Be tender of him, my dear sir; I could mention some things which would soften your judgment of his political feelings.  One thing only I can now say,—­remember he has married an English wife, whom he loves, and who has never known America.  He keeps entirely aloof from politics and is wholly absorbed in his art.  Newton is married to a Miss Sullivan, daughter of General Sullivan, of Boston, an accomplished woman and a belle.  He is expected in England soon.

“I found almost everybody out of town in London.  I called and left a card at Rogers’s, but he was in the country, so were most of the artists of my acquaintance.  The fine engraver who has executed so many of Leslie’s works, Danforth, is a stanch American; he would be a man after your heart; he admires you for that very quality.—­I must close in great haste.”

The transatlantic traveller did not depart on schedule time in 1832, as we find from another letter written to Mr. Cooper on October 5:—­

“Here I am yet, wind-bound, with a tremendous southwester directly in our teeth.  Yesterday the Formosa arrived and brought papers, etc., to the 10th September.  I have been looking them over.  Matters look serious at the South; they are mad there; great decision and prudence will be required to restore them to reason again, but they are so hot-headed, and are so far committed, I know not what will be the issue.  Yet I think our institutions are equal to any crisis....

“October 6, 7 o’clock. We are getting under way.  Good-bye.”

It is greatly to be regretted that Morse did not, on this voyage as on previous ones, keep a careful diary.  Had he done so, many points relating to the first conception of his invention would, from the beginning, have been made much clearer.  As it is, however, from his own accounts at a later date, and from the depositions of the captain of the ship and some of the passengers, the story can be told.

The voyage was, on the whole, I believe, a pleasant one and the company in the cabin congenial.  One night at the dinner-table the conversation chanced upon the subject of electro-magnetism, and Dr. Jackson described some of the more recent discoveries of European scientists—­the length of wire in the coil of a magnet, the fact that electricity passed instantaneously through any known length of wire, and that its presence could be observed at any part of the line by breaking the circuit.  Morse was, naturally, much interested and it was then that the inspiration, which had lain dormant in his brain for many years, suddenly came to him, and he said:  “If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity.”