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 embarrassment from each other, I think it worthy of consideration, and the principle on which such a division is proposed to be made might be extended to embrace the entire property.  The subject, however, requires mature deliberation, and I am not now prepared to present the plan, but will think it over and consult with Vail and Gale and arrange it, perhaps definitely, when I see you again in Washington.

I have letters from Vail at Washington and Rogers at Baltimore stating the fact that complete success has attended all the transmission of results by Telegraph, there not having been a failure in a single instance, and to the entire satisfaction of both political parties in the perfect impartiality of the directors of the Telegraph.

While the success of the Telegraph had now been fully demonstrated, and while congratulations and honors were showered on the inventor from all quarters, negotiations for its extension proceeded but slowly.  Morse still kept hoping that the Government would eventually purchase all the rights, and it was not until well into 1845 that he was compelled to abandon this dream.  In the mean time he was kept busy replying to enquiries from the representatives of Russia, France, and other European countries, and in repelling attacks which had already been launched against him in scientific circles.  As an example of the former I shall quote from a letter to His Excellency Alexander de Bodisco, the Russian Minister, written in December, 1844:—­

“In complying with your request to write you respecting my invention of the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph, I find there are but few points of interest not embraced in the printed documents already in your possession.  The principle on which, my whole invention rests is the power of the electro-magnet commanded at pleasure at any distance.  The application of this power to the telegraph is original with me.  If the electro-magnet is now used in Europe for telegraphic purposes, it has been subsequently introduced.  All the systems of electric telegraphs in Europe from 1820 to 1840 are based on the deflection of the magnetic needle, while my system, invented in 1832, is based, as I have just observed, on the electro-magnet....