ur countrymen, which your
genius has proved to be feasible, under the liberal encouragement of our
national councils, and that you may, with this great gratification, also
realize from it the substantial reward, which inventive merit too seldom
acquires, in the shape of pecuniary independence, is the sincere wish of

Your most respectful and obedient servant
The Author.

This florid and fulsome eulogy was written by that singular being who
could thus flatter, and almost apotheosize, the inventor in public, while
in secret he was doing everything to thwart him, and who never, as long
as he lived, ceased to antagonize him, and later accused him of having
claimed the credit of an invention all the essentials of which were
invented by others. No wonder that Morse was embarrassed and at a loss
how to reply to the letter of Smith's enclosing this eulogy and, at the
same time, bringing up one of the subjects in dispute:--

New York, November 13, 1844.

Dear Sir,--I have received yours of the 4th and 5th inst., and reply in
relation to the several subjects you mention in their order.

I like very well the suggestion in regard to the presentation of a set of
the Telegraph Dictionary you are publishing to each member of Congress,
and, when I return to Washington, will see the Secretary of the Treasury
and see if he will assent to it.

As to the dedication to me, since you have asked my opinion, I must say I
should prefer to have it much curtailed and less laudatory. I must refer
it entirely to you, however, as it is not for me to say what others
should write and think of me.

In regard to the Bartlett claim against the Government and your plan for
settling it, I cannot admit that, as proprietors of the Telegraph, we
have anything to do with it. I regret that there has been any mention of
it, and I had hoped that you yourself had come to the determination to
leave the matter altogether, or at least until the Telegraph bill had
been definitely settled in Congress. However much I may deprecate
agitation of the subject in the Senate, to mar and probably to defeat all
our prospects, it is a matter over which I have no control in the aspect
that has been given to it, and therefore--"the suppression of details
which had better not be pushed to a decision"--does not rest with me.

In regard, however, to such a division of the property of the Telegraph
as shall enable each of us to labor for the general benefit without
embarrassm