.

Accept, Gentlemen, the assurance of the respect of Your obedient servant,
Samuel F.B. Morse.

The banquet was given at Delmonico's, which was then on the corner of
Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street, and was presided over by Chief
Justice Salmon P. Chase, who had been the leading counsel _against_ Morse
in his first great lawsuit, but who now cheerfully acknowledged that to
Morse and America the great invention of the telegraph was due. About two
hundred men sat down at the tables, among them some of the most eminent
in the country. Morse sat at the right of Chief Justice Chase, and Sir
Edward Thornton, British Ambassador, on his left. When the time for
speechmaking came, Cyrus Field read letters from President Andrew
Johnson; from General Grant, President-elect; from Speaker Colfax,
Admiral Farragut, and many others. He also read a telegram from Governor
Alexander H. Bullock of Massachusetts: "Massachusetts honors her two
sons--Franklin and Morse. The one conducted the lightning safely from the
sky; the other conducts it beneath the ocean from continent to continent.
The one tamed the lightning; the other makes it minister to human wants
and human progress."

From London came another message:--

"CYRUS W. FIELD, New York. The members of the joint committee of the
Anglo-American and Atlantic Telegraph Companies hear with pleasure of the
banquet to be given this evening to Professor Morse, and desire to greet
that distinguished telegraphist, and wish him all the compliments of the
season."

Mr. Field added: "This telegram was sent from London at four o'clock this
afternoon, and was delivered into the hands of your committee at 12.50."
This, naturally, elicited much applause and laughter.

Speeches then followed by other men prominent in various walks of life.
Sir Edward Thornton said that he "had great satisfaction in being able to
contribute his mite of that admiration and esteem for Professor Morse
which must be felt by all for so great a benefactor of his fellow
creatures and of posterity."

Chief Justice Chase introduced the guest of the evening in the following
graceful words:--

"Many shining names will at once occur to any one at all familiar with
the history of the Telegraph. Among them I can pause to mention only
those of Volta, the Italian, to whose discoveries the battery is due;
Oersted, the Dane, who first discovered the magnetic properties of the
electric current; Ampere and Arago, the Frenchme