Morse answers on November 30:—­

“I regret finding you absent; I wished to have had a few moments’ conversation with you in relation to the allusion I made to Professor Henry.  If possible I wish to avoid any course which might weaken the influence for good of such a man as Henry.  I will forbear exposure to the last moment, and, in view of my duty as a Christian at least, I will give him an opportunity to explain to me in private.  If he refuses, then I shall feel it my duty to show how unfairly he has conducted himself in allowing his testimony to be used to my detriment.

“I write in haste, and will merely add that, to consummate these views, I shall for the present delay the article I had requested you to insert in your columns, and allow the various misrepresentations to remain yet a little longer unexposed, at the same time thanking you cordially for your courteous accordance of my request.”

A slight set-back was encountered by Morse and his associates at this time by the denial of an injunction against F.O.J.  Smith, and, in a letter to Mr. Kendall of December 4, the long-suffering inventor exclaims:—­

“F.O.J. crows at the top of his voice, and I learned that he and his man Friday, Foss, had a regular spree in consequence, and that the latter was noticed in Broadway drunk and boisterously huzzaing for F.O.J. and cursing me and my telegraph.

“I read in my Bible:  ‘The triumph of the wicked is short.’  This may have a practical application, in this case at any rate.  I have full confidence in that Power that, for wise purposes, allows wickedness temporarily to triumph that His own designs of bringing good out of evil may be the more apparent.”

Another of Morse’s fixed principles in life is referred to in a letter to Judge E. Fitch Smith of February 4, 1858:  “Yours of the 31st ulto. is this moment received.  Your request has given me some trouble of spirit on this account, to wit:  My father lost a large property, the earnings of his whole life of literary labor, by simply endorsing.  My mother was ever after so affected by this fact that it was the constant theme of her disapprobation, and on her deathbed I gave her my promise, in accordance with her request, that I never would endorse a note.  I have never done such a thing, and, of course, have never requested the endorsement of another.  I cannot, therefore, in that mode accommodate you, but I can probably aid you as effectually in another way.”

It will not be necessary to dwell at length on further happenings in the year 1853.  Order was gradually emerging from chaos in the various lines of telegraph, which, under the wise guidance of Amos Kendall, were tending towards a consolidation into one great company.  The decision of the Supreme Court had not yet been given, causing temporary embarrassment to the patentees by allowing the pirates to continue their depredations unchecked.  F.O.J.  Smith continued to give trouble.  To quote from a letter of Morse’s to Mr. Kendall of January 10, 1853:  “The Good Book says that ‘one sinner destroyeth much good,’ and F.O.J. being (as will be admitted by all, perhaps, except himself) a sinner of that class bent upon destroying as much good as he can, I am desirous, even at much sacrifice (a desire, of course, inter nos) to get rid of controversy with him.”