More of the details of this stupendous undertaking will be told in the proper chronological order, but before leaving the letter to Mr. Walker, just quoted from, I wish to note that when Morse speaks of sitting in his office and communicating by a touch of the key with the outside world, he refers to the fact that the telegraph companies with which he was connected had obligingly run a short line from the main line (which at that time was erected along the highway from New York to Albany) into his office at Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie, so that he was literally in touch with every place of any importance in the United States.
Always solicitous for the welfare of mankind in general, he says in a letter to Norvin Green, in July, 1855, after discussing the proposed cable: "The effects of the Telegraph on the interests of the world, political, social and commercial have, as yet, scarcely begun to be apprehended, even by the most speculative minds. I trust that one of its effects will be to bind man to his fellow-man in such bonds of amity as to put an end to war. I think I can predict this effect as in a not distant future."
Alas! in this he did not prove himself a true prophet, although it must be conceded that many wars have been averted or shortened by means of the telegraph, and there are some who hope that a warless age is even now being conceived in the womb of time.
On July 18, 1855, he writes to his good friend Dr. Gale: "I have no time to add, as every moment is needed to prepare for my Newfoundland expedition, to be present at laying down the first submarine cable of any considerable length on this side the water, although the first for telegraph purposes, you well remember, we laid between Castle Garden and Governor's Island in 1842."
On the 7th of August, Morse, with his wife and their eldest son, a lad of six, joined a large company of friends on board the steamer James Adger which sailed for Newfoundland. There they were to meet the Sarah L. Bryant, from England, with the cable which was to be laid across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The main object of the trip was a failure, like so many of the first attempts in telegraphic communication, for a terrific storm compelled them to cut the cable and postpone the attempt, which, however, was successfully accomplished the next year.
The party seems to have had a delightful time otherwise, for they were fêted wherever they stopped, notably at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and St. Johns, Newfoundland. At the latter place a return banquet was given on board the James Adger, and the toastmaster, in calling on Morse for a speech, recited the following lines:—
"The steed called Lightning (say the Fates)
Was tamed in the United States.
'T was Franklin's hand that caught the horse,
'T was harnessed by Professor Morse."
To turn again for a moment to the darker side of the picture of those days, it must be kept in mind that annoying litigation was almost constant, and in the latter part of 1855 a decision had been rendered in favor of F.O.J. Smith, who insisted on sharing in the benefits of the extension of the patent, although, instead of doing anything to deserve it, he had done all in his power to thwart the other patentees. Commenting on this in a letter to Mr. Kendall of November 22, 1855, Morse, pathetically and yet philosophically, says:—
"Is there any mode of arrangement with Smith by which matters in partnership can be conducted with any degree of harmony? I wish him to have his legal rights in full, however unjustly awarded to him. I must suffer for my ignorance of legal technicalities. Mortifying as this is it is better, perhaps, to suffer it with a good grace and even with cheerfulness, if possible, rather than endure the wear and tear of the spirits which a brooding over the gross fraud occasions. An opportunity of setting ourselves right in regard to him may be not far off in the future. Till then let us stifle at least all outward expressions of disgust or indignation at the legal swindle."
And, with the keen sense of justice which always actuated him, he adds in a postscript: "By the by, if Judge Curtis's decision holds good in regard to Smith's inchoate right, does it not equally hold good in regard to Vail, and is he not entitled to a proportionate right in the extension?"