“I don’t know what you must think of me for not having written to you since my return.  It has not been for want of will but truly from the impossibility of withdrawing myself from an unprecedented pressure of more important duties, on which to write so that you could form any clear idea of them would be impossible.  These duties arise from the state of my affairs thrown into confusion by the conduct of parties intent on controlling all my property.  But, I am happy to state, my affairs are in a way of adjustment through the active exertions of my faithful agent and friend, Mr. Kendall, so far as his declining strength permits....  I wish you were near me so that we could exchange views on many subjects, particularly on the one which so largely occupies public attention everywhere.  I have been collecting works pro and con on the Slavery question with a view of writing upon it.  We are in perfect accord, I think, on that subject.  I believe that you and I would be considered in New England as rank heretics, for, I confess, the more I study the subject the more I feel compelled to declare myself on the Southern side of the question.

“I care not for the judgment of men, however; I feel on sure ground while standing on Bible doctrine, and I have arrived at the conclusion that a fearful hallucination, not less absurd than that which beclouded some of the most pious and otherwise intelligent minds of the days of Salem witchcraft, has for a time darkened the moral atmosphere of the North.”

The event has seemed to prove that it was the Southern sympathizers at the North, those “most pious and otherwise intelligent minds,” whose moral atmosphere was darkened by a “fearful hallucination,” for no one now claims that slavery is a divine institution because the Bible says, “Slaves, obey your masters.”

I have stated that one of the purposes of Morse’s visit to Europe in 1856 was to seek to persuade the various Governments which were using his telegraph to grant him some pecuniary remuneration.  The idea was received favorably at the different courts, and resulted in a concerted movement initiated by the Count Walewski, representing France, and participated in by ten of the European nations.  The sittings of this convention, or congress, were held in Paris from April, 1868, to the latter part of August, and the result is announced in a letter of Count Walewski to Morse of September 1:—­

SIR,—­It is with lively satisfaction that I have the honor to announce to you that a sum of four hundred thousand francs will be remitted to you, in four annuities, in the name of France, of Austria, of Belgium, of the Netherlands, of Piedmont, of Russia, of the Holy See, of Sweden, of Tuscany and of Turkey, as an honorary gratuity, and as a reward, altogether personal, of your useful labors.  Nothing can better mark than this collective act of reward the sentiment of public gratitude which your invention has so justly excited.