ration, and more
than that, his patent is dated _before mine!_

"My dear sir, to speak as I feel, I am sick at heart to perceive how
easily others, _foreigners_, can manage our Congress, and can contrive to
cheat our country out of the honor of a discovery of which the country
boasts, and our countrymen out of the profits which are our due; to
perceive how easily they can find men and means to help them in their
plans, and how difficult, nay, impossible, for us to find either. Is it
really so, or am I deceived? What can be done? Do write immediately and
propose something. Will you not be in Washington this winter? Will you
not call on me as you pass through New York, if you do go?

"Gonon has his telegraph on the Capitol, and a committee of the Senate
reported in favor of trying his for a short distance, and will pass a
bill this session if we are not doing something. Some means, somehow,
must be raised. I have been compelled to stop my machine just at the
moment of completion. I cannot move a step without running in debt, and
that I cannot do.

"As to the company that was thought of to carry the Telegraph into
operation here, it is another of those _ignes fatui_ that have just led
me on to waste a little more time, money, and patience, and then
vanished. The gentleman who proposed the matter was, doubtless, friendly
disposed, but he lacks judgment and perseverance in a matter of this
sort.

"If Congress would but pass the bill of $30,000 before them, there would
be no difficulty. There is no difficulty in the scientific or mechanical
part of the matter; that is a problem solved. The only difficulty that
remains is obtaining funds, which Congress can furnish, to carry it into
execution. I have a great deal to say, but must stop for want of time to
write more."

But he does not stop. He is so full of his subject that he continues at
some length:--

"Everything done by me in regard to the Telegraph is at arm's length. I
can do nothing without consultation, and when I wish to consult on the
most trivial thing I have three letters to write, and a week or ten days
to wait before I can receive an answer.

"I feel at times almost ready to cast the whole matter to the winds, and
turn my attention forever from the subject. Indeed, I feel almost
inclined, at tunes, to destroy the evidences of priority of invention in
my possession and let Wheatstone and England take the credit of it. For
it is tantalizing in the highest