Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals / In Two Volumes, Volume II

by Samuel Finley Breese Morse

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."