Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals Volume II Part 30

SEPTEMBER 3, 1858--SEPTEMBER 21, 1863

Visits Europe again with a large family party.--Regrets this.--Sails for Porto Rico with wife and two children.--First impressions of the tropics.--Hospitalities.--His son-in-law's plantation.--Death of Alfred Vail.--Smithsonian exonerates Henry.--European honors to Morse.--First line of telegraph in Porto Rico.--Banquet.--Returns home.--Reception at Poughkeepsie.--Refuses to become candidate for the Presidency.--Purchases New York house.--F.O.J. Smith claims part of European gratuity.--Succeeds through legal technicality.--Visit of Prince of Wales.--Duke of Newcastle.--War clouds.--Letters on slavery, etc.--Matthew Va.s.sar.-- Efforts as peacemaker.--Foresees Northern victory.--Gloomy forebodings.-- Monument to his father.--Divides part of European gratuity with widow of Vail.--Continued efforts in behalf of peace.--Bible arguments in favor of slavery.

Many letters of this period, including a whole letterpress copy-book, are missing, many of the letters in other copy-books are quite illegible through the fading of the ink, and others have been torn out (by whom I do not know) and have entirely disappeared. It will, therefore, be necessary to summarize the events of the remainder of the year 1858, and of some of the following years.

We find that, on July 24, 1858, Morse sailed with his family, including his three young boys, his mother-in-law and other relatives, a party of fifteen all told, for Havre on the steamer Fulton; that he was tendered a banquet by his fellow-countrymen in Paris, and that he was received with honor wherever he went. Travelling with a large family was a different proposition from the independence which he had enjoyed on his previous visits to Europe, when he was either alone or accompanied only by his wife and niece, and he pathetically remarks to his brother Sidney, in a letter of September 3, written from Interlaken: "It was a great mistake I committed in bringing my family. I have scarcely had one moment's pleasure, and am almost worn out with anxieties and cares. If I get back safe with them to Paris I hope, after arranging my affairs there, to go as direct as possible to Southampton, and settle them there till I sail in November. I am tired of travelling and long for the repose of Locust Grove, if it shall please our Heavenly Father to permit us to meet there again."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MORSE AND HIS YOUNGEST SON]

Before returning to the quiet of his home on the Hudson, however, he paid a visit which he had long had in contemplation. On November 17, 1858, he and his wife and their two younger sons sailed from Southampton for Porto Rico, where his elder daughter, Mrs. Edward land, had for many years lived, and where his younger daughter had been visiting while he was in Europe. He describes his first impressions of a tropical country in a letter to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Griswold, who had decided to spend the winter in Geneva to superintend the education of his son Arthur, a lad of nine:--

"In St. Thomas we received every possible attention. The Governor called on us and invited Edward and myself to breakfast (at 10.30 o'clock) the day we left. He lives in a fine mansion on one of the lesser hills that enclose the harbor, having directly beneath him on the slope, and only separated by a wall, the residence of Santa Anna. He was invited to be present, but he was ill (so he said) and excused himself. I presume his illness was occasioned by the thought of meeting an American from the States, for he holds the citizens of the States in perfect hatred, so much so as to refuse to receive United States money in change from his servants on their return from market.

"A few days in change of lat.i.tude make wonderful changes in feelings and clothing. When we left England the air was wintry, and thick woolen clothing and fires were necessary. The first night at sea blankets were in great demand. With two extra and my great-coat over all I was comfortably warm. In twenty-four hours the great-coat was dispensed with, then one blanket, then another, until a sheet alone began to be enough, and the last two or three nights on board this slight covering was too much. When we got into the harbor of St. Thomas the temperature was oppressive; our slightest summer clothing was in demand. Surrounded by pomegranate trees, magnificent oleanders, cocoa-nut trees with their large fruit some thirty feet from the ground, the aloe and innumerable, and to me strange, tropical plants, I could scarcely believe it was December....

"We arrived on Thursday morning and remained until Monday morning, Edward having engaged a Long Island schooner, which happened to be in port, to take us to Arroyo. At four o'clock the Governor sent his official barge, under the charge of the captain of the port, a most excellent, intelligent, scientific gentleman, who had breakfasted with us at the Governor's in the morning, and in a few minutes we were rowed alongside of the schooner Estelle, and before dark were under way and out of the harbor. Our quarters were very small and close, but not so uncomfortable.

"At daylight in the morning of Tuesday we were sailing along the sh.o.r.es of Porto Rico, and at sunrise we found we were in sight of Guyama and Arroyo, and with our gla.s.ses we saw at a distance the buildings on Edward's estate. Susan had been advised of our coming and a flag was flying on the house in answer to the signal we made from the vessel. In two or three hours we got to the sh.o.r.e, as near as was safe for the vessel, and then in the doctor's boat, which had paid us an official visit to see that we did not bring yellow fever or other infectious disease, the kind doctor, an Irishman educated in America, took us ash.o.r.e at a little temporary landing-place to avoid the surf. On the sh.o.r.e there were some handkerchiefs shaking, and in a crowd we saw Susan and Leila, and Charlie [his grandson] who were waiting for us in carriages, and in a few moments we embraced them all. The sun was hot upon us, but, after a ride of two or three miles, we came to the Henrietta, my dear Edward and Susan's residence, and were soon under the roof of a s.p.a.cious, elegant and most commodious mansion. And here we are with midsummer temperature and vegetation, but a tropical vegetation, all around us.

"Well, we always knew that Edward was a prince of a man, but we did not know, or rather appreciate, that he has a princely estate and in as fine order as any in the island. When I say 'fine order,' I do not mean that it is laid out like the Bois de Boulogne, nor is there quite as much picturesqueness in a level plain of sugar canes as in the trees and shrubbery of the gardens of Versailles; but it is a rich and well-cultivated estate of some fourteen hundred acres, gradually rising for two or three miles from the sea-sh.o.r.e to the mountains, including some of them, and stretching into the valleys between them."

His visit to Porto Rico was a most delightful one to him in many ways, and I shall have more to say of it further on, but I digress for a moment to speak of two events which occurred just at this time, and which showed him that, even in this land of _dolce far niente_, he could not escape the griefs and cares which are common to all mankind.

Mr. Kendall, in a letter of February 20, announces the death of one of his early a.s.sociates: "I presume you will have heard before this reaches you of the death of Alfred Vail. He had sold most of his telegraph stocks and told me when I last saw him that it was with difficulty he could procure the means of comfort for his family."

Morse had heard of this melancholy event, for, in a letter to Mr.

Shaffner of February 22, he says: "Poor Vail! alas, he is gone. I only heard of the event on Sat.u.r.day last. This death, and the death of many friends besides, has made me feel sad. Vail ought to have a proper notice. He was an upright man, and, although some ways of his made him unpopular with those with whom he came in contact, yet I believe his intentions were good, and his faults were the result more of ill-health, a dyspeptic habit, than of his heart."

He refers to this also in a letter to his brother Sidney of February 23: "Poor Vail is gone. He was the innocent cause of the original difficulty with the sensitive Henry, he all the time earnestly desirous of doing him honor."

And on March 30, he answers Mr. Kendall's letter: "I regret to learn that poor Vail was so straitened in his circ.u.mstances at his death. I intend paying a visit to his father and family on my return. I may be able to relieve them in some degree."

This intention he fulfilled, as we shall see later on, and I wish to call special attention to the tone of these letters because, as I have said before, Morse has been accused of gross ingrat.i.tude and injustice towards Alfred Vail, whereas a careful and impartial study of all the circ.u.mstances of their connection proves quite the contrary. Vail's advocates, in loudly claiming for him much more than the evidence shows he was ent.i.tled to, have not hesitated to employ gross personal abuse of Morse in their newspaper articles, letters, etc., even down to the present day. This has made my task rather difficult, for, while earnestly desirous of giving every possible credit to Vail, I have been compelled to introduce much evidence, which I should have preferred to omit, to show the essential weakness of his character; he seems to have been foredoomed to failure. He undoubtedly was of great a.s.sistance in the early stages of the invention, and for this Morse always cheerfully gave him full credit, but I have proved that he did not invent the dot-and-dash alphabet, which has been so insistently claimed for him, and that his services as a mechanician were soon dispensed with in favor of more skilful men. I have also shown that he practically left Morse to his fate in the darkest years of the struggle to bring the telegraph into public use, and that, by his morbid suspicions, he hampered the efforts of Mr. Kendall to harmonize conflicting interests. For all this Morse never bore him any ill-will, but endeavored in every way to foster and safeguard his interests. That he did not succeed was no fault of his.

Another reminder that he was but human, and that he could not expect to sail serenely along on the calm, seas of popular favor without an occasional squall, was given to him just at this time. Professor Joseph Henry had requested the Regents of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tute to enquire into the rights and wrongs of the controversy between himself and Morse, which had its origin in Henry's testimony in the telegraph suits, tinged as this testimony was with bitterness on account of the omissions in Vail's book, and which was fanned into a flame by Morse's "Defense." The latter resented the fact that all these proceedings had taken place while he was out of the country, and without giving him an opportunity to present his side of the case. However, he shows his willingness to do what is right in the letter to Colonel Shaffner of February 22, from which I have already quoted:--

"Well, it has taken him four years to fire off his gun, and perhaps I am killed. When I return I shall examine my wounds and see if they are mortal, and, if so, shall endeavor to die becomingly. Seriously, however, if there are any new facts which go to exculpate Henry for his attack upon me before the courts at a moment when I was struggling against those who, from whatever motive, wished to deprive me of my rights, and even of my character, I shall be most happy to learn them, and, if I have unwittingly done him injustice, shall also be most happy to make proper amends. But as all this is for the future, as I know of no facts which alter the case, and as I am wholly unconscious of having done any injustice, I must wait to see what he has put forth."

In a letter to his brother Sidney, of February 23, he philosophizes as follows:--

"I cannot avoid noticing a singular coincidence of events in my experience of life, especially in that part of it devoted to the invention of the Telegraph, to wit, that, when any special and marked honor has been conferred upon me, there has immediately succeeded some event of the envious or sordid character seemingly as a set-off, the tendency of which has been invariably to prevent any excess of exultation on my part. Can this be accident? Is it not rather the wise ordering of events by infinite wisdom and goodness to draw me away from repose in earthly honor to the more substantial and enduring honor that comes only from G.o.d? ... I pray for wisdom to direct in such trials, and in any answer I may find it necessary to give to Henry or others, I desire most of all to be mindful of that charity which 'suffereth long, which vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, hopeth all things, thinketh no evil.'"

This check to self-laudation came at an appropriate moment, as he said, for just at this time honors were being plentifully showered upon him. It was then that he was first notified of the bestowal of the Spanish decoration, and of the probability of Portugal's following suit. Perhaps even more gratifying still was his election as a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden, for this was a recognition of his merits as a scientist, and not as a mere promoter, as he had been contemptuously called. On the Island of Porto Rico too he was being honored and feted.

On March 2, he writes:--

"I have just completed with success the construction and organization of the short telegraph line, the first on this island, initiating the great enterprise of the Southern Telegraph route to Europe from our sh.o.r.es, so far as to interest the Porto Ricans in the value of the invention.

"Yesterday was a day of great excitement here for this small place. The princ.i.p.al inhabitants of this place and Guayama determined to celebrate the completion of this little line, in which they take a great pride as being the first in the island, and so they complimented me with a public breakfast which was presided over by the lieutenant-colonel commandant of Guayama.

"The commandant and alcalde, the collector and captain of the port, with all the officials of the place, and the clergy of Guayama and Arroyo, and gentlemen planters and merchants of the two towns, numbering in all about forty, were present. We sat down at one o'clock to a very handsome breakfast, and the greatest enthusiasm and kind and generous feeling were manifested. My portrait was behind me upon the wall draped with the Spanish and American flags. I gave them a short address of thanks, and took the opportunity to interest them in the great Telegraph line which will give them communication with the whole world. I presume accounts will be published in the United States from the Porto Rico papers. Thus step by step (shall I not rather say _stride by stride_?) the Telegraph is compa.s.sing the world.

"My accounts from Madrid a.s.sure me that the government will soon have all the papers prepared for granting the concession to Mr. Perry, our former secretary of legation at Madrid, in connection with Sir James Carmichael, Mr. John W. Brett, the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, and others. The recent consolidation plan in the United States has removed the only hesitation I had in sustaining this new enterprise, for I feared that I might unwittingly injure, by a counter plan, those it was my duty to support. Being now in harmony with the American Company and the Newfoundland Company, I presume all my other companies will derive benefit rather than injury from the success of this new and grand enterprise. At any rate I feel impelled to support all plans that manifestly tend to the complete circ.u.mvention of the globe, and the bringing into telegraphic connection all the nations of the earth, and this when I am not fully a.s.sured that present personal interests may not temporarily suffer. I am glad to know that harmonious arrangements are made between the various companies in the United States, although I have been so ill-used. I will have no litigation if I can avoid it. Even Henry may have the field in quiet, unless he has presented a case too flagrantly unjust to leave unanswered."

The short line of telegraph was from his son-in-law's house to his place of business on the bay, about two miles, and the building of it gave rise to the legend on the island that Morse conducted some of his first electrical experiments in Porto Rico, which, of course, is not true.

There is much correspondence concerning the proposed cable from Spain or Portugal by various routes to the West Indies and thence to the United States, but nothing came of it.

The rest of their stay in Porto Rico was greatly enjoyed by all in spite of certain drawbacks incidental to the tropics, to one of which he alludes in a letter to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Goodrich, who was then in Europe. Speaking of his wife he says: "She is dreadfully troubled with a plague which, if you have been in Italy, I am sure you are no stranger to. '_Pulci, pulci._' If you have not had a colony of them settled upon you, and quartered, and giving you no quarter, you have been an exception to travellers in Italy. Well, I will pit any two _pulci_ of Porto Rico against any ten you can bring from Italy, and I should be sure to see them bite the dust before the bites of our Porto Rico breed."

His letters are filled with apothegms and reflections on life in general and his own in particular, and they alone would almost fill a book. In a letter to Mr. Kendall, of March 30, we find the following:--

"I had hoped to return from honors abroad to enjoy a little rest from litigation at home, but, if I must take up arms, I hope to be able to use them efficiently in self-defense, and in a chivalrous manner as becometh a '_Knight_.' I have no reason to complain of my position abroad, but I suppose, as I am not yet under the ground, honors to a living inventor must have their offset in the attacks of envy and avarice.

"'Wrath is cruel, but who can stand before envy?' says the wise man. The contest with the envious is indeed an annoyance, but, if one's spirit is under the right guidance and revenge does not actuate the strife, victory is very certain. My position is now such before the world that I shall use it rather to correct my own temper than to make it a means of arrogant exultation."

He and his family left the island in the middle of April, 1859, and in due time reached their Poughkeepsie home. The "Daily Press" of that city gave the following account of the homecoming:--

"For some time previous to the hour at which the train was to arrive hundreds of people were seen flocking from all directions to the railroad depot, both in carriages and on foot, and when the train did arrive, and the familiar and loved form of Professor Morse was recognized on the platform of the car, the air was rent with the cheers of the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude. As soon as the cheers subsided Professor Morse was approached by the committee of reception and welcomed to the country of his birth and to the home of his adoption.

"A great procession was then formed composed of the carriages of citizens. The sidewalks were crowded with people on foot, the children of the public schools, which had been dismissed for the occasion, being quite conspicuous among them. Amid the ringing of bells, the waving of flags, and the gratulations of the people, the procession proceeded through a few of the princ.i.p.al streets, and then drove to the beautiful residence of Professor Morse, the band playing, as they entered the grounds, 'Sweet Home' and then 'Auld Lang Syne.'

"The gateways at the entrance had been arched with evergreens and wreathed with flowers. As the carriage containing their loved proprietor drove along the gravelled roads we noticed that several of the domestics, unable to restrain their welcomes, ran to his carriage and gave and received salutations. After a free interchange of salutations and a general 'shake-hands,' the people withdrew and left their honored guest to the retirement of his own beautiful home.

"So the world reverences its great men, and so it ought. In Professor Morse we find those simple elements of greatness which elevate him infinitely above the hero of any of the world's sanguinary conflicts, or any of the most successful aspirants after political power. He has benefited not only America and the world, but has dignified and benefited the whole race."

His friends and neighbors desired to honor him still further by a public reception, but this he felt obliged to decline, and in his letter of regret he expresses the following sentiments: "If, during my late absence abroad, I have received unprecedented honors from European nations, convened in special congress for the purpose, and have also received marks of honor from individual Sovereigns and from Scientific bodies, all which have gratified me quite as much for the honor reflected by them upon my country as upon myself, there are none of these testimonials, be a.s.sured, which have so strongly touched my heart as this your beautiful tribute of kindly feeling from esteemed neighbors and fellow-citizens."

Among the letters which had acc.u.mulated during his absence, Morse found one, written some time previously, from a Mr. Reibart, who had published his name as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. In courteously declining this honor Morse drily adds: "There are hundreds, nay thousands, more able (not to say millions more willing) to take any office they can obtain, and perform its functions more faithfully and with more benefit to the country. While this is the case I do not feel that the country will suffer should one like myself, wearied with the struggles and litigations of half a century, desire to be excused from encountering the annoyances and misapprehensions inseparable from political life."

Thanks to the successful efforts of his good friend, Mr. Kendall, he was now financially independent, so much so that he felt justified in purchasing, in the fall of the year 1859, the property at 5 West Twenty-second Street, New York, where the winters of the remaining years of his life were pa.s.sed, except when he was abroad. This house has now been replaced by a commercial structure, but a bronze tablet marks the spot where once stood the old-fashioned brown stone mansion.

While his mind was comparatively at rest regarding money matters, he was not yet free from vexatious litigation, and his opinion of lawyers is tersely expressed in a letter to Mr. Kendall of December 27, 1859: "I have not lost my respect for law but I have for its administrators; not so much for any premeditated dishonesty as for their stupidity and want of just insight into a case."

It was not long before he had a practical proof of the truth of this aphorism, for his "thorn in the flesh" never ceased from rankling, and now gave a new instance of the depths to which an unscrupulous man could descend. On June 9, 1860, Morse writes to his legal adviser, Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, of Boston: "You may remember that Smith, just before I sailed for Europe in 1858, intimated that he should demand of me a portion of the Honorary Gratuity voted to me by the congress of ten powers at Paris. I procured your opinion, as you know, and I had hoped that he would not insist on so preposterous a claim. I am, however, disappointed; he has recently renewed it. I have had some correspondence with him on the subject utterly denying any claim on his part. He proposes a reference, but I have not yet encouraged him to think I would a.s.sent. I wish your advice before I answer him."

It is difficult to conceive of a meaner case of extortion than this. As Morse says in a letter to Mr. Kendall, of August 3, 1860, after he had consented to a reference of the matter to three persons: "I have no apprehensions of the result except that I may be entrapped by some legal technicalities. Look at the case in an equitable point of view and, it appears to me, no intelligent, just men could give a judgment against me or in his favor. Smith's purchase into the telegraph, the consideration he gave, was his efforts to obtain a property in the invention abroad by letters patent or otherwise. In _such_ property he was to share. No such property was created there. What can he then claim? The monies that he hazarded (taking his own estimate) were to the amount of some seven thousand dollars; and this was an advance, virtually a loan, to be paid back to him if he had created the property abroad. But his efforts being fruitless for that purpose, and of no value whatever to me, yet procured him one fourth patent interest in the United States, for which we know he has obtained at least $300,000. Is he not paid amply without claiming a portion of honorary gifts to me? Well, we shall see how legal men look at the matter."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOUSE AND LIBRARY AT 5 WEST 22'D ST., NEW YORK]

One legal man of great brilliance gave his opinion without hesitation, as we learn from a letter of Morse's to Mr. Curtis, of July 14: "I had, a day or two since, my cousin Judge Breese, late Senator of the United States from Illinois, on a visit to me. I made him acquainted with the points, after which he scouted the idea that any court of legal character could for a moment sustain Smith's claim. He thought my argument unanswerable, and playfully said: 'I will insure you against any claim from Smith for a bottle of champagne.'"

It is a pity that Morse did not close with the offer of the learned judge, for, in spite of his opinion, in spite of the opinion of most men of intelligence, in defiance of the perfectly obvious and proven fact that Smith had utterly failed in fulfilling his part of the contract, and that the award had been made to Morse "as a reward altogether personal"

(_toute personelle_), the referees decided in Smith's favor. And on what did they base this remarkable decision? On the ground that in the contract of 1838 with Smith the word "otherwise" occurs. Property in Europe was to be obtained by "letters patent" or "otherwise." Of course no actual property had been obtained, and Smith had had no hand in securing the honorary gratuity, and it is difficult to follow the reasoning of these sapient referees. They were, on Smith's part, Judge Upham of New Hampshire; on Morse's, Mr. Hilliard, of Boston; and Judge Sprague, of the Circuit Court, Boston, chairman.

However, the decision was made, and Morse, with characteristic large-heartedness, submitted gracefully. On October 15, he writes to Mr.

Curtis: "I ought, perhaps, with my experience to learn for the first time that _Law_ and _Justice_ are not synonyms, but, with all deference to the opinion of the excellent referees, for each of whom I have the highest personal respect, I still think that they have not given a decision in strict conformity with Law.... I submit, however, to law with kindly feelings to all, and now bend my attention to repair my losses as best I may."

As remarked before, earlier in this volume, Morse, in his correspondence with Smith, always wrote in that courteous manner which becomes a gentleman, and he expresses his dissent from the verdict in this manner in a letter of November 20, in answer to one of Smith's, quibbling over the allowance to Morse by the referees of certain expenses: "Throwing aside as of no avail any discussion in regard to the equity of the decision of the referees, especially in the view of a conscientious and high-minded man, I now deal with the decision as it has been made, since, according to the technicalities of the law, it has been p.r.o.nounced by honorable and honest men in accordance with their construction of the language of the deed in your favor. But 'He that's convinced against his will is of the same opinion still,' and in regard to the intrinsic injustice of being compelled, by the strict construction of a general word, to pay over to you any portion of that which was expressly given to me as a personal and honorary _gratuity_ by the European governments, my opinion is always as it has been, an opinion sustained by the sympathy of every intelligent and honorable man who has studied the merits of the case."