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By following the oblique line of letters, we get the words “THE CENTURY.” When all the words are so adjusted, we read, “THE CENTURY is an entertaining magazine.”
I cannot refrain from adding one more method which has been proposed for the transmission of secret messages. Let a man, says the ingenious author, breathe his words slowly in a long hollow cane hermetically sealed at the farthest end, then let him suddenly and closely seal the end into which he breathed. The voice will continue in the tube till it has some vent. When the seal is removed at the end which was first sealed, the words will come but distinctly and in order, but if the seal at the other end be removed, their inverted series will create confusion. This happy conception seems to have been proposed in all good faith by its author.
The first attempt at secret writing by the United States was made by Silas Deane, who was the first agent sent abroad by the Continental Congress. He was despatched to France for the purpose of purchasing arms and ammunition and to sound that country as to the probabilities of her recognizing the colonies if they should be forced to form themselves into an independent state; and whether their ambassadors would be received; and would France be disposed to enter into any treaty or alliance with them, for commerce or defense, or both; and if so, upon what principal condition. His instructions stated: “It is scarce necessary to pretend any other business at Paris than the gratifying of that curiosity which draws numbers thither yearly, merely to see so famous a city.” His mission being confidential, it was necessary to have great secrecy attached to his correspondence. For this purpose he was furnished by John Jay with an invisible ink and a chemical preparation for rendering the writing legible. As letters apparently blank might excite suspicion and lead to experiments that might expose the contrivance, the communications were written on large sheets of paper, beginning with a short letter written with common ink, respecting some fictitious person or business and under a feigned name, and the balance of the paper was used for the real or intended letter written in the invisible ink. Mr. Jay was the only one intrusted with the secret, and the letters were consequently addressed to him as “John Jay, Esq., Attorney at Law.” When a single sheet was insufficient to contain the secret despatch, Mr. Timothy Jones, or some other imaginary gentleman, requested the favor of Mr. Jay to forward the inclosed letter according to its directions; and the inclosed letter, with the exception of a short note on some fictitious business, was filled with the residue of the despatch in invisible ink.
Robert Morris, a member of the Committee of Secret Correspondence, writing to Mr. Jay, from Philadelphia, says:
Although your express delivered me your favor last Wednesday or Thursday, yet I did not receive the letter from Mr. Deane until this day, and shall now send after the express, that he may convey this safe to your hands; should he be gone I must find some other safe conveyance. You will find inclosed both of Mr. Deane’s letters, as you desired, and I shall thank you for the copy of the invisible part. He had communicated so much of this secret to me before his departure, as to let me know he had fixed with you a mode of writing that would be invisible to the rest of the world; he also promised to ask you to make a full communication to me, but in this use your pleasure; the secret, so far as I do or shall know it, will remain so to all other persons.
The letter of Mr. Deane written in common ink and at the top of the page was as follows: