I will have it in operation by the time you return."

Apropos of the attacks made upon him by would-be infringers, the
following from a letter of his legal counsel, Daniel Lord, Esq., dated
January 12, 1847, may not come amiss: "It ought to be a source of great
satisfaction to you to have your invention stolen and counterfeited.
Think what an acknowledgment it is, and what a tribute to its merits."

Referring to this in a letter to Mr. Lord of a later date, Morse answers:
"The plot thickens all around me; I think a _dénouement_ not far off. I
remember your consoling me under these attacks with bidding me think that
I had invented something worth contending for. Alas! my dear sir, what
encouragement is there to an inventor if, after years of toil and
anxiety, he has only purchased for himself the pleasure of being a target
for every vile fellow to shoot at, and, in proportion as his invention is
of public utility, so much the greater effort is to be made to defame,
that the robbery may excite the less sympathy? I know, however, that
beyond all this is a clear sky, but the clouds may not break away until I
am no longer personally interested whether it be foul or fair. I wish not
to complain, but I have feelings and cannot play the stoic if I would."

It was a new experience for Morse to become involved in the intricacies
of the law, and, in a letter to a friend, Henry I. Williams, Esq., dated
February 22, 1847, he naively remarks: "A student all my life, mostly in
a profession which is adverse in its habits and tastes from those of the
business world, and never before engaged in a lawsuit, I confess to great
ignorance even of the ordinary, commonplace details of a court."

His desire to be both just and merciful is shown in a letter to Mr.
Kendall, written on February 16, just before the decision was rendered