be thoroughly and well done before we leave it....

"Evening, ten o'clock. We have had a beautiful day and have been going slowly along and expect to be in the Cove of Cork by daylight in the morning. The deck of our ship presents a curious appearance just now; Between the main and mizzen masts is an immense coil of one hundred and thirty miles of the cable, the rest is in larger coils below decks. Abaft the mizzen mast is a ponderous mass of machinery for regulating the paying out of the cable, a steam-engine and boiler complete, and they have just been testing it to see if all is right, and it is found right. We have the prospect of a fine moon for our expedition.

"I send you the copy of a prayer that has been read in the churches. I am rejoiced at the manner in which the Christian community views our enterprise. It is calculated to inspire my confidence of success. What the first message will be I cannot say, but if I send it it shall be, 'Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good will to men.' 'Not unto us, not unto us, but to Thy name be all the glory.'"

"July 29, four o'clock afternoon. On awaking this morning at five o'clock with the noise of coming to anchor, I found myself safely ensconced in one of the most beautiful harbors in the world, with Queenstown picturesquely rising upon the green hills from the foot of the bay...."

"August 1. When I wrote the finishing sentence of my last letter I was suffering a little from a slight accident to my leg. We were laying out the cable from the two ships, the Agamemnon and Niagara, to connect the two halves of the cable together to experiment through the whole length of twenty-five hundred miles for the first time. In going down the side of the Agamemnon I had to cross over several small boats to reach the outer one, which was to take me on board the tug which had the connecting cable on board. In stepping from one to the other of the small boats, the water being very rough and the boats having a good deal of motion, I made a misstep, my right leg being on board the outer boat, and my left leg went down between the two boats scraping the skin from the upper part of the leg near the knee for some two or three inches. It pained me a little, but not much, still I knew from experience that, however slight and comparatively painless at the time, I should be laid up the next day and possibly for several days.

"My warm-hearted, generous friend, Sir William O'Shaughnessy, was on board, and, being a surgeon, he at once took it in hand and dressed it, tell Susan, in good hydropathic style with cold water. I felt so little inconvenience from it at the time that I assisted throughout the day in laying the cable, and operating through it after it was joined, and had the satisfaction of witnessing the successful result of passing the electricity through twenty-five hundred miles at the rate of one signal in one and a quarter second. Since then Dr. Whitehouse has succeeded in telegraphing a message through it at the rate of a single signal in three quarters of a second. If the cable, therefore, is successfully laid so as to preserve continuity throughout, there is no doubt of our being able to telegraph through, and at a good commercial speed.

"I have been on my back for two days and am still confined to the ship. To-morrow I hope to be well enough to hobble on board the Agamemnon and assist in some experiments."

The accident to his leg was more serious than he at first imagined, and conditions were not improved by his using his leg more than was prudent.

"August 3, eleven o'clock A.M. I am still confined, most of the time on my back in my berth, quite to my annoyance in one respect, to wit, that I am unable to be on board the Agamemnon with Dr. Whitehouse to assist at the experiments. Yet I have so much to be thankful for that gratitude is the prevailing feeling.

"Seven o'clock. All the ships are under way from the Cove of Cork. The Leopard left first, then the Agamemnon, then the Susquehanna and the Niagara last; and at this moment we are off the Head of Kinsale in the following order: Niagara, Leopard, Agamemnon, Susquehanna. The Cyclops and another vessel, the Advice, left for Valencia on Saturday evening, and, with a beautiful night before us, we hope to be there also by noon to-morrow.

"This day three hundred and sixty-five years ago Columbus sailed on his first voyage of discovery and discovered America."

"August 4. Off the Skelligs light, of which I send you a sketch. A beautiful morning with head wind and heavy sea, making many seasick. We are about fifteen miles from our point of destination. Our companion ships are out of sight astern, except the Susquehanna, which is behind us only about a mile. In a few hours we hope to reach our expectant friends in Valencia and to commence the great work in earnest.

"Our ship is crowded with engineers, and operators, and delegates from the Governments of Russia and France, and the deck is a bewildering mass of machinery, steam-engines, cog-wheels, breaks, boilers, ropes of hemp and ropes of wire, buoys and boys, pulleys and sheaves of wood and iron, cylinders of wood and cylinders of iron, meters of all kinds,— anemometers, thermometers, barometers, electrometers,—steam-gauges, ships' logs—from the common log to Massey's log and Friend's log, to our friend Whitehouse's electro-magnetic log, which I think will prove to be the best of all, with a modification I have suggested. Thus freighted we expect to disgorge most of our solid cargo before reaching mid-ocean.

"I am keeping ready to close this at a moment's warning, so give all manner of love to all friends, kisses to whom kisses are due. I am getting almost impatient at the delays we necessarily encounter, but our great work must not be neglected. I have seen enough to know now that the Atlantic Telegraph is sure to be established, for it is practicable."

Was it a foreboding of what was to happen that caused him to add:—

"We may not succeed in our first attempt; some little neglect or accident may foil our present efforts, but the present enterprise will result in gathering stores of experience which will make the next effort certain. Not that I do not expect success now, but accidental failure now will not be the evidence of its impracticability.

"Our principal electrical difficulty is the slowness with which we must manipulate in order to be intelligible; twenty words in sixteen minutes is now the rate. I am confident we can get more after awhile, but the Atlantic Telegraph has its own rate of talking and cannot be urged to speak faster, any more than any other orator, without danger of becoming unintelligible.

"Three o'clock P.M. We are in Valencia Harbor. We shall soon come to anchor. A pilot who has just come to show us our anchorage ground says: 'There are a power of people ashore.'"

"August 8. Yesterday, at half past six P.M., all being right, we commenced again paying out the heavy shore-end, of which we had about eight miles to be left on the rocky bottom of the coast, to bear the attrition of the waves and to prevent injury to the delicate nerve which it incloses in its iron mail, and which is the living principle of the whole work. A critical time was approaching, it was when the end of the massive cable should pass overboard at the point where it joins the main and smaller cable. I was in my berth, by order of the surgeon, lest my injured limb, which was somewhat inflamed by the excitement of the day and too much walking about, should become worse.

"Above my head the heavy rumbling of the great wheels, over which the cable was passing and was being regulated, every now and then giving a tremendous thump like the discharge of artillery, kept me from sleep, and I knew they were approaching the critical point. Presently it came. The machinery stopped, and soon amid the voices I heard the unwelcome intelligence—'The cable is broke.' Sure enough the smaller cable at this point had parted, but, owing to the prudent precautions of those superintending, the end of the great cable had been buoyed and the hawsers which had been attached secured it. The sea was moderate, the moonlight gave a clear sight of all, and in half an hour the joyous sound of 'All right' was heard, the machinery commenced a low and regular rumbling, like the purring of a great cat, which has continued from that moment (midnight) till the present moment uninterrupted.

"The coil on deck is most beautifully uncoiling at the rate of three nautical miles an hour. The day is magnificent, the land has almost disappeared and our companion ships are leisurely sailing with us at equal pace, and we are all, of course, in fine spirits. I sent you a telegraph dispatch this morning, thirty miles out, which you will duly receive with others that I shall send if all continues to go on without interruption. If you do receive any, preserve them with the greatest care, for they will be great curiosities."

"August 10. Thus far we have had most delightful weather, and everything goes on regularly and satisfactorily. You are aware we cannot stop night nor day in paying out. On Saturday we made our calculations that the first great coil, which is upon the main deck, would be completely paid out, and one of our critical movements, to wit, the change from this coil to the next, which is far forward, would be made by seven or eight o'clock yesterday morning (Sunday). So we were up and watching the last flake of the first coil gradually diminishing. Everything had been well prepared; the men were at their posts; it was an anxious moment lest a kink might occur. But, as the last round came up, the motion of the ship was slightly slackened, the men handled the slack cable handsomely, and in two minutes the change was made with perfect order, and the paying out from the second coil was as regularly commenced and at this moment continues, and at an increased rate to-day of five miles per hour.

"Last night, however, was another critical moment. On examining our chart of soundings we found the depth of the ocean gradually increasing up to about four hundred fathoms, and then the chart showed a sudden and great increase to seventeen hundred fathoms, and then a further increase to two thousand and fifty, nearly the greatest depth with which we should meet in the whole distance. We had, therefore, to watch the effect of this additional depth upon the straining of the cable. At two in the morning the effect showed itself in a greater strain and a more rapid tendency to run fast. We could check its speed, but it is a dangerous process. Too sudden a check would inevitably snap the cable. Too slack a rein would allow of its egress at such a wasting rate and at such a violent speed that we should lose too great a portion of the cable, and its future stopping within controllable limits be almost impossible. Hence our anxiety. All were on the alert; our expert engineers applied the brakes most judiciously, and at the moment I write—latitude 52 deg. 28'—the cable is being laid at the depth of two miles in its ocean bed as regularly and with as much facility as it was in the depth of a few fathoms....

"Six P.M. We have just had a fearful alarm. 'Stop her! Stop her!' was reiterated from many voices on deck. On going up I perceived the cable had got out of its sheaves and was running out at great speed. All was confusion for a few moments. Mr. Canning, our friend, who was the engineer of the Newfoundland cable, showed great presence of mind, and to his coolness and skill, I think, is due the remedying of the evil. By rope stoppers the cable was at length brought to a standstill, and it strained most ominously, perspiring at every part great tar drops. But it held together long enough to put the cable on the sheaves again."

"Tuesday, August 11. Abruptly indeed am I stopped in my letter. This morning at 3.45 the cable parted, and we shall soon be on our way back to England."

Thus ended the first attempt to unite the Old World with the New by means of an electric nerve. Authorities differ as to who was responsible for the disaster, but the cause was proved to be what Morse had foreseen when he wrote: "Too sudden a check would inevitably snap the cable."

While, of course, disappointed, he was not discouraged, for under date of August 13, he writes:—

"Our accident will delay the enterprise but will not defeat it. I consider it a settled fact, from all I have seen, that it is perfectly practicable. It will surely be accomplished. There is no insurmountable difficulty that has for a moment appeared, none that has shaken my faith in it in the slightest degree. My report to the company as co-electrician will show everything right in that department. We got an electric current through till the moment of parting, so that electric connection was perfect, and yet the farther we paid out the feebler were the currents, indicating a difficulty which, however, I do not consider serious, while it is of a nature to require attentive investigation."

"Plymouth, August 17. Here I am still held by the leg and lying in my berth from which I have not moved for six days. I suffer but little pain unless I attempt to sit up, and the healing process is going on most favorably but slowly.... I have been here three days and have not yet had a glimpse of the beautiful country that surrounds us, and if we should be ordered to another port before I can be out I shall have as good an idea of Plymouth as I should have at home looking at a map."

While the wounded leg healed slowly, the plans of the company moved more deliberately still. A movement was on foot for the East India Company to purchase what remained of the cable for use in the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf, so that the Atlantic Company could start afresh with an entirely new cable, and Morse hoped that this plan might be consummated at an early date so that he could return to America in the Niagara; but the negotiations halted from day to day and week to week. The burden of his letters to his wife is always that a decision is promised by "to-morrow," and finally he says in desperation: "To-day was to-morrow yesterday, but to-day has to-day another to-morrow, on which day, as usual, we are to know something. But as to-day has not yet gone, I wait with some anxiety to learn what it is to bring forth."

His letters are filled with affectionate longing to be at home again and with loving messages to all his dear ones, and at last he is able to say that his wound has completely healed, and that he has decided to leave the Niagara and sail from Liverpool on the Arabia, on September 19, and in due time he arrived at his beloved home on the Hudson.

While still intensely interested in the great cable enterprise, he begins to question the advisability of continuing his connection with the men against whom Mr. Kendall had warned him, for in a letter to his brother Richard, of October 15, 1857, he says: "I intend to withdraw altogether from the Atlantic Telegraph enterprise, as they who are prominent on this side of the water in its interests are using it with all then: efforts and influence against my invention, and my interests, and those of my assignees, to whom I feel bound in honor to attach myself, even if some of them have been deceived into coalition with the hostile party."

It was, however, a great disappointment to him that he was not connected with future attempts to lay the cable. His withdrawal was not altogether voluntary in spite of what he said in the letter from which I have just quoted. While he had been made an Honorary Director of the company in 1857, although not a stockholder, a law was subsequently passed declaring that only stockholders could be directors, even honorary directors. He had not felt financially able to purchase stock, but it was a source of astonishment to him and to others that a few shares, at least, had not been allotted to him for his valuable services in connection with the enterprise. He had, nevertheless, cheerfully given of his time and talents in the first attempt, although cautioned by Mr. Kendall.

He goes fully into the whole matter in a very long letter to Mr. John W. Brett, of December 27, 1858, in which he details his connection with the cable company, his regret and surprise at being excluded on the ground of his not being a stockholder, especially as, on a subsequent visit to Europe, he found that two other men had been made honorary directors, although they were not stockholders. He says that he learned also that "Mr. Field had represented to the Directors that I was hostile to the company, and was using my exertions to defeat the measures for aid from the United States Government to the enterprise, and that it was in consequence of these misrepresentations that I was not elected."

He says farther on: "I sincerely rejoiced in the consummation of the great enterprise, although prevented in the way I have shown from being present. I ought to have been with the cable squadron last summer. It was no fault of mine, that I was not there. I hope Mr. Field can exculpate himself in the eyes of the Board, before the world, and before his own conscience, in the course he has taken."

On the margin of the letter-press copy of a letter Written to Mr. Kendall on December 22, 1859, is a note in pencil written, evidently, at a later date: "Mr. Field has since manifested by his conduct a different temper. I have long since forgiven what, after all, may have been error of ignorance on his part."

The fact remains, however, that his connection with the cable company was severed, and that his relations with Messrs. Field, Cooper, etc., were decidedly strained. It is more than possible that, had he continued as electrician of the company, the second attempt might have been successful, for he foresaw the difficulty which resulted in failure, and, had he been the guiding mind, it would, naturally, have been avoided. The proof of this is in the following incident, which was related by a friend of his, Mr. Jacob S. Jewett, to Mr. Prime:—

"I thought it might interest you to know when and how Professor Morse received the first tidings of the success of the Atlantic Cable. I accompanied him to Europe on the steamer Fulton, which sailed from New York July 24, 1858. We were nearing Southampton when a sail boat was noticed approaching, and soon our vessel was boarded by a young man who sought an interview with Professor Morse, and announced to him that a message from America had just been received, the first that had passed along the wire lying upon the bed of the ocean.

"Professor Morse was, of course, greatly delighted, but, turning to me, said: 'This is very gratifying, but it is doubtful whether many more messages will be received'; and gave as his reason that—'the cable had been so long stored in an improper place that much of the coating had been destroyed, and the cable was in other respects injured.' His prediction proved to be true."

And Mr. Prime adds: "Had he been in the board of direction, had his judgment and experience as electrician been employed, that great calamity, which cost millions of money and eight years of delay in the use of the ocean telegraph, would, in all human probability, have been averted."

But it is idle to speculate on what might have been. His letters show that the action of the directors amazed and hurt him, and that it was with deep regret that he ceased to take an active part in the great enterprise the success of which he had been the first to prophesy.

Many other matters claimed his attention at this time, for, as usual upon returning from a prolonged absence, he found his affairs in more or less confusion, and his time for some months after his return was spent mainly in straightening them out. The winter was spent in New York with his family, but business calling him to Washington, he gives utterance, in a letter to his wife of December 16, to sentiments which will appeal to all who have had to do with the powers that be in the Government service:—

"As yet I have not had the least success in getting a proper position for Charles. A more thankless, repulsive business than asking for a situation under Government I cannot conceive. I would myself starve rather than ask such a favor if I were alone concerned. The modes of obtaining even a hearing are such as to drive a man of any sensitiveness to wish himself in the depths of the forest away from the vicinity of men, rather than encounter the airs of those on their temporary thrones of power. I cannot say what I feel. I shall do all I can, but anticipate no success.... I called to see Secretary Toucey for the purpose of asking him to put me in the way of finding some place for Charles, but, after sending in my card and waiting in the anteroom for half to three fourths of an hour, he took no notice of my card, just left his room, passed by deliberately the open door of the anteroom without speaking to me, and left the building. This may be all explained and I will charitably hope there was no intention of rudeness to me, but, unexplained, a ruder slight could not well be conceived."

The affection of the three Morse brothers for each other was unusually strong, and it is from the unreserved correspondence between Finley and Sidney that some of the most interesting material for this work has been gathered. Both of these brothers possessed a keen sense of humor and delighted in playful banter. The following is written in pencil on an odd scrap of paper and has no date:—

"When my brother and I were children my father one day took us each on his knee and said: 'Now I am going to tell you the character of each of you.' He then told us the fable of the Hare and the Tortoise. 'Now,' said he, 'Finley' (that is me), 'you are the Hare and Sidney, your brother, is the Tortoise. See if I am not correct in prophesying your future careers.' So ever since it has been a topic of banter between Sidney and me. Sometimes Sidney seemed to be more prosperous than I; then he would say, 'The old tortoise is ahead.' Then I would take a vigorous run and cry out to him,' The hare is ahead.' For I am naturally quick and impulsive, and he sluggish and phlegmatic. So I am now going to give him the Hare riding the Tortoise as a piece of fun. Sidney will say: 'Ah! you see the Hare is obliged to ride on the Tortoise in order to get to the goal!' But I shall say: 'Yes, but the Tortoise could not get there unless the Hare spurred him up and guided him.'"

Both of these brothers achieved success, but, unfortunately for the moral of the old fable, the hare quite outdistanced the tortoise, without, however, kindling any spark of jealousy in that faithful heart.

While Sidney was still in Europe his brother writes to him on December 29, 1857:—

"I don't know what you must think of me for not having written to you since my return. It has not been for want of will but truly from the impossibility of withdrawing myself from an unprecedented pressure of more important duties, on which to write so that you could form any clear idea of them would be impossible. These duties arise from the state of my affairs thrown into confusion by the conduct of parties intent on controlling all my property. But, I am happy to state, my affairs are in a way of adjustment through the active exertions of my faithful agent and friend, Mr. Kendall, so far as his declining strength permits.... I wish you were near me so that we could exchange views on many subjects, particularly on the one which so largely occupies public attention everywhere. I have been collecting works pro and con on the Slavery question with a view of writing upon it. We are in perfect accord, I think, on that subject. I believe that you and I would be considered in New England as rank heretics, for, I confess, the more I study the subject the more I feel compelled to declare myself on the Southern side of the question.

"I care not for the judgment of men, however; I feel on sure ground while standing on Bible doctrine, and I have arrived at the conclusion that a fearful hallucination, not less absurd than that which beclouded some of the most pious and otherwise intelligent minds of the days of Salem witchcraft, has for a time darkened the moral atmosphere of the North."

The event has seemed to prove that it was the Southern sympathizers at the North, those "most pious and otherwise intelligent minds," whose moral atmosphere was darkened by a "fearful hallucination," for no one now claims that slavery is a divine institution because the Bible says, "Slaves, obey your masters."

I have stated that one of the purposes of Morse's visit to Europe in 1856 was to seek to persuade the various Governments which were using his telegraph to grant him some pecuniary remuneration. The idea was received favorably at the different courts, and resulted in a concerted movement initiated by the Count Walewski, representing France, and participated in by ten of the European nations. The sittings of this convention, or congress, were held in Paris from April, 1868, to the latter part of August, and the result is announced in a letter of Count Walewski to Morse of September 1:—

SIR,—It is with lively satisfaction that I have the honor to announce to you that a sum of four hundred thousand francs will be remitted to you, in four annuities, in the name of France, of Austria, of Belgium, of the Netherlands, of Piedmont, of Russia, of the Holy See, of Sweden, of Tuscany and of Turkey, as an honorary gratuity, and as a reward, altogether personal, of your useful labors. Nothing can better mark than this collective act of reward the sentiment of public gratitude which your invention has so justly excited.

The Emperor has already given you a testimonial of his high esteem when he conferred upon you, more than a year ago, the decoration of a Chevalier of his order of the Legion of Honor. You will find a new mark of it in the initiative which his Majesty wished that his government should take in this conjuncture; and the decision that I charge myself to bring to your knowledge is a brilliant proof of the eager and sympathetic adhesion that his proposition has met with from the States I have just enumerated.

I pray you to accept on this occasion, sir, my personal congratulations, as well as the assurance of my sentiments of the most distinguished consideration.

While this letter is dated September 1, the amount of the gratuity agreed upon seems to have been made known soon after the first meeting of the convention, for on April 29, the following letter was written to Morse by M. van den Broek, his agent in all the preliminaries leading up to the convention, and who, by the way, was to receive as his commission one third of the amount of the award, whatever it might be: "I have this morning seen the secretary of the Minister, and from him learned that the sum definitely fixed is 400,000 francs, payable in four years. This does not by any means answer our expectations, and I am afraid you will be much disappointed, yet I used every exertion in my power, but without avail, to procure a grant of a larger sum."

It certainly was a pitiful return for the millions of dollars which Morse's invention had saved or earned for those nations which used it as a government monopoly, and while I find no note of complaint in his own letters, his friends were more outspoken. Mr. Kendall, in a letter of May 18, exclaims: "I know not how to express my contempt of the meanness of the European Governments in the award they propose to make you as the inventor of the Telegraph. I had set the sum at half a million dollars as the least that they could feel to be at all compatible with their dignity. I hope you will acknowledge it more as a tribute to the merits of your invention than as an adequate reward for it."

And in a letter of June 5, answering one of Morse's which must have contained some expressions of gratitude, Mr. Kendall says further: "In reference to the second subject of your letter, I have to say that it is only as a tribute to the superiority of your invention that the European grant can, in my opinion, be considered either 'generous' or 'magnanimous.' As an indemnity it is niggardly and mean."

It will be in place to record here the testimonials of the different nations of Europe to the Inventor of the Telegraph, manifested in various forms:—

France. A contributor to the honorary gratuity, and the decoration of the Legion of Honor.

Prussia. The Scientific Gold Medal of Prussia set in the lid of a gold snuff-box.

Austria. A contributor to the honorary gratuity, and the Scientific Gold Medal of Austria.

Russia. A contributor to the honorary gratuity.

Spain. The cross of Knight Commander de Numero of the order of Isabella the Catholic.

Portugal. The cross of a Knight of the Tower and Sword.

Italy. A contributor to the honorary gratuity, and the cross of a Knight of Saints Lazaro and Mauritio.

Wuerttemberg. The Scientific Gold Medal of Wuerttemberg.

Turkey. A contributor to the honorary gratuity, and the decoration in diamonds of the Nishan Iftichar, or Order of Glory.

Denmark. The cross of Knight Commander of the Dannebrog.

Holy See. A contributor to the honorary gratuity.

Belgium. A contributor to the honorary gratuity.

Holland. A contributor to the honorary gratuity.

Sweden. A contributor to the honorary gratuity.

Great Britain. Nationally nothing.

Switzerland. Nationally nothing.

Saxony. Nationally nothing.

The decorations and medals enumerated above, with the exception of the Danish cross, which had to be returned at the death of the recipient, and one of the medals, which mysteriously disappeared many years ago, are now in the Morse case at the National Museum in Washington, having been presented to that institution by the children and grandchildren of the inventor. It should be added that, in addition to the honors bestowed on him by foreign governments, he was made a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden, a member of the Institute of France and of the principal scientific societies of the United States. It has been already noted in these pages that his alma mater, Yale, conferred on him the degree of LL.D.

I have said that I find no note of complaint in Morse's letters. Whatever his feelings of disappointment may have been, he felt it his duty to send the following letter to Count Walewski on September 15, 1858. Perhaps a slight note of irony may be read into the sentence accepting the gratuity, but, if intended, I fear it was too feeble to have reached its mark, and the letter is, as a whole and under the circumstances, almost too fulsome, conforming, however, to the stilted style of the time:—

On my return to Paris from Switzerland I have this day received, from the Minister of the United States, the most gratifying information which Your Excellency did me the honor to send to me through him, respecting the decision of the congress of the distinguished diplomatic representatives of ten of the August governments of Europe, held in special reference to myself.

You have had the considerate kindness to communicate to me a proceeding which reflects the highest honor upon the Imperial Government and its noble associates, and I am at a loss for language adequately to express to them my feelings of profound gratitude.

But especially, Your Excellency, do I want words to express towards the august head of the Imperial Government, and to Your Excellency, the thankful sentiments of my heart for the part so prominently taken by His Imperial Majesty, and by Your Excellency, in so generously initiating this measure for my honor in inviting the governments of Europe to a conference on the subject, and for so zealously and warmly advocating and perseveringly conducting to a successful termination, the measure in which the Imperial Government so magnanimously took the initiative.

I accept the gratuity thus tendered, on the basis of an honorary testimonial and a personal reward, with tenfold more gratification than could have been produced by a sum of money, however large, offered on the basis of a commercial negotiation.

I beg Your Excellency to receive my thanks, however inadequately expressed, and to believe that I appreciate Your Excellency's kind and generous services performed in the midst of your high official duties, consummating a proceeding so unique, and in a manner so graceful, that personal kindness has been beautifully blended with official dignity.

I will address respectively to the honorable ministers who were Your Excellency's colleagues a letter of thanks for their participation in this act of high honor to me.

I beg Your Excellency to accept the assurances of my lasting gratitude and highest consideration in subscribing myself

Your Excellency's most obedient humble servant, SAMUEL F.B. MORSE.



CHAPTER XXXVII

SEPTEMBER 3, 1858—SEPTEMBER 21, 1863

Visits Europe again with a large family party.—Regrets this.—Sails for Porto Rico with wife and two children.—First impressions of the tropics.—Hospitalities.—His son-in-law's plantation.—Death of Alfred Vail.—Smithsonian exonerates Henry.—European honors to Morse.—First line of telegraph in Porto Rico.—Banquet.—Returns home.—Reception at Poughkeepsie.—Refuses to become candidate for the Presidency.—Purchases New York house.—F.O.J. Smith claims part of European gratuity.—Succeeds through legal technicality.—Visit of Prince of Wales.—Duke of Newcastle.—War clouds.—Letters on slavery, etc.—Matthew Vassar.— Efforts as peacemaker.—Foresees Northern victory.—Gloomy forebodings.— Monument to his father.—Divides part of European gratuity with widow of Vail.—Continued efforts in behalf of peace.—Bible arguments in favor of slavery.

Many letters of this period, including a whole letterpress copy-book, are missing, many of the letters in other copy-books are quite illegible through the fading of the ink, and others have been torn out (by whom I do not know) and have entirely disappeared. It will, therefore, be necessary to summarize the events of the remainder of the year 1858, and of some of the following years.

We find that, on July 24, 1858, Morse sailed with his family, including his three young boys, his mother-in-law and other relatives, a party of fifteen all told, for Havre on the steamer Fulton; that he was tendered a banquet by his fellow-countrymen in Paris, and that he was received with honor wherever he went. Travelling with a large family was a different proposition from the independence which he had enjoyed on his previous visits to Europe, when he was either alone or accompanied only by his wife and niece, and he pathetically remarks to his brother Sidney, in a letter of September 3, written from Interlaken: "It was a great mistake I committed in bringing my family. I have scarcely had one moment's pleasure, and am almost worn out with anxieties and cares. If I get back safe with them to Paris I hope, after arranging my affairs there, to go as direct as possible to Southampton, and settle them there till I sail in November. I am tired of travelling and long for the repose of Locust Grove, if it shall please our Heavenly Father to permit us to meet there again."



Before returning to the quiet of his home on the Hudson, however, he paid a visit which he had long had in contemplation. On November 17, 1858, he and his wife and their two younger sons sailed from Southampton for Porto Rico, where his elder daughter, Mrs. Edward land, had for many years lived, and where his younger daughter had been visiting while he was in Europe. He describes his first impressions of a tropical country in a letter to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Griswold, who had decided to spend the winter in Geneva to superintend the education of his son Arthur, a lad of nine:—

"In St. Thomas we received every possible attention. The Governor called on us and invited Edward and myself to breakfast (at 10.30 o'clock) the day we left. He lives in a fine mansion on one of the lesser hills that enclose the harbor, having directly beneath him on the slope, and only separated by a wall, the residence of Santa Anna. He was invited to be present, but he was ill (so he said) and excused himself. I presume his illness was occasioned by the thought of meeting an American from the States, for he holds the citizens of the States in perfect hatred, so much so as to refuse to receive United States money in change from his servants on their return from market.

"A few days in change of latitude make wonderful changes in feelings and clothing. When we left England the air was wintry, and thick woolen clothing and fires were necessary. The first night at sea blankets were in great demand. With two extra and my great-coat over all I was comfortably warm. In twenty-four hours the great-coat was dispensed with, then one blanket, then another, until a sheet alone began to be enough, and the last two or three nights on board this slight covering was too much. When we got into the harbor of St. Thomas the temperature was oppressive; our slightest summer clothing was in demand. Surrounded by pomegranate trees, magnificent oleanders, cocoa-nut trees with their large fruit some thirty feet from the ground, the aloe and innumerable, and to me strange, tropical plants, I could scarcely believe it was December....

"We arrived on Thursday morning and remained until Monday morning, Edward having engaged a Long Island schooner, which happened to be in port, to take us to Arroyo. At four o'clock the Governor sent his official barge, under the charge of the captain of the port, a most excellent, intelligent, scientific gentleman, who had breakfasted with us at the Governor's in the morning, and in a few minutes we were rowed alongside of the schooner Estelle, and before dark were under way and out of the harbor. Our quarters were very small and close, but not so uncomfortable.

"At daylight in the morning of Tuesday we were sailing along the shores of Porto Rico, and at sunrise we found we were in sight of Guyama and Arroyo, and with our glasses we saw at a distance the buildings on Edward's estate. Susan had been advised of our coming and a flag was flying on the house in answer to the signal we made from the vessel. In two or three hours we got to the shore, as near as was safe for the vessel, and then in the doctor's boat, which had paid us an official visit to see that we did not bring yellow fever or other infectious disease, the kind doctor, an Irishman educated in America, took us ashore at a little temporary landing-place to avoid the surf. On the shore there were some handkerchiefs shaking, and in a crowd we saw Susan and Leila, and Charlie [his grandson] who were waiting for us in carriages, and in a few moments we embraced them all. The sun was hot upon us, but, after a ride of two or three miles, we came to the Henrietta, my dear Edward and Susan's residence, and were soon under the roof of a spacious, elegant and most commodious mansion. And here we are with midsummer temperature and vegetation, but a tropical vegetation, all around us.

"Well, we always knew that Edward was a prince of a man, but we did not know, or rather appreciate, that he has a princely estate and in as fine order as any in the island. When I say 'fine order,' I do not mean that it is laid out like the Bois de Boulogne, nor is there quite as much picturesqueness in a level plain of sugar canes as in the trees and shrubbery of the gardens of Versailles; but it is a rich and well-cultivated estate of some fourteen hundred acres, gradually rising for two or three miles from the sea-shore to the mountains, including some of them, and stretching into the valleys between them."

His visit to Porto Rico was a most delightful one to him in many ways, and I shall have more to say of it further on, but I digress for a moment to speak of two events which occurred just at this time, and which showed him that, even in this land of dolce far niente, he could not escape the griefs and cares which are common to all mankind.

Mr. Kendall, in a letter of February 20, announces the death of one of his early associates: "I presume you will have heard before this reaches you of the death of Alfred Vail. He had sold most of his telegraph stocks and told me when I last saw him that it was with difficulty he could procure the means of comfort for his family."

Morse had heard of this melancholy event, for, in a letter to Mr. Shaffner of February 22, he says: "Poor Vail! alas, he is gone. I only heard of the event on Saturday last. This death, and the death of many friends besides, has made me feel sad. Vail ought to have a proper notice. He was an upright man, and, although some ways of his made him unpopular with those with whom he came in contact, yet I believe his intentions were good, and his faults were the result more of ill-health, a dyspeptic habit, than of his heart."

He refers to this also in a letter to his brother Sidney of February 23: "Poor Vail is gone. He was the innocent cause of the original difficulty with the sensitive Henry, he all the time earnestly desirous of doing him honor."

And on March 30, he answers Mr. Kendall's letter: "I regret to learn that poor Vail was so straitened in his circumstances at his death. I intend paying a visit to his father and family on my return. I may be able to relieve them in some degree."

This intention he fulfilled, as we shall see later on, and I wish to call special attention to the tone of these letters because, as I have said before, Morse has been accused of gross ingratitude and injustice towards Alfred Vail, whereas a careful and impartial study of all the circumstances of their connection proves quite the contrary. Vail's advocates, in loudly claiming for him much more than the evidence shows he was entitled to, have not hesitated to employ gross personal abuse of Morse in their newspaper articles, letters, etc., even down to the present day. This has made my task rather difficult, for, while earnestly desirous of giving every possible credit to Vail, I have been compelled to introduce much evidence, which I should have preferred to omit, to show the essential weakness of his character; he seems to have been foredoomed to failure. He undoubtedly was of great assistance in the early stages of the invention, and for this Morse always cheerfully gave him full credit, but I have proved that he did not invent the dot-and-dash alphabet, which has been so insistently claimed for him, and that his services as a mechanician were soon dispensed with in favor of more skilful men. I have also shown that he practically left Morse to his fate in the darkest years of the struggle to bring the telegraph into public use, and that, by his morbid suspicions, he hampered the efforts of Mr. Kendall to harmonize conflicting interests. For all this Morse never bore him any ill-will, but endeavored in every way to foster and safeguard his interests. That he did not succeed was no fault of his.

Another reminder that he was but human, and that he could not expect to sail serenely along on the calm, seas of popular favor without an occasional squall, was given to him just at this time. Professor Joseph Henry had requested the Regents of the Smithsonian Institute to enquire into the rights and wrongs of the controversy between himself and Morse, which had its origin in Henry's testimony in the telegraph suits, tinged as this testimony was with bitterness on account of the omissions in Vail's book, and which was fanned into a flame by Morse's "Defense." The latter resented the fact that all these proceedings had taken place while he was out of the country, and without giving him an opportunity to present his side of the case. However, he shows his willingness to do what is right in the letter to Colonel Shaffner of February 22, from which I have already quoted:—

"Well, it has taken him four years to fire off his gun, and perhaps I am killed. When I return I shall examine my wounds and see if they are mortal, and, if so, shall endeavor to die becomingly. Seriously, however, if there are any new facts which go to exculpate Henry for his attack upon me before the courts at a moment when I was struggling against those who, from whatever motive, wished to deprive me of my rights, and even of my character, I shall be most happy to learn them, and, if I have unwittingly done him injustice, shall also be most happy to make proper amends. But as all this is for the future, as I know of no facts which alter the case, and as I am wholly unconscious of having done any injustice, I must wait to see what he has put forth."

In a letter to his brother Sidney, of February 23, he philosophizes as follows:—

"I cannot avoid noticing a singular coincidence of events in my experience of life, especially in that part of it devoted to the invention of the Telegraph, to wit, that, when any special and marked honor has been conferred upon me, there has immediately succeeded some event of the envious or sordid character seemingly as a set-off, the tendency of which has been invariably to prevent any excess of exultation on my part. Can this be accident? Is it not rather the wise ordering of events by infinite wisdom and goodness to draw me away from repose in earthly honor to the more substantial and enduring honor that comes only from God? ... I pray for wisdom to direct in such trials, and in any answer I may find it necessary to give to Henry or others, I desire most of all to be mindful of that charity which 'suffereth long, which vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, hopeth all things, thinketh no evil.'"

This check to self-laudation came at an appropriate moment, as he said, for just at this time honors were being plentifully showered upon him. It was then that he was first notified of the bestowal of the Spanish decoration, and of the probability of Portugal's following suit. Perhaps even more gratifying still was his election as a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden, for this was a recognition of his merits as a scientist, and not as a mere promoter, as he had been contemptuously called. On the Island of Porto Rico too he was being honored and feted. On March 2, he writes:—

"I have just completed with success the construction and organization of the short telegraph line, the first on this island, initiating the great enterprise of the Southern Telegraph route to Europe from our shores, so far as to interest the Porto Ricans in the value of the invention.

"Yesterday was a day of great excitement here for this small place. The principal inhabitants of this place and Guayama determined to celebrate the completion of this little line, in which they take a great pride as being the first in the island, and so they complimented me with a public breakfast which was presided over by the lieutenant-colonel commandant of Guayama.

"The commandant and alcalde, the collector and captain of the port, with all the officials of the place, and the clergy of Guayama and Arroyo, and gentlemen planters and merchants of the two towns, numbering in all about forty, were present. We sat down at one o'clock to a very handsome breakfast, and the greatest enthusiasm and kind and generous feeling were manifested. My portrait was behind me upon the wall draped with the Spanish and American flags. I gave them a short address of thanks, and took the opportunity to interest them in the great Telegraph line which will give them communication with the whole world. I presume accounts will be published in the United States from the Porto Rico papers. Thus step by step (shall I not rather say stride by stride?) the Telegraph is compassing the world.

"My accounts from Madrid assure me that the government will soon have all the papers prepared for granting the concession to Mr. Perry, our former secretary of legation at Madrid, in connection with Sir James Carmichael, Mr. John W. Brett, the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, and others. The recent consolidation plan in the United States has removed the only hesitation I had in sustaining this new enterprise, for I feared that I might unwittingly injure, by a counter plan, those it was my duty to support. Being now in harmony with the American Company and the Newfoundland Company, I presume all my other companies will derive benefit rather than injury from the success of this new and grand enterprise. At any rate I feel impelled to support all plans that manifestly tend to the complete circumvention of the globe, and the bringing into telegraphic connection all the nations of the earth, and this when I am not fully assured that present personal interests may not temporarily suffer. I am glad to know that harmonious arrangements are made between the various companies in the United States, although I have been so ill-used. I will have no litigation if I can avoid it. Even Henry may have the field in quiet, unless he has presented a case too flagrantly unjust to leave unanswered."

The short line of telegraph was from his son-in-law's house to his place of business on the bay, about two miles, and the building of it gave rise to the legend on the island that Morse conducted some of his first electrical experiments in Porto Rico, which, of course, is not true.

There is much correspondence concerning the proposed cable from Spain or Portugal by various routes to the West Indies and thence to the United States, but nothing came of it.

The rest of their stay in Porto Rico was greatly enjoyed by all in spite of certain drawbacks incidental to the tropics, to one of which he alludes in a letter to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Goodrich, who was then in Europe. Speaking of his wife he says: "She is dreadfully troubled with a plague which, if you have been in Italy, I am sure you are no stranger to. 'Pulci, pulci.' If you have not had a colony of them settled upon you, and quartered, and giving you no quarter, you have been an exception to travellers in Italy. Well, I will pit any two pulci of Porto Rico against any ten you can bring from Italy, and I should be sure to see them bite the dust before the bites of our Porto Rico breed."

His letters are filled with apothegms and reflections on life in general and his own in particular, and they alone would almost fill a book. In a letter to Mr. Kendall, of March 30, we find the following:—

"I had hoped to return from honors abroad to enjoy a little rest from litigation at home, but, if I must take up arms, I hope to be able to use them efficiently in self-defense, and in a chivalrous manner as becometh a 'Knight.' I have no reason to complain of my position abroad, but I suppose, as I am not yet under the ground, honors to a living inventor must have their offset in the attacks of envy and avarice.

"'Wrath is cruel, but who can stand before envy?' says the wise man. The contest with the envious is indeed an annoyance, but, if one's spirit is under the right guidance and revenge does not actuate the strife, victory is very certain. My position is now such before the world that I shall use it rather to correct my own temper than to make it a means of arrogant exultation."

He and his family left the island in the middle of April, 1859, and in due time reached their Poughkeepsie home. The "Daily Press" of that city gave the following account of the homecoming:—

"For some time previous to the hour at which the train was to arrive hundreds of people were seen flocking from all directions to the railroad depot, both in carriages and on foot, and when the train did arrive, and the familiar and loved form of Professor Morse was recognized on the platform of the car, the air was rent with the cheers of the assembled multitude. As soon as the cheers subsided Professor Morse was approached by the committee of reception and welcomed to the country of his birth and to the home of his adoption.

"A great procession was then formed composed of the carriages of citizens. The sidewalks were crowded with people on foot, the children of the public schools, which had been dismissed for the occasion, being quite conspicuous among them. Amid the ringing of bells, the waving of flags, and the gratulations of the people, the procession proceeded through a few of the principal streets, and then drove to the beautiful residence of Professor Morse, the band playing, as they entered the grounds, 'Sweet Home' and then 'Auld Lang Syne.'

"The gateways at the entrance had been arched with evergreens and wreathed with flowers. As the carriage containing their loved proprietor drove along the gravelled roads we noticed that several of the domestics, unable to restrain their welcomes, ran to his carriage and gave and received salutations. After a free interchange of salutations and a general 'shake-hands,' the people withdrew and left their honored guest to the retirement of his own beautiful home.

"So the world reverences its great men, and so it ought. In Professor Morse we find those simple elements of greatness which elevate him infinitely above the hero of any of the world's sanguinary conflicts, or any of the most successful aspirants after political power. He has benefited not only America and the world, but has dignified and benefited the whole race."

His friends and neighbors desired to honor him still further by a public reception, but this he felt obliged to decline, and in his letter of regret he expresses the following sentiments: "If, during my late absence abroad, I have received unprecedented honors from European nations, convened in special congress for the purpose, and have also received marks of honor from individual Sovereigns and from Scientific bodies, all which have gratified me quite as much for the honor reflected by them upon my country as upon myself, there are none of these testimonials, be assured, which have so strongly touched my heart as this your beautiful tribute of kindly feeling from esteemed neighbors and fellow-citizens."

Among the letters which had accumulated during his absence, Morse found one, written some time previously, from a Mr. Reibart, who had published his name as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. In courteously declining this honor Morse drily adds: "There are hundreds, nay thousands, more able (not to say millions more willing) to take any office they can obtain, and perform its functions more faithfully and with more benefit to the country. While this is the case I do not feel that the country will suffer should one like myself, wearied with the struggles and litigations of half a century, desire to be excused from encountering the annoyances and misapprehensions inseparable from political life."

Thanks to the successful efforts of his good friend, Mr. Kendall, he was now financially independent, so much so that he felt justified in purchasing, in the fall of the year 1859, the property at 5 West Twenty-second Street, New York, where the winters of the remaining years of his life were passed, except when he was abroad. This house has now been replaced by a commercial structure, but a bronze tablet marks the spot where once stood the old-fashioned brown stone mansion.

While his mind was comparatively at rest regarding money matters, he was not yet free from vexatious litigation, and his opinion of lawyers is tersely expressed in a letter to Mr. Kendall of December 27, 1859: "I have not lost my respect for law but I have for its administrators; not so much for any premeditated dishonesty as for their stupidity and want of just insight into a case."

It was not long before he had a practical proof of the truth of this aphorism, for his "thorn in the flesh" never ceased from rankling, and now gave a new instance of the depths to which an unscrupulous man could descend. On June 9, 1860, Morse writes to his legal adviser, Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, of Boston: "You may remember that Smith, just before I sailed for Europe in 1858, intimated that he should demand of me a portion of the Honorary Gratuity voted to me by the congress of ten powers at Paris. I procured your opinion, as you know, and I had hoped that he would not insist on so preposterous a claim. I am, however, disappointed; he has recently renewed it. I have had some correspondence with him on the subject utterly denying any claim on his part. He proposes a reference, but I have not yet encouraged him to think I would assent. I wish your advice before I answer him."

It is difficult to conceive of a meaner case of extortion than this. As Morse says in a letter to Mr. Kendall, of August 3, 1860, after he had consented to a reference of the matter to three persons: "I have no apprehensions of the result except that I may be entrapped by some legal technicalities. Look at the case in an equitable point of view and, it appears to me, no intelligent, just men could give a judgment against me or in his favor. Smith's purchase into the telegraph, the consideration he gave, was his efforts to obtain a property in the invention abroad by letters patent or otherwise. In such property he was to share. No such property was created there. What can he then claim? The monies that he hazarded (taking his own estimate) were to the amount of some seven thousand dollars; and this was an advance, virtually a loan, to be paid back to him if he had created the property abroad. But his efforts being fruitless for that purpose, and of no value whatever to me, yet procured him one fourth patent interest in the United States, for which we know he has obtained at least $300,000. Is he not paid amply without claiming a portion of honorary gifts to me? Well, we shall see how legal men look at the matter."



One legal man of great brilliance gave his opinion without hesitation, as we learn from a letter of Morse's to Mr. Curtis, of July 14: "I had, a day or two since, my cousin Judge Breese, late Senator of the United States from Illinois, on a visit to me. I made him acquainted with the points, after which he scouted the idea that any court of legal character could for a moment sustain Smith's claim. He thought my argument unanswerable, and playfully said: 'I will insure you against any claim from Smith for a bottle of champagne.'"

It is a pity that Morse did not close with the offer of the learned judge, for, in spite of his opinion, in spite of the opinion of most men of intelligence, in defiance of the perfectly obvious and proven fact that Smith had utterly failed in fulfilling his part of the contract, and that the award had been made to Morse "as a reward altogether personal" (toute personelle), the referees decided in Smith's favor. And on what did they base this remarkable decision? On the ground that in the contract of 1838 with Smith the word "otherwise" occurs. Property in Europe was to be obtained by "letters patent" or "otherwise." Of course no actual property had been obtained, and Smith had had no hand in securing the honorary gratuity, and it is difficult to follow the reasoning of these sapient referees. They were, on Smith's part, Judge Upham of New Hampshire; on Morse's, Mr. Hilliard, of Boston; and Judge Sprague, of the Circuit Court, Boston, chairman.

However, the decision was made, and Morse, with characteristic large-heartedness, submitted gracefully. On October 15, he writes to Mr. Curtis: "I ought, perhaps, with my experience to learn for the first time that Law and Justice are not synonyms, but, with all deference to the opinion of the excellent referees, for each of whom I have the highest personal respect, I still think that they have not given a decision in strict conformity with Law.... I submit, however, to law with kindly feelings to all, and now bend my attention to repair my losses as best I may."

As remarked before, earlier in this volume, Morse, in his correspondence with Smith, always wrote in that courteous manner which becomes a gentleman, and he expresses his dissent from the verdict in this manner in a letter of November 20, in answer to one of Smith's, quibbling over the allowance to Morse by the referees of certain expenses: "Throwing aside as of no avail any discussion in regard to the equity of the decision of the referees, especially in the view of a conscientious and high-minded man, I now deal with the decision as it has been made, since, according to the technicalities of the law, it has been pronounced by honorable and honest men in accordance with their construction of the language of the deed in your favor. But 'He that's convinced against his will is of the same opinion still,' and in regard to the intrinsic injustice of being compelled, by the strict construction of a general word, to pay over to you any portion of that which was expressly given to me as a personal and honorary gratuity by the European governments, my opinion is always as it has been, an opinion sustained by the sympathy of every intelligent and honorable man who has studied the merits of the case."

He was hard hit for a time by this unjust decision, and his correspondence shows that he regretted it most because it prevented him from bestowing as much in good works as he desired. He was obliged to refuse many requests which strongly appealed to him. His daily mail contained numerous requests for assistance in sums "from twenty thousand dollars to fifty cents," and it was always with great reluctance that he refused anybody anything.

However, as is usual in this life, the gay was mingled with the grave, and we find that he was one of the committee of prominent men to arrange for the entertainment of the Prince of Wales, afterward Edward VII, on his visit to this country. I have already referred to one incident of this visit when Morse, in an address to the Prince at the University of the City of New York, referred to the kindness shown him in London by the Earl of Lincoln, who was now the Duke of Newcastle and was in the suite of the Prince. Morse had hoped that he might have the privilege of entertaining H.R.H. at his country place on the Hudson, but the Duke of Newcastle, in a letter of October 8, 1860, regrets that this cannot be managed:—

I assure you I have not forgotten the circumstances which gave me the pleasure of your acquaintance in 1839, and I am very desirous of seeing you again during my short visit to this continent. I fear however that a visit by the Prince of Wales to your home, however I might wish it, is quite impracticable, although on our journey up the Hudson we shall pass so near you. Every hour of our time is fully engaged.

Is there any chance of seeing you in New York, or, if not, is there any better hope in Boston? If you should be in either during our stay, I hope you will be kind enough to call upon me. Pray let me have a line on Thursday at New York. I have lately been much interested in some electro-telegraphic inventions of yours which are new to me.

I am Yours very truly, NEWCASTLE.

Referring to another function in honor of the Prince, Morse says, in a letter to Mr. Kendall: "I did not see you after the so-styled Ball in New York, which was not a ball but a levee and a great jam. I hope you and yours suffered no inconvenience from it."

The war clouds in his beloved country were now lowering most ominously, and, true to his convictions, he exclaims in a letter to a friend of January 12, 1861:—

"Our politicians are playing with edged tools. It is easy to raise a storm by those who cannot control it. If I trusted at all in them I should despair of the country, but an Almighty arm makes the wrath of man to praise him, and he will restrain the rest. There is something so unnatural and abhorrent in this outcry of arms in one great family that I cannot believe it will come to a decision by the sword. Such counsels of force are in the court of passion, not of reason. Imagine such a conflict, imagine a victory, no matter by which side. Can the victors rejoice in the blood of brethren shed in a family brawl? Whose heart will thrill with pride at such success? No, no. I should as soon think of rejoicing that one of my sons had killed the other in a brawl.

"But I have not time to add. I hope for the best, and even can see beyond the clouds of the hour a brighter day. God bless the whole family, North, South, East and West. I will never divide them in my heart however they may be politically or geographically divided."

His hopes of a peaceful solution of the questions at issue between the North and the South were, of course, destined to be cruelly dashed, and he suffered much during the next few years, both in his feelings and in his purse, on account of the war. I have already shown that he, with many other pious men, believed that slavery was a divine institution and that, therefore, the abolitionists were entirely in the wrong; but that, at the same time, he was unalterably opposed to secession. Holding these views, he was misjudged in both sections of the country. Those at the North accused him of being a secessionist because he was not an abolitionist, and many at the South held that he must be an abolitionist because he lived at the North and did not believe in the doctrine of secession. Many pages of his letter-books are filled with vehement arguments upholding his point of view, and he, together with many other eminent men at the North, strove without success to avert the war. His former pastor at Poughkeepsie, the Reverend H.G. Ludlow, in long letters, with many Bible quotations, called upon him to repent him of his sins and join the cause of righteousness. He, in still longer letters, indignantly repelled the accusation of error, and quoted chapter and verse in support of his views. He was made the president of The American Society for promoting National Unity, and in one of his letters to Mr. Ludlow he uses forceful language:—

"The tone of your letter calls for extraordinary drafts on Christian charity. Your criticism upon and denunciation of a society planned in the interests of peace and good will to all, inaugurated by such men as Bishops McIlvaine and Hopkins, Drs. Krebs and Hutton, and Winslow, and Bliss, and Van Dyke, and Hawks, and Seabury, and Lord and Adams of Boston, and Wilson the missionary, and Styles and Boorman, and Professor Owen, and President Woods, and Dr. Parker, and my brothers, and many others as warm-hearted, praying, conscientious Christians as ever assembled to devise means for promoting peace—denunciations of these and such as these cannot but be painful in the highest degree.... I lay no stress upon these names other than to show that conscience in this matter has moved some Christians quite as strongly to view Abolitionism as a sin of the deepest dye, as it has other Christian minds to view Slavery as a sin, and so to condemn slaveholders to excommunication, and simply for being slaveholders.

"Who is to decide in a conflict of consciences? If the Bible be the umpire, as I hold it to be, then it is the Abolitionist that is denounced as worthy of excommunication; it is the Abolitionist from whom we are commanded to withdraw ourselves, while not a syllable of reproof do I find in the sacred volume administered to those who maintain, in the spirit of the gospel, the relation of Masters and Slaves. If you have been more successful, please point out chapter and verse.... I have no justification to offer for Southern secession; I have always considered it a remedy for nothing. It is, indeed, an expression of a sense of wrong, but, in turn, is itself a wrong, and two wrongs do not make a right."

I have quoted thus at some length from one of his many polemics to show the absolute and fearless sincerity of the man, mistaken though he may have been in his major premise.

I shall quote from other letters on this subject as they appear in chronological order, but as no person of any mental caliber thinks and acts continuously along one line of endeavor, so will it be necessary in a truthful biography to change from one subject of activity to another, and then back again, in order to portray in their proper sequence the thoughts and actions of a man which go to make up his personality. For instance, while the outspoken views which Morse held on the subjects of slavery and secession made him many enemies, he was still held in high esteem, for it was in the year 1861 that the members of the National Academy of Design urged him so strongly to become their president again that he yielded, but on condition that it should be for one year only. And the following letter to Matthew Vassar, of Poughkeepsie, dated February 1, 1861, shows that he was actively interested in the foundation of the first college for women in this country: "Your favor of the 24th ulto. is received, and so far as I can further your magnificent and most generous enterprise, I will do so. I will endeavor to attend the meeting at the Gregory House on the 26th of the present month. May you long live to see your noble design in successful operation."

In spite of his deep anxiety for the welfare of his country, and in spite of the other cares which weighed him down, he could not resist the temptation to indulge in humor when the occasion offered. This humor is tinged with sarcasm in a letter of July 13, 1861, to Mr. A.B. Griswold, his wife's brother, a prominent citizen of New Orleans. After assuring him of his undiminished affection, he adds:—

"And now see what a risk I have run by saying thus much, for, according to modern application of the definition of treason, it would not be difficult to prove me a traitor, and therefore amenable to the halter.

"For instance—treason is giving aid and comfort to the enemy; everybody south of a certain geographical line is an enemy; you live south of that line, ergo you are an enemy; I send you my love, you being an enemy; this gives you comfort; ergo, I have given comfort to the enemy; ergo, I am a traitor; ergo, I must be hanged."

As the war progressed he continued to express himself in forcible language against what he called the "twin heresies"—abolitionism and secession. He had done his best to avert the war. He describes his efforts in a letter of April 2, 1862, to Mr. George L. Douglas, of Louisville, Kentucky, who at that time was prominently connected with the Southern lines of the telegraph, and who had loyally done all in his power to safeguard Morse's interests in those lines:—

"You are correct in saying, in your answer as garnishee, that I have been an active and decided friend of Peace. In the early stages of the troubles, when the Southern Commissioners were in Washington, I devoted my time and influence and property, subscribing and paying in the outset five hundred dollars, to set on foot measures for preserving peace honorable to all parties. The attack on Fort Sumter struck down all these efforts (so far as my associates were concerned), but I was not personally discouraged, and I again addressed myself to the work of the Peacemaker, determining to visit personally both sections of the country, the Government at Washington, and the Government of the Confederates at Richmond, to ascertain if there were, by possibility, any means of averting war. And when, from physical inability and age, I was unable to undertake the duty personally, I defrayed from my own pocket the expenses of a friend in his performance of the same duties for me, who actually visited both Washington and Richmond and conferred with the Presidents and chiefs of each section on the subject. True his efforts were unsuccessful, and so nothing remained for me but to retire to the quiet of my own study and watch the vicissitudes of the awful storm which I was powerless to avert, and descry the first signs of any clearing up, ready to take advantage of the earliest glimmerings of light through the clouds."

He had no doubts as to the ultimate issue of the conflict, for, in a letter to his wife's sister, Mrs. Goodrich, of May 2, 1862, he reduces it to mathematics:—

"Sober men could calculate, and did calculate, the military issue, for it was a problem of mathematics and not at all of individual or comparative courage. A force of equal quality is to be divided and the two parts to be set in opposition to each other. If equally divided, they will be at rest; if one part equals 3 and the other 9, it does not require much knowledge of mathematics to decide which part will overcome the force of the other.

"Now this is the case here just now. Two thirds of the physical and material force of the country are at the North, and on this account military success, other things being equal, must be on the side of the North. Courage, justness of the cause, right, have nothing to do with it. War in our days is a game of chess. Two players being equal, if one begins the game with dispensing with a third of his best pieces, the other wins as a matter of course."

He was firmly of the opinion that England and other European nations had fomented, if they had not originated, the bad feeling between the North and the South, and at times he gave way to the most gloomy forebodings, as in a letter of July 23, 1862, to Mr. Kendall, who shared his views on the main questions at issue:—

"I am much depressed. There is no light in the political skies. Rabid abolitionism, with its intense, infernal hate, intensified by the same hate from secession quarters, is fast gaining the ascendancy. Our country is dead. God only can resuscitate it from its tomb. I see no hope of union. We are two countries, and, what is most deplorable, two hostile countries. Oh! how the nations, with England at their head, crow over us. It is the hour of her triumph; she has conquered by her arts that which she failed to do by her arms. If there was a corner of the world where I could hide myself, and I could consult the welfare of my family, I would sacrifice all my interests here and go at once. May God save us with his salvation. I have no heart to write or to do anything. Without a country! Without a country!"

He went even further, in one respect, in a letter to Mr. Walker, of Utica, of October 27, but his ordinarily keen prophetic vision was at fault: "Have you made up your mind to be under a future monarch, English or French, or some scion of a European stock of kings? I shall not live to see it, I hope, but you may and your children will. I leave you this prophecy in black and white."