However, the year 1840 marked some progress, for on the 20th of June the first patent was issued to Morse. It may be remembered that, while his caveat and petition were filed in 1837, he had requested that action on them be deferred until after his return from Europe. He had also during the year been gradually perfecting his invention as time and means permitted. It was during the year 1840, too, that Messrs. Wheatstone and Cooke proposed to join forces with the Morse patentees in America, but this proposition was rejected, although Morse seems to have been almost tempted, for in a letter to Smith he says:-- "I send you copies of two letters just received from England. What shall I say in answer? Can we make any arrangements with them? Need we do it? Does not our patent secure us against foreign interference, or are we to be defeated, not only in England but in our own country, by the subsequent inventions of Wheatstone? "I feel my hands tied; I know not what to say. Do advise immediately so that I can send by the British Queen, which sails on the first prox." Fortunately Smith advised against a combination, and the matter was dropped. It will not be necessary to dwell at length on the events of the year 1841. The situation and aims of the inventor are best summed up in a beautiful and characteristic letter, written on February 14 of that year, to his cousin, the Reverend Edward S. Salisbury:-- "Your letter containing a draft for three hundred dollars I have received, for which accept my sincere thanks. I have hesitated about receiving it because I had begun to despair of ever being able to touch the pencil again. The blow I received from Congress, when the decision was made concerning the pictures for the Rotunda, has seriously and vitally affected my enthusiasm in my art. When that event was announced to me I was tempted to yield up all in despair, but I roused myself to resist the temptation, and, determining still to fix my mind upon the work, cast about for the means of accomplishing it in such ways as my Heavenly Father should make plain. My telegraphic enterprise was one of those means. Induced to prosecute it by the Secretary of the Treasury, and encouraged by success in every part of its progress, urged forward to complete it by the advice of the most judicious friends, I have carried the invention on my part to perfection. That is to say, so far as the invention itself is concerned. I _have done my part_. It is approved in the highest quarters--in England, France, and at home--by scientific societies and by governments, and waits only the action of the latter, or of capitalists, to carry it into operation.