"On May 16, 1838, I left the United States and arrived in London in June, for the purpose of obtaining letters patent for my Electro-Magnetic Telegraph System. I learned before I left the United States that Professor Wheatstone and Mr. Cooke, of London, had obtained letters patent in England for a 'Magnetic-Needle Telegraph,' based, as the name implies, on the deflection of the magnetic needle. Their telegraph, at that time, required six conductors between the two points of intercommunication for a single instrument at each of the two termini. Their mode of indicating signs for communicating intelligence was by deflecting five magnetic needles in various directions, in such a way as to point to the required letters upon a diamond-shaped dial-plate. It was necessary that the signal should be observed at the instant, or it was lost and vanished forever.
"I applied for letters patent for my system of communicating intelligence at a distance by electricity, differing in all respects from Messrs. Wheatstone and Cooke's system, invented five years before theirs, and having nothing in common in the whole system but the use of electricity on metallic conductors, for which use no one could obtain an exclusive privilege, since this much had been used for nearly one hundred years. My system is peculiar in the employment of electro-magnetism, or the motive power of electricity, to imprint permanent signs at a distance.
"I made no use of the deflections of the magnetic needle as signs. I required but one conductor between the two termini, or any number of intermediate points of intercommunication. I used paper moved by clockwork upon which I caused a lever moved by magnetism to imprint the letters and words of any required dispatch, having also invented and adapted to telegraph writing a new and peculiar alphabetic character for that purpose, a conventional alphabet, easily acquired and easily made and used by the operator. It is obvious at once, from a simple statement of these facts, that the system of Messrs. Wheatstone and Cooke and my system were wholly unlike each other. As I have just observed, there was nothing in common in the two systems but the use of electricity upon metallic conductors, for which no one could obtain an exclusive privilege.
"The various steps required by the English law were taken by me to procure a patent for my mode, and the fees were paid at the Clerk's office, June 22, and at the Home Department, June 25, 1838; also, June 26, caveats were entered at the Attorney and Solicitor-General's, and I had reached that part of the process which required the sanction of the Attorney-General. At this point I met the opposition of Messrs. Wheatstone and Cooke, and also of Mr. Davy, and a hearing was ordered before the Attorney-General, Sir John Campbell, on July 12, 1838. I attended at the Attorney-General's residence on the morning of that day, carrying with me my telegraphic apparatus for the purpose of explaining to him the total dissimilarity between my system and those of my opponents. But, contrary to my expectation, the similarity or dissimilarity of my mode from that of my opponents was not considered by the Attorney-General. He neither examined my instrument, which I had brought for that purpose, nor did he ask any questions bearing upon its resemblance to my opponents' system. I was met by the single declaration that my 'invention had been published,' and in proof a copy of the London 'Mechanics' Magazine,' No. 757, for February 10, 1838, was produced, and I was told that 'in consequence of said publication I could not proceed.'
"At this summary decision I was certainly surprised, being conscious that there had been no such publication of my method as the law required to invalidate a patent; and, even if there had been, I ventured to hint to the Attorney-General that, if I was rightly informed in regard to the British law, it was the province of a court and jury, and not of the Attorney-General, to try, and to decide that point."
The publication to which the Attorney-General referred had merely stated results, with no description whatever of the means by which these results were to be obtained and it was manifestly unfair to Morse on the part of this official to have refused his sanction; but he remained obdurate. Morse then wrote him a long letter, after consultation with Mr. Smith, setting forth all these points and begging for another interview.
"In consequence of my request in this letter I was allowed a second hearing. I attended accordingly, but, to my chagrin, the Attorney-General remarked that he had not had time to examine the letter. He carelessly took it up and turned over the leaves without reading it, and then asked me if I had not taken measures for a patent in my own country. And, upon my reply in the affirmative, he remarked that: 'America was a large country and I ought to be satisfied with a patent there.' I replied that, with all due deference, I did not consider that as a point submitted for the Attorney-General's decision; that the question submitted was whether there was any legal obstacle in the way of my obtaining letters patent for my Telegraph in England. He observed that he considered my invention as having been published, and that he must therefore forbid me to proceed.
"Thus forbidden to proceed by an authority from which there was no appeal, as I afterward learned, but to Parliament, and this at great cost of time and money, I immediately left England for France, where I found no difficulty in securing a patent. My invention there not only attracted the regards of the distinguished savants of Paris, but, in a marked degree, the admiration of many of the English nobility and gentry at that time in the French capital. To several of these, while explaining the operation of my telegraphic system, I related the history of my treatment by the English Attorney-General. The celebrated Earl of Elgin took a deep interest in the matter and was intent on my obtaining a special Act of Parliament to secure to me my just rights as the inventor of the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. He repeatedly visited me, bringing with him many of his distinguished friends, and on one occasion the noble Earl of Lincoln, since one of Her Majesty's Privy Council. The Honorable Henry Drummond also interested himself for me, and through his kindness and Lord Elgin's I received letters of introduction to Lord Brougham and to the Marquis of Northampton, the President of the Royal Society, and several other distinguished persons in England. The Earl of Lincoln showed me special kindness. In taking leave of me in Paris he gave me his card, and, requesting me to bring my telegraphic instruments with me to London, pressed me to give him the earliest notice of my arrival in London.
"I must here say that for weeks in Paris I had been engaged in negotiation with the Russian Counselor of State, the Baron Alexander de Meyendorff, arranging measures for putting the telegraph in operation in Russia. The terms of a contract had been mutually agreed upon, and all was concluded but the signature of the Emperor to legalize it. In order to take advantage of the ensuing summer season for my operations in Russia, I determined to proceed immediately to the United States to make some necessary preparations for the enterprise, without waiting for the formal completion of the contract papers, being led to believe that the signature of the Emperor was sure, a matter of mere form.
"Under these circumstances I left Paris on the 13th of March, 1839, and arrived in London on the 15th of the same month. The next day I sent my card to the Earl of Lincoln and my letter and card to the Marquis of Northampton, and in two or three days received a visit from both. By Earl Lincoln I was at once invited to send my Telegraph to his house in Park Lane, and on the 19th of March I exhibited its operation to members of both Houses of Parliament, of the Royal Society, and the Lords of the Admiralty, invited to meet me by the Earl of Lincoln. From the circumstances mentioned my time in London was necessarily short, my passage having been secured in the Great Western to sail on the 23d of March. Although solicited to remain a while in London, both by the Earl of Lincoln and the Honorable Henry Drummond, with a view to obtaining a special Act of Parliament for a patent, I was compelled by the circumstances of the case to defer till some more favorable opportunity, on my expected return to England, any attempt of the kind. The Emperor of Russia, however, refused to ratify the contract made with me by the Counselor of State, and my design of returning to Europe was frustrated, and I have not to this hour [April 2, 1847] had the means to prosecute this enterprise to a result in England. All my exertions were needed to establish my telegraphic system in my own country.