by him. It will be necessary to refer to him and his strange conduct from
time to time, but to go into the matter in detail would consume too much
valuable space. It seems only right, however, to emphasize the fact that
his animosity and unscrupulous self-seeking constituted the greatest
cross which Morse was called upon to bear, even to the end of his life,
and that many of the aspersions which have been cast upon the inventor's
fame and good name, before and after his death, can be traced to the
fertile brain of this same F.O.J. Smith.

While the inventor was fighting for his rights in his own country, his
invention, by the sheer force of its superiority, was gradually
displacing all other systems abroad. Even in England it was superseding
the Cooke and Wheatstone needle telegraph, and on the Continent it had
been adopted by Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, Hanover, and Turkey. It is
worthy of note that that broad-minded scientist, Professor Steinheil, of
Bavaria, who had himself invented an ingenious plan of telegraph when he
was made acquainted with the Morse system, at once acknowledged its
superiority and urged its adoption by the Bavarian Government. In France,
too, it was making its way, and Morse, in answer to a letter of inquiry
as to terms, etc., by M. Brequet, thus characteristically avows his
motives, after finishing the business part of the letter, which is dated
April 21, 1851:--

"To be frank with you, my dear sir (and I feel that I can be frank with
you), while I am not indifferent to the pecuniary rewards of my invention
(which will be amply satisfactory if my own countrymen will but do me
justice), yet as these were not the stimulus to my efforts in perfecting
and establishing my invention, so they now hold but a subordinate
position when I attempt to comprehend the full results of the Telegraph
upon the welfare of my fellow men. I am more solicitous to see its