To the letter of Professor Gale, Morse replied on January 25:—­

“Thank you sincerely for your effective interference in my favor in the recent, but not unexpected, attack of F.O.J.S.  I will, so soon as I can free myself from some very pressing matters, write you more fully on the subject.  Yet I can add nothing to your perfectly clear exposition of the difference between a discovery of a principle in science and its application to a useful purpose.  As for Smith’s suggestion of putting Henry on the top of the proposed monument, I can hardly suppose Professor H. would feel much gratification on learning the character of his zealous advocate.  It is simply a matter of spite; carrying out his intense and smothered antipathy to me, and not for any particular regard for Professor H.

“As I have had nothing to do with the proposed monument, I have no feeling on the subject.  If they who have the direction of that monument think the putting of Professor H. on the apex will meet the applause of the public, including the expressed opinion of the entire world, by all means put him there.  I certainly shall make no complaint.”

The monument was never erected, and this effort of Smith’s to humiliate Morse proved abortive.  But his spite did not end there, as we learn from the following letter written by Morse on February 26, 1872, to the Reverend Aspinwall Hodge, of Hartford, Connecticut, the husband of one of his nieces:—­

“Some unknown person has sent me the advance sheets of a work (the pages between 1233 and 1249) publishing in Hartford, the title of which is not given, but I think is something like ’The Great Industries of the United States.’  The pages sent me are entitled ’The American Magnetic Telegraph.’  They contain the most atrocious and vile attack upon me which has ever appeared in print.  I shall be glad to learn who are the publishers of this work, what are the characters of the publishers, and whether they will give me the name or names of the author or authors of this diatribe, and whether they vouch for the character of those who furnished the article for their work.

“I know well enough, indeed, who the libellers are and their motives, which arise from pure spite and revenge for having been legally defeated parties in cases relating to the Telegraph before the courts.  To you I can say the concocters of this tirade are F.O.J.  Smith, of bad notoriety, and Henry O’Reilly.

“Are the publishers responsible men, and are they aware of the character of those who have given them that article, particularly the moral character of Smith, notorious for his debaucheries and condemned in court for subornation of perjury, and one of the most revengeful men, who has artfully got up this tirade because my agent, the late Honorable Amos Kendall, was compelled to resist his unrighteous claim upon me for some $25,000 which, after repeated trials lasting some twelve years, was at length, by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, decided against him, and he was adjudged to owe me some $14,000?