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

by Samuel Finley Breese Morse

"I wish you were here; I am sure something could be done by an energetic business man like yourself. As for poor me I feel that I am a child in business matters. I can invent and perfect the invention, and demonstrate its uses and practicability, but 'further the deponent saith not.' Perhaps I underrate myself in this case, but that is not a usual fault in human nature."

It was natural that a keen business man like F.O.J. Smith should have leaned rather toward a private corporation, with its possibilities of great pecuniary gain, than toward government ownership. Morse, on the contrary, would have preferred, both at home and abroad, to place the great power which he knew his invention was destined to wield in the hands of a responsible government. However, so eager was he to make a practical test of the telegraph that, governments apparently not appreciating their great opportunity, he was willing to entrust the enterprise to capitalists. Here again he was balked, however, for, writing of his trials later, he says:—

"An unforeseen obstacle was interposed which has rendered my patent in France of no avail to me. By the French patent law at the time one who obtained a patent was obliged to put into operation his invention within two years from the issue of his patent, under the penalty of forfeiture if he does not comply with the law. In pursuance of this requisition of the law I negotiated with the president (Turneysen) of the Saint-Germain Railroad Company to construct a line of my Telegraph on their road from Paris to Saint-Germain, a distance of about seven English miles. The company was favorably disposed toward the project, but, upon application (as was necessary) to the Government for permission to have the Telegraph on their road, they received for answer that telegraphs were a government monopoly, and could not, therefore, be used for private purposes. I thus found myself crushed between the conflicting forces of two opposing laws."

This was, indeed, a crushing blow, and ended all hope of accomplishing anything in France, unless the Government should, in the short time still left to him, decide to take it up. The letters home, during the remainder of his stay in Europe, are voluminous, but as they are, in the main, a repetition of experiences similar to those already recorded, it will not be necessary to give them in full. He tells of the enthusiastic reception accorded to his invention by the savants, the high officials of the Government and the Englishmen of note then stopping in Paris. He tells also of the exasperating delays to which he was subjected, and which finally compelled him to return home without having accomplished anything tangible. He goes at length into his negotiations with the representative of the Czar, Baron Meyendorf, from which he entertained so many hopes, hopes which were destined in the end to be blasted, because the Czar refused to put his signature to the contract, his objection being that "Malevolence can easily interrupt the communication." This was a terrible disappointment to the inventor, for he had made all his plans to return to Europe in the spring of 1839 to carry out the Russian contract, which he was led to believe was perfectly certain, and the Czar's signature simply a matter of form. While at the time, and probably for all his life, Morse considered his failure in Europe as a cruel stroke of Fate, we cannot but conclude, in the light of future developments, that here again Fate was cruel in order to be kind. The invention, while it had been pronounced a scientific success, and had been awarded the palm over all other systems by the foremost scientists of the world, had yet to undergo the baptism of fire on the field of battle. It had never been tried over long distances in the open air, and many practical modifications had yet to be made, the necessity for which could only be ascertained during the actual construction of a commercial line. Morse's first idea, adhered to by him until found by experience, in the building of the first line between Washington and Baltimore, to be impracticable, had been to bury the wires in a trench in the ground. I say it was found to be impracticable, but that is true only of the conditions at that early date. The inventor was here again ahead of his time, for the underground system is now used in many cities, and may in time become universal. However, we shall see, when the story of the building of that first historic line is told, that in this respect, and in many others, great difficulties were encountered and failure was averted only by the ingenuity, the resourcefulness, and the quick-wittedness of the inventor himself and his able assistants. Is it too much to suppose that, had the Russian, or even the French, contract gone through, and had Morse been compelled to recruit his assistants from the people of an alien land, whose language he could neither speak nor thoroughly understand, the result would have been a dismal failure, calling down only ridicule on the head of the luckless inventor, and perhaps causing him to abandon the whole enterprise, discouraged and disheartened?

Be this as it may, the European trip was considered a failure in a practical sense, while having resulted in a personal triumph in so far as the scientific elements of the invention were concerned. I shall, therefore, give only occasional extracts from the letters, some of them dealing with matters not in any way related to the telegraph.

He writes to Mr. Smith on February 18, 1839:—

"I have been wholly occupied for the last week in copying out the correspondence and other documents to defend myself against the infamous attack of Dr. Jackson, notice of which my brother sent me…. I have sent a letter to Dr. Jackson calling on him to save his character by a total disclaimer of his presumptuous claim within one week from the receipt of the letter, and giving him the plea of a 'mistake' and 'misconception of my invention' by which he may retreat. If he fails to do this, I have requested my brother to publish immediately my defense, in which I give a history of the invention, the correspondence between Dr. Jackson and myself, and close with the letters of Hon. Mr. Rives, Mr. Fisher, of Philadelphia, and Captain Pell.

"I cannot conceive of such infatuation as has possessed this man. He can scarcely be deceived. It must be his consummate self-conceit that deceives him, if he is deceived. But this cannot be; he knows he has no title whatever to a single hint of any kind in the matter."

I have already alluded to the claim of Dr. Jackson, and have shown that it was proved to be utterly without foundation, and have only introduced this reference to it as an instance of the attacks which were made upon Morse, attacks which compelled him to consume much valuable time, in the midst of his other labors, in order to repel them, which he always succeeded in doing.

In writing of his negotiations with the Russian Government he mentions M. Amyot, "who has proposed also an Electric Telegraph, but upon seeing mine he could not restrain his gratification, and with his whole soul he is at work to forward it with all who have influence. He is the right-hand man of the Baron Meyendorf, and he is exerting all his power to have the Russian Government adopt my Telegraph…. He is really a noble-minded man. The baron told me he had a large soul, and I find he has. I have no claim on him and yet he seems to take as much interest in my invention as if it were his own. How different a conduct from Jackson's!… Every day is clearing away all the difficulties that prevent its adoption; the only difficulty that remains, it is universally said, is the protection of the wires from malevolent attack, and this can be prevented by proper police and secret and deep interment. I have no doubt of its universal adoption; it may take time but it is certain."