It was well that it was his invariable rule to be prepared for the worst, for, writing to his brother Sidney on February 24, he says: "We have just had a lawsuit in Philadelphia before Judge Kane. We applied for an injunction to stay irregular and injurious proceedings on the part of Western (Pittsburg and Cincinnati) Company, and our application has been refused on technical grounds. I know not what will be the issue. I am trying to have matters compromised, but do not know if it can be done, and we may have to contest it in law. Our application was in court of equity. A movement of Smith was the cause of all."
Another sidelight is thrown on Morse's character by the following extract from a letter to one of his lieutenants, T.S. Faxton, written on March 15: "We must raise the salaries of our operators or they will all be taken from us, that is, all that are good for anything. You will recollect that, at the first meeting of the Board of Directors, I took the ground that 'it was our policy to make the office of operator desirable, to pay operators well and make their situation so agreeable that intelligent men and men of character will seek the place and dread to lose it.' I still think so, and, depend upon it, it is the soundest economy to act on this principle."
Just about this time, to add to Morse's other perplexities, Doctor Charles T. Jackson began to renew his claims to the invention of the telegraph, while also disputing with Morton the discovery of ether as an anaesthetic, then called "Letheon," and claiming the invention of gun-cotton and the discovery of the circulation of the blood. Morse found a willing and able champion in Edward Warren, Esq., of Boston, and many letters passed between them. As Jackson's wild claims were effectually disposed of, I shall not dwell upon this source of annoyance, but shall content myself with one extract from a letter to Mr. Warren of March 23: "I wish not to attack Dr. Jackson nor even to defend myself in public from his private attacks. If in any of his publications he renews his claim, which I consider as long since settled by default, then it will be time and proper for me to notice him…. The most charitable construction of the Dr's. conduct is to attribute it to a monomania induced by excessive vanity."
While many of those upon whom he had looked as friends turned against him in the mad scramble for power and wealth engendered by the extension of the telegraph lines, it is gratifying to turn to those who remained true to him through all, and among these none was more loyal than Alfred Vail. Their correspondence, which was voluminous, is always characterized by the deepest confidence and affection. In a long letter of March 24, Vail shows his solicitude for Morse's peace of mind: "I think I would not be bothered with a directorship in the New York and Buffalo line, nor in any other. I should wish to keep clear of them. It will only tend to harass and vex when you should be left quiet and undisturbed to pursue your improvements and the enjoyment of what is most gratifying to you."
And Morse, writing to Vail somewhat later in this same year, exclaims:
"You say you hope I shall not forget that we have spent many hours
together. You might have added 'happy hours.' I have tried you, dear
Vail, as a friend, and think I know you as a zealous and honest one."
Still earlier, on March 18, 1845, in one of his reports to the Postmaster-General, Cave Johnson, he adds: "In regard to the salary of the 'one clerk at Washington—$1200,' Mr. Vail, who would from the necessity of the case take that post, is my right-hand man in the whole enterprise. He has been with me from the year 1837, and is as familiar with all the mechanism and scientific arrangements of the Telegraph as I am myself…. His time and talent are more essential to the success of the Telegraph than [those of] any two persons that could be named."
Returning now to the letters to his brother Sidney, I shall give the following extracts:—
"March 29, 1847. I am now in New York permanently; that is I have no longer any official connection with Washington, and am thinking of fixing somewhere so soon as I can get my telegraphic matters into such a state as to warrant it; but my patience is still much tried. Although the enterprise looks well and is prospering, yet somehow I do not command the cash as some business men would if they were in the same situation. The property is doubtless good and is increasing, but I cannot use it as I could the money, for, while everybody seems to think I have the wealth of John Jacob, the only sum I have actually realized is my first dividend on one line, about fourteen hundred dollars, and with this I cannot purchase a house. But time will, perhaps, enable me to do so, if it is well that I should have one…. I have had some pretty threatening obstacles, but they as yet are summer clouds which seem to be dissipating through the smiles of our Heavenly Father. House's affair I think is dead. I believe it has been held up by speculators to drive a better bargain with me, thinking to scare me; but they don't find me so easily frightened. In Virginia I had to oppose a most bigoted, narrow, illiberal clique in a railroad company, which had the address to get a bill through the House of Delegates giving them actually the monopoly of telegraphs, and ventured to halloo before they were out of the woods. Mr. Kendall went post-haste to Richmond, met the bill and its supporters before the Committee of the Senate, and, after a sharp contest, procured its rejection in the Senate, and the adoption, by a vote of 13 to 7, of a substitute granting me right of way and corporate powers, which bill, after violent opposition in the House, was finally passed, 44 to 27. So a mean intrigue was defeated most signally, and I came off triumphant."
"April 27. This you will recognize by the date is my birthday; 36 years old. Only think, I shall never be 26 again. Don't you wish you were as young as I am? Well, if feelings determined age I should be in reality what I have above stated, but that leaf in the family Bible, those boys and that daughter, those nieces and nephews of younger brothers, and especially that grandson, they all concur in putting twenty years more to those 36. I cannot get them off; there they are 56!…
"There is an underhand intrigue against my telegraph interests in Virginia, fostered by a friend turned enemy in the hope to better his own interests, a man whom I have ever treated as a friend while I had the governmental patronage to bestow, and gave him office in Baltimore. Having no more of patronage to give I have no more friendship from him. Mr. R. has proved himself false, notwithstanding his naming his son after me as a proof of friendship."