Is it too much to suppose that, had the Russian, or even the French, contract gone through, and had Morse been compelled to recruit his assistants from the people of an alien land, whose language he could neither speak nor thoroughly understand, the result would have been a dismal failure, calling down only ridicule on the head of the luckless inventor, and perhaps causing him to abandon the whole enterprise, discouraged and disheartened?
Be this as it may, the European trip was considered a failure in a practical sense, while having resulted in a personal triumph in so far as the scientific elements of the invention were concerned.

I shall, therefore, give only occasional extracts from the letters, some of them dealing with matters not in any way related to the telegraph.
He writes to Mr.Smith on February 18, 1839:-- "I have been wholly occupied for the last week in copying out the correspondence and other documents to defend myself against the infamous attack of Dr.Jackson, notice of which my brother sent me....

I have sent a letter to Dr.Jackson calling on him to save his character by a total disclaimer of his presumptuous claim within one week from the receipt of the letter, and giving him the plea of a 'mistake' and 'misconception of my invention' by which he may retreat.

If he fails to do this, I have requested my brother to publish immediately my defense, in which I give a history of the invention, the correspondence between Dr.Jackson and myself, and close with the letters of Hon.

Mr.Rives, Mr.Fisher, of Philadelphia, and Captain Pell.
"I cannot conceive of such infatuation as has possessed this man.