“These may not be the exact words, but they convey the sense, and I, laughing, said:  ’Aha!  I see what you have been after, you have been examining the French system of telegraphing.’  He admitted that he had taken advantage of the kind offer of one in authority to do so....

“There was, on one occasion, another reference made to the conveyance of sound under water, and to the length of time taken to communicate the letting in of the water into the Erie Canal by cannon shots to New York, and other means, during which the suggestion of using keys and wires, like the piano, was rejected as requiring too many wires, if other things were available.  I recollect also that in our frequent visits to Mr. J. Fenimore Cooper’s, in the Rue St. Dominique, these subjects, so interesting to Americans, were often introduced, and that Morse seemed to harp on them, constantly referring to Franklin and Lord Bacon.  Now I, while recognizing the intellectual grandeur of both these men, had contracted a small opinion of their moral strength; but Morse would uphold and excuse, or rather deny, the faults attributed.  Lord Bacon, especially, he held to have sacrificed himself to serve the queen in her aberrations; while of Franklin, ‘the Great American,’ recognized by the French, he was particularly proud.”

Cooper also remembered some such hints of a telegraph made by Morse at that time, for in “The Sea Lions,"[1] on page 161, he says:—­

[Footnote 1:  The Riverside Press, 1870.]

“We pretend to no knowledge on the subject of the dates of discoveries in the arts and sciences, but well do we remember the earnestness, and single-minded devotion to a laudable purpose, with which our worthy friend first communicated to us his ideas on the subject of using the electric spark by way of a telegraph.  It was in Paris and during the winter of 1831-82 and the succeeding spring, and we have a satisfaction in recording this date that others may prove better claims if they can.”

Curiously enough, Morse himself could, in after years, never remember having suggested at that time the possibility of using electricity to convey intelligence.  He always insisted that the idea first came to him a few months later on his return voyage to America, and in 1849 he wrote to Mr. Cooper saying that he must be mistaken, to which the latter replied, under date of May 18:—­

“For the time I still stick to Paris, so does my wife, so does my eldest daughter.  You did no more than to throw out the general idea, but I feel quite confident this occurred in Paris.  I confess I thought the notion evidently chimerical, and as such spoke of it in my family.  I always set you down as a sober-minded, common-sense sort of a fellow, and thought it a high flight for a painter to make to go off on the wings of the lightning.  We may be mistaken, but you will remember that the priority of the invention was a question early started, and my impressions were the same much nearer to the time than it is to-day.”