Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals: In Two Volumes, Volume IIMorse, Samuel Finley Breese
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Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals: In Two Volumes, Volume II
Morse, Samuel Finley Breese
Morse, Samuel Finley Breese, 1791-1872; Telegraph
I have letters from Vail at Washington and Rogers at Baltimore stating
the fact that complete success has attended all the transmission of
results by Telegraph, there not having been a failure in a single
instance, and to the entire satisfaction of both political parties in the
perfect impartiality of the directors of the Telegraph.
While the success of the Telegraph had now been fully demonstrated, and
while congratulations and honors were showered on the inventor from all
quarters, negotiations for its extension proceeded but slowly. Morse
still kept hoping that the Government would eventually purchase all the
rights, and it was not until well into 1845 that he was compelled to
abandon this dream. In the mean time he was kept busy replying to
enquiries from the representatives of Russia, France, and other European
countries, and in repelling attacks which had already been launched
against him in scientific circles. As an example of the former I shall
quote from a letter to His Excellency Alexander de Bodisco, the Russian
Minister, written in December, 1844:--
"In complying with your request to write you respecting my invention of
the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph, I find there are but few points of
interest not embraced in the printed documents already in your
possession. The principle on which, my whole invention rests is the power
of the electro-magnet commanded at pleasure at any distance. The
application of this power to the telegraph is original with me. If the
electro-magnet is now used in Europe for telegraphic purposes, it has
been subsequently introduced. All the systems of electric telegraphs in
Europe from 1820 to 1840 are based on the _deflection of the magnetic
needle_, while my system, invented in 1832, is based, as I have just
observed, on the electro-magnet....
"Should the Emperor be desirous of the superintendence of an experienced
person to put the Telegraph in operation in Russia, I will either engage
myself to visit Russia for that purpose; or, if my own or another
government shall, previous to receiving an answer from Russia, engage my
personal attendance, I will send an experienced person in my stead."
As a specimen of the vigorous style in which he repelled attacks on his
merits as an inventor, I shall give the following:--
Messrs. Editors,--The London "Mechanics' Magazine," for October, 1844,
copies an article from the Baltimore "American" in which my discovery in
relation to causing electricity to cross rivers without wires is
announced, and then in a note to his readers the editor of the magazine
makes the following assertion: "The English reader need scarcely be
informed that Mr. Morse has in this, as in other matters relating to
magneto telegraphs, only _re_discovered what was previously well known in
this country."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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