n, or
was, in fact, interested to pursue it to maturity as Mr. Morse then
seemed to be, nor have I been able since that time to recall any fact or
circumstance to justify the claim of any person other than Mr. Morse to
the invention."

This clear statement of Mr. Fisher's was cheerfully given in answer to a
request for his recollections of the circumstances, in order to combat
the claim of Dr. Charles T. Jackson that he had given Morse all the ideas
of the telegraph, and that he should be considered at least its joint
inventor. This was the first of the many claims which the inventor was
forced to meet. It resulted in a lawsuit which settled conclusively that
Morse was the sole inventor, and that Jackson was the victim of a mania
which impelled him to claim the discoveries and achievements of others as
his own. I shall have occasion to refer to this matter again.

It is to be noted that Mr. Fisher refers to "signs for letters." Whether
Morse actually had devised or spoken of a conventional alphabet at that
time cannot be proved conclusively, but that it must have been in his
mind the "Cuvier" referred to before indicates.

Others of his fellow-passengers gave testimony to the same effect, and
Captain Pell stated under oath that, when he saw the completed instrument
in 1837, he recognized it as embodying the principles which Morse had
explained to him on the Sully; and he added: "Before the vessel was in
port, Mr. Morse addressed me in these words: 'Well, Captain, should you
hear of the telegraph one of these days as the wonder of the world,
remember the discovery was made on board the good ship Sully.'"

Morse always clung tenaciously to the date of 1832 as that of his
invention, and, I claim, with perfect justice. While it required much
thought and elaboration to bring it to perfection; while he used the
published discoveries of others in order to make it operate over long
distances; while others labored with him in order to produce a practical
working apparatus, and to force its recognition on a skeptical world, the
basic idea on which everything else depended was his; it was original
with him, and he pursued it to a successful issue, himself making certain
new and essential discoveries and inventions. While, as I have said, he
made use of the discoveries of others, these men in turn were dependent
on the earlier investigations of scientists who preceded them, and so the
chain lengthens out.

There will always be