“A memorable day.  I never had my anxieties so tried as in this case of extension, and after weeks of suspense, this suspense was prolonged to the last moment of endurance.  I have just returned with the intelligence from the telegraph office from Mr. Watson—­’Patent extended.  All right.’

“Well, what is now to be done?  I am for taking time by the forelock and placing ourselves above the contingencies of the next expiration of the patent.  While keeping our vantage ground with the pirates I wish to meet them in a spirit of compromise and of magnanimity.  I hope we may now be able to consolidate on advantageous terms.”

It appears that at this time he was advised by many of his friends, including Dr. Gale, to sever his business connection with Mr. Kendall, both on account of the increasing feebleness of that gentleman, and because, while admittedly the soul of honor, Mr. Kendall had kept their joint accounts in a very careless and slipshod manner, thereby causing considerable financial loss to the inventor.  But, true to his friends, as he always was, he replies to Dr. Gale on June 30:—­

“Let me thank you specially personally for your solicitude for my interests.  This I may say without disparagement to Mr. Kendall, that, were the contract with an agent to be made anew, I might desire to have a younger and more healthy man, and better acquainted with regular book-keeping, but I could not desire a more upright and more honorable man.  If he has committed errors, (as who has not?) they have been of the head and not of the heart.  I have had many years experience of his conduct, think I have seen him under strong temptation to do injustice with prospects of personal benefit, and with little chance of detection, and yet firmly resisting.”

Among the calumnies which were spread broadcast, both during the life of the inventor and after his death, even down to the present day, was the accusation of great ingratitude towards those who had helped him in his early struggles, and especially towards Alfred Vail.  The more the true history of his connection with his associates is studied, the more baseless do these accusations appear, and in this connection the following extracts from letters to Alfred Vail and to his brother George are most illuminating.  The first letter is dated July 15, 1854:—­

“The legal title to my Patent for the American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph of June 20th, 1840, is, by the late extension of said patent for seven years from the said date, now vested in me alone; but I have intended that the pecuniary interest which was guaranteed to you in my invention as it existed in 1838, and in my patent of 1840, should still inure to your benefit (yet in a different shape) under the second patent and the late extension of the first.

“For the simplification of my business transactions I prefer to let the Articles of Agreement, which expired on the 20th June, 1854, remain cancelled and not to renew them, retaining in my sole possession the legal title; but I hereby guarantee to you two sixteenths of such sums as may be paid over to me in the sale of patent rights, after the proportionate deductions of such necessary expenses as may be required in the business of the agency for conducting the sales of said patent rights, subject also to the terms of your agreement with Mr. Kendall.