“Thus forbidden to proceed by an authority from which there was no appeal, as I afterward learned, but to Parliament, and this at great cost of time and money, I immediately left England for France, where I found no difficulty in securing a patent.  My invention there not only attracted the regards of the distinguished savants of Paris, but, in a marked degree, the admiration of many of the English nobility and gentry at that time in the French capital.  To several of these, while explaining the operation of my telegraphic system, I related the history of my treatment by the English Attorney-General.  The celebrated Earl of Elgin took a deep interest in the matter and was intent on my obtaining a special Act of Parliament to secure to me my just rights as the inventor of the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph.  He repeatedly visited me, bringing with him many of his distinguished friends, and on one occasion the noble Earl of Lincoln, since one of Her Majesty’s Privy Council.  The Honorable Henry Drummond also interested himself for me, and through his kindness and Lord Elgin’s I received letters of introduction to Lord Brougham and to the Marquis of Northampton, the President of the Royal Society, and several other distinguished persons in England.  The Earl of Lincoln showed me special kindness.  In taking leave of me in Paris he gave me his card, and, requesting me to bring my telegraphic instruments with me to London, pressed me to give him the earliest notice of my arrival in London.

“I must here say that for weeks in Paris I had been engaged in negotiation with the Russian Counselor of State, the Baron Alexander de Meyendorff, arranging measures for putting the telegraph in operation in Russia.  The terms of a contract had been mutually agreed upon, and all was concluded but the signature of the Emperor to legalize it.  In order to take advantage of the ensuing summer season for my operations in Russia, I determined to proceed immediately to the United States to make some necessary preparations for the enterprise, without waiting for the formal completion of the contract papers, being led to believe that the signature of the Emperor was sure, a matter of mere form.

“Under these circumstances I left Paris on the 13th of March, 1839, and arrived in London on the 15th of the same month.  The next day I sent my card to the Earl of Lincoln and my letter and card to the Marquis of Northampton, and in two or three days received a visit from both.  By Earl Lincoln I was at once invited to send my Telegraph to his house in Park Lane, and on the 19th of March I exhibited its operation to members of both Houses of Parliament, of the Royal Society, and the Lords of the Admiralty, invited to meet me by the Earl of Lincoln.  From the circumstances mentioned my time in London was necessarily short, my passage having been secured in the Great Western to sail on the 23d of March.  Although solicited to remain a while in London, both by the Earl of Lincoln and the Honorable Henry Drummond,