“I received a letter a few days ago from General Van Rensselaer in which he says:  ’I immediately laid your request before the President and seconded it with my warmest recommendations.  It is impossible to predict the result at present.  If our friend Mr. Poinsett is appointed minister, which his friends are pressing, he will no doubt be happy to have you in his suite.’

“Thus the case rests at present.  If Mr. Poinsett is appointed I shall probably go to Mexico, if not, it will be more doubtful....  If I go I should take my picture of the House of Representatives, which, in the present state of favorable feeling towards our country, I should probably dispose of to advantage.

“All accounts that I hear from Mexico are in the highest degree favorable to my enterprise, and I hear much from various quarters.”

As can well be imagined, his wife did not look with unalloyed pleasure on this plan.  She says in a letter of December 25, 1823:  “I have felt much for you, my dearest Finley, in all your trials and perplexities.  I was sorry to hear you had been unsuccessful in obtaining portraits.  I hope you will, ere long, experience a change for the better....  As to the Mexico plan, I know not what to think of it.  How can I consent to have you be at such a distance?”

However, convinced by her husband that it would be for his best interests to go, she reluctantly gave her consent and he used every legitimate effort to secure the appointment.  He was finally successful.  Mr. Poinsett was not appointed as minister; this honor was bestowed on the Honorable Ninian Edwards, of Illinois, but Morse was named as one of his suite.

In a note from the Honorable Robert Young Hayne, who, it will be remembered, was the opponent of Daniel Webster in the great debates on States’ Rights in the Senate, Morse was thus apprised of his appointment:  “Governor Edwards’s suite consists of Mr. Mason, of Georgetown, D.C., secretary of the legation; Mr. Hodgson, of Virginia, private secretary; and yourself, attache.”

Morse had great hopes of increasing his reputation as a painter and of earning much money in Mexico.  He was perfectly frank in stating that his principal object in seeking an appointment as attache was that he might pursue his profession, and, in a letter to Mr. Edwards of April 15, 1824, he thus explains why he considers this not incompatible with his duties as attache:  “That the pursuit of my profession will not be derogatory to the situation I may hold I infer from the fact that many of the ancient painters were ambassadors to different European courts, and pursued their professions constantly while abroad.  Rubens, while ambassador to the English court, executed some of his finest portraits and decorated the ceiling of the chapel of White Hall with some of his best historical productions.”

When it was finally decided that he should go, he made all his preparations, including a bed and bedding among his impedimenta, being assured that this was necessary in Mexico, and bade farewell to his family.