Then on the morning of the fifteenth of July, a letter without postmark was found in the mailbox of the police bureau. After the authorities had studied it, it was given out to the Washington journals, which published it in facsimile, in special numbers. It was couched as follows:
IX.
THE SECOND LETTER
On Board the Terror
July 15.
To the Old and New World,
The propositions emanating from the different governments of Europe, as also that which has finally been made by the United States of America, need expect no other answer than this:
I refuse absolutely and definitely the sums offered for my invention.
My machine will be neither French nor German, nor Austrian nor Russian, nor English nor American.
The invention will remain my own, and I shall use it as pleases me.
With it, I hold control of the entire world, and there lies no force within the reach of humanity which is able to resist me, under any circumstances whatsoever.
Let no one attempt to seize or stop me. It is, and will be, utterly impossible. Whatever injury anyone attempts against me, I will return a hundredfold.