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."