The other partners, Alfred Vail and Dr.Leonard Gale, were equally lax and seem to have lost interest in the enterprise, as we learn from the following letter to Mr.
Smith, of May 24, 1839:-- "You will think it strange, perhaps, that I have not answered yours of the 28th ult.

sooner, but various causes have prevented an earlier attention to it.

My affairs, in consequence of my protracted absence and the stagnant state of the Telegraph here at home, have caused me great embarrassment, and my whole energies have been called upon to extricate myself from the confusion in which I have been unhappily placed.

You may judge a little of this when I tell you that my absence has deprived me of my usual source of income by my profession; that the state of the University is such that I shall probably leave, and shall have to move into new quarters; that my family is dispersed, requiring my care and anxieties under every disadvantage; that my engagements were such with Russia that every moment of my time was necessary to complete my arrangements to fulfill the contract in season; and, instead of finding my associates ready to sustain me with counsel and means, I find them all dispersed, leaving me without either the opportunity to consult or a cent of means, and consequently bringing everything in relation to the Telegraph to a dead stand.
"In the midst of this I am called on by the state of public opinion to defend myself against the outrageous attempt of Dr.Jackson to pirate from me my invention.

The words would be harsh that are properly applicable to this man's conduct....
"You see, therefore, in what a condition I found myself when I returned.
I was delayed several days beyond the computed time of my arrival by the long passage of the steamer.