I have never had other than kind feelings towards him, and, while planning for his benefit and guarding his interests at great and almost ruinous expense to myself, I have had to contend with difficulties which his imprudence, arising from morbid suspicions, has often created.

My wish has ever been to act towards him not merely justly but generously." In a letter to Mr.Kendall of July 17, 1854, Morse declares his intention of publishing that "Defense" which he had held in reserve for several years, hoping that the necessity for its publication might be avoided by a personal understanding with Professor Henry, which, however, that gentleman refused:-- "You will perceive what injury I have suffered from the machinations of the sordid pirates against whom I have had to contend, and it will also be noticed how history has been falsified in order to detract from me, and how the conduct of Henry, on his deposition, has tended to strengthen the ready prejudice of the English against the American claim to priority.

An increasing necessity, on this account, arises for my 'Defense,' and so soon as I can get it into proper shape by revision, I intend to publish it.
"This I consider a duty I owe the country more than myself, for, so far as I am personally concerned, I am conscious of a position that History will give me when the facts now suppressed by interested pirates and their abettors shall be known, which the verdict of posterity, no less than that of the judicial tribunals already given, is sure to award." While involved in apparently endless litigation which necessitated much correspondence, and while the compilation and revision of his "Defense" must have consumed not only days but weeks and months, he yet found time to write a prodigious number of letters and newspaper articles on other subjects, especially on those relating to religion and politics.

Although more tolerant as he grew older, he was still bitterly opposed to the methods of the Roman Catholic Church, and to the Jesuits in particular.
He, in common with many other prominent men of his day, was fearful lest the Church of Rome, through her emissaries the Jesuits, should gain political ascendancy in this country and overthrow the liberty of the people.

He took part in a long and heated newspaper controversy with Bishop Spaulding of Kentucky concerning the authenticity of a saying attributed to Lafayette--"If ever the liberty of the United States is destroyed it will be by Romish priests." It was claimed by the Roman Catholics that this statement of Lafayette's was ingeniously extracted from a sentence in a letter of his to a friend in which he assures this friend that such a fear is groundless.