This offer was not accepted, as will appear further on, but $8000 was appropriated for the support of the line already built, and that was all that Congress would do. It was while this matter was pending that Morse wrote to his brother Sidney, on June 13:—
"I am in the crisis of matters, so far as this session of Congress is concerned, in relation to the Telegraph, which absorbs all my time. Perfect enthusiasm seems to pervade all classes in regard to it, but there is still the thorn in the flesh which is permitted by a wise Father to keep me humble, doubtless. May his strength be sufficient for me and I shall fear nothing, and will bear it till He sees fit to remove it. Pray for me, as I do for you, that, if prosperity is allotted to us, we may have hearts to use it to the glory of God."
CHAPTER XXXI
JUNE 28, 1844—OCTOBER 9, 1846
Fame and fortune now assured.—Government declines purchase of telegraph.—Accident to leg gives needed rest.—Reflections on ways of Providence.—Consideration of financial propositions.—F.O.J. Smith's fulsome praise.—Morse's reply.—Extension of telegraph proceeds slowly. —Letter to Russian Minister.—Letter to London "Mechanics' Magazine" claiming priority and first experiments in wireless telegraphy.—Hopes that Government may yet purchase.—Longing for a home.—Dinner at Russian Minister's.—Congress again fails him.—Amos Kendall chosen as business agent.—First telegraph company.—Fourth voyage to Europe.—London, Broek, Hamburg.—Letter of Charles T. Fleischmann.—Paris.—Nothing definite accomplished.
Morse's fame was now secure, and fortune was soon to follow. Tried as he had been in the school of adversity, he was now destined to undergo new trials, trials incident to success, to prosperity, and to world-wide eminence. That he foresaw the new dangers which would beset him on every hand is clearly evidenced in the letters to his brother, but, heartened by the success which had at last crowned his efforts, he buckled on his armor ready to do battle to such foes, both within and without, as should in the future assail him. Fatalist as we must regard him, he believed in his star; or rather he went forward with sublime faith in that God who had thus far guarded him from evil, and in his own good time had given him the victory, and such a victory! For twelve years he had fought on through trials and privations, hampered by bodily ailments and the deep discouragements of those who should have aided him. Pitted against the trained minds and the wealth of other nations, he had gone forth a very David to battle, and, like David, the simplicity of his missile had given him the victory. Other telegraphs had been devised by other men; some had actually been put into operation, but it would seem as if all the nations had held their breath until his appeared, and, sweeping all the others from the field, demonstrated and maintained its supremacy.
From this time forward his life became more complex. Honors were showered upon him; fame carried his name to the uttermost parts of the earth; his counsel was sought by eminent scientists and by other inventors, both practical and visionary.
On the other hand, detractors innumerable arose; his rights to the invention were challenged, in all sincerity and in insincerity; infringements of his patent rights necessitated long and acrimonious lawsuits, and, like other men of mark, he was traduced and vilified. In addition to all this he took an active interest in the seething politics of the day and in religious questions which, to his mind and that of many others, affected the very foundations of the nation.
To follow him through all these labyrinthine ways would require volumes, and I shall content myself with selecting only such letters as may give a fair idea of how he bore himself in the face of these new and manifold trials, of how he sometimes erred in judgment and in action, but how through all he was sincere and firm in his faith, and how, at last, he was to find that home and that domestic bliss which he had all his life so earnestly desired, but which had until the evening of his days been denied to him.
Having won his great victory, retirement from the field of battle would have best suited him. He was now fifty-three years of age, and he felt that he had earned repose. To this end he sought to carry out his long-cherished idea that the telegraph should become the property of the Government, and he was willing to accept a very modest remuneration. As I have said before, he and the other proprietors joined in offering the telegraph to the Government for the paltry sum of $100,000. But the Administration of that day seems to have been stricken with unaccountable blindness, for the Postmaster-General, that same wise and sapient Cave Johnson who had sought to kill the telegraph bill by ridicule in the House, and in despite of his acknowledgment to Morse, reported: "That the operation of the Telegraph between Washington and Baltimore had not satisfied him that, under any rate of postage that could be adopted, its revenues could be made equal to its expenditures." Congress was equally lax, and so the Government lost its great opportunity, for when, in after years, the question of government ownership again came up, it was found that either to purchase outright or to parallel existing lines would cost many more millions than it would have taken thousands in 1844.