"I make only one modification of your proposal, and that is, if any profits are realized, please substitute for my name the name of your brother Alfred's amiable widow." Although the malign animosity of F.O.J. Smith followed him to his grave, and even afterwards, he was, in this year of 1862, relieved from one source of annoyance from him, as we learn from a letter of May 19 to Mr. Kendall: "I have had a settlement with Smith in full on the award of the Referees in regard to the 'Honorary Gratuity,' and with less difficulty than I expected." Morse had now passed the Scriptural age allotted to man; he was seventy-one years old, and, in a letter of August 22, he remarks rather sorrowfully: "I feel that I am no longer young, that my career, whether for good or evil, is near its end, but I wish to give the energy and influence that remain to me to my country, to save it, if possible, to those who come after me." All through the year 1863 he labored to this end, with alternations of hope and despair. On February 9, 1863, he writes to his cousin, Judge Sidney Breese: "A movement is commenced in the formation of a society here which promises good. It is for the purpose of Diffusing Useful Political Knowledge. It is backed up by millionaires, so far as funds go, who have assured us that funds shall not be wanting for this object. They have made me its president." Through the agency of this society he worked to bring about "Peace with Honor," but, as one of their cardinal principles was the abandonment of abolitionism, he worked in vain. He bitterly denounced the Emancipation Proclamation, and President Lincoln came in for many hard words from his pen, being considered by him weak and vacillating. Mistaken though I think his attitude was in this, his opinions were shared by many prominent men of the day, and we must admit that for those who believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible there was much excuse. For instance, in a letter of September 21, 1863, to Martin Hauser, Esq., of Newbern, Indiana, he goes rather deeply into the subject:--