acquainted with many
members of Congress, he wrote to several of them on the subject. In some
of the letters he treats exhaustively of the history and scientific
principles of his telegraph, but I have selected the following, addressed
to the Honorable W.W. Boardman, as containing the most essential facts in
the most concise form:--

August 10, 1842.

My Dear Sir,--I enclose you a copy of the "Tribune" in which you will see
a notice of my Telegraph. I have showed its operation to a few friends
occasionally within a few weeks, among others to Professor Henry, of
Princeton (a copy of whose letter to me on this subject I sent you some
time since). He had never seen it in operation, but had only learned from
description the principle on which it is founded. He is not of an
enthusiastic temperament, but exceedingly cautious in giving an opinion
on scientific inventions, yet in this case he expressed himself in the
warmest terms, and told my friend Dr. Chilton (who informed me of it)
that he had just been witnessing "the operation of the most beautiful and
ingenious instrument he had ever seen."

Indeed, since I last wrote you, I have been wholly occupied in perfecting
its details and making myself familiar with the whole system. There is
not a shadow of a doubt as to its performing all that I have promised in
regard to it, and, indeed, all that has been conceived of it. Few can
understand the obstacles arising from want of pecuniary means that I have
had to encounter the past winter. To avoid debt (which I will never
incur) I have been compelled to make with my own hands a great part of my
machinery, but at an expense of time of very serious consideration to me.
I have executed in six months what a good machinist, if I had the means
to employ him, would have performed in as many weeks, and performed much
better.

I had hoped to be able to show my perfected instrument in Washington long
before this, and was (until this morning) contemplating its
transportation thither next week. The news, just arrived, of the proposed
adjournment of Congress has stopped my preparations, and interposes, I
fear, another year of anxious suspense.

Now, my dear sir, as your time is precious, I will state in few words
what I desire. The Government will eventually, without doubt, become
possessed of this invention, for it will be necessary from many
considerations; not merely as a direct advantage to the Government and
public at large if regu