This Mr. Coffin wrote many long letters telling, in vivid language, of the great difficulties which beset the passage of a bill through both houses of Congress, and of how skilled he was in all the diplomatic moves necessary to success, and finally, after a long delay, occasioned by the difficulty of getting powers of attorney from all the proprietors, he was authorized to go ahead.  The sanguine inventor hoped much from this unsolicited offer of assistance, but he was again doomed to disappointment, for Mr. Coffin’s glowing promises amounted to nothing at all, and the session of 1841-42 ended with no action taken on the bill.

In view of the fact, alluded to in a former chapter, that Francis O.J.  Smith later became a bitter enemy of Morse’s, and was responsible for many of the virulent attacks upon him, going so far as to say that most, if not all, of the essentials of the telegraph had been invented by others, it may be well to quote the following sentences from a letter of August 21, 1841, in reply to Morse’s of August 16:—­

“I shall be in Washington more next winter, and will lend all aid in my power, of course, to any agent we may have there.  My expenditures in the affair, as you know, have been large and liberal, and have somewhat embarrassed me.  Hence I cannot incur more outlay.  I am, however, extremely solicitous for the double purpose of having you witness with your own eyes and in your own lifetime the consummation in actual, practical, national utility [of] this beautiful and wonderful offspring of your mechanical and philosophical genius, and know that you have not overestimated the service you have been ambitious of rendering to your country and the world.”

On December 8, 1841, Morse again urges Smith to action:—­

“Indeed, my dear sir, something ought to be done to carry forward this enterprise that we may all receive what I think we all deserve.  The whole labor and expense of moving at all devolve on me, and I have nothing in the world.  Completely crippled in means I have scarcely (indeed, I have not at all) the means even to pay the postage of letters on the subject.  I feel it most tantalizing to find that there is a movement in Washington on the subject; to know that telegraphs will be before Congress this session, and from the means possessed by Gonon and Wheatstone!! (yes, Wheatstone who successfully headed us off in England), one or the other of their two plans will probably be adopted.  Wheatstone, I suppose you know, has a patent here, and has expended $1000 to get everything prepared for a campaign to carry his project into operation, and more than that, his patent is dated before mine!

“My dear sir, to speak as I feel, I am sick at heart to perceive how easily others, foreigners, can manage our Congress, and can contrive to cheat our country out of the honor of a discovery of which the country boasts, and our countrymen out of the profits which are our due; to perceive how easily they can find men and means to help them in their plans, and how difficult, nay, impossible, for us to find either.  Is it really so, or am I deceived?  What can be done?  Do write immediately and propose something.  Will you not be in Washington this winter?  Will you not call on me as you pass through New York, if you do go?