This intention he fulfilled, as we shall see later on, and I wish to call special attention to the tone of these letters because, as I have said before, Morse has been accused of gross ingratitude and injustice towards Alfred Vail, whereas a careful and impartial study of all the circumstances of their connection proves quite the contrary. Vail's advocates, in loudly claiming for him much more than the evidence shows he was entitled to, have not hesitated to employ gross personal abuse of Morse in their newspaper articles, letters, etc., even down to the present day. This has made my task rather difficult, for, while earnestly desirous of giving every possible credit to Vail, I have been compelled to introduce much evidence, which I should have preferred to omit, to show the essential weakness of his character; he seems to have been foredoomed to failure. He undoubtedly was of great assistance in the early stages of the invention, and for this Morse always cheerfully gave him full credit, but I have proved that he did not invent the dot-and-dash alphabet, which has been so insistently claimed for him, and that his services as a mechanician were soon dispensed with in favor of more skilful men. I have also shown that he practically left Morse to his fate in the darkest years of the struggle to bring the telegraph into public use, and that, by his morbid suspicions, he hampered the efforts of Mr. Kendall to harmonize conflicting interests. For all this Morse never bore him any ill-will, but endeavored in every way to foster and safeguard his interests. That he did not succeed was no fault of his. Another reminder that he was but human, and that he could not expect to sail serenely along on the calm, seas of popular favor without an occasional squall, was given to him just at this time. Professor Joseph Henry had requested the Regents of the Smithsonian Institute to enquire into the rights and wrongs of the controversy between himself and Morse, which had its origin in Henry's testimony in the telegraph suits, tinged as this testimony was with bitterness on account of the omissions in Vail's book, and which was fanned into a flame by Morse's "Defense." The latter resented the fact that all these proceedings had taken place while he was out of the country, and without giving him an opportunity to present his side of the case. However, he shows his willingness to do what is right in the letter to Colonel Shaffner of February 22, from which I have already quoted:--