I have in my other contracts been able to be far within my estimates to Government, and I had hoped to be able to present to the Secretary the contract for trenching likewise reduced.

There are plenty of applicants here who will do it for much less, and one even said he thought for one half.

I shall do nothing in regard to the matter until I see you." A great personal sorrow came to him also, a short time after this, to dim the brilliance of success.

On July 9, 1843, his dearly loved friend and master, Washington Allston, died in Boston after months of suffering.
Morse immediately dropped everything and hastened to Boston to pay the last tributes of respect to him whom he regarded as his best friend.

He obtained as a memento one of the brushes, still wet with paint, which Allston was using on his last unfinished work, "The Feast of Belshazzar," when he was suddenly stricken.