MORSE, SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE, Inventor of telegraphy. Autograph letter signed ("Saml. F. B. Morse") to E.S. Sanford in New York; Paris, 15 Febuary l867. 2 pages, 8vo, closely written. A very good letter regarding the telegraph, revealingly tinged with Morse's resentment over the U.S. government's failure to purchase Morse's invention twenty years earlier. While Congress had voted $30,000 to establish an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore, over which the famous test phrase "What hath God wrought" was successfully transmitted on May l844, official recognition from America was slow in coming. "For years his income was slender and uncertain" (-DAB). To a business manager or associate, Morse writes: "When I wrote you...I promised to send...statistics which would be useful to you in Telegraph matters, by next steamer. For this I addressed some queries to the Count de Vongy, the Administrator of the Telegraphs, and expected answers to them long before this time. I learn from him however, that he is intending a more elaborate reply which will take time, but will be more complete....I have therefore to wait. In the meantime, however, I found some articles in Galignani's paper [Galignani's Literary Messenger, published in English at Paris] which I have cut out....If [the United States] Government thinks seriously of purchasing the Telegraph, and at this late date adopting my early suggestion that it ought to belong to the Post Office department, be it so, if they will now pay for it. They must now pay millions for that which I offered them for one hundred thousand dollars, and gave them a year for consideration, ere they adopted it. But they had the report of the then Post Master General Cave Johnson against it, as it [would] ' never be productive of revenue, ' and so they must now pay for faith & experience. "I have no personal objection to sell to the government for gold-bearing bonds, at par value for our stock, and even, (if it is considered best by the majority of Stockholders) at a lesser rate....Advise me of the condition of our Telegraph affairs, and please inform me if the rumor that a dividend is to be made in April, is likely to be verified...." Morse's original enclosure, remarkably, is still present: two long clippings from the Literary Messenger, " headed "Telegraphic Reform," and "Telegraphy in Belgium," both labelled and dated by Morse.
MORSE, SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE, Inventor of telegraphy. Autograph letter signed ("Saml. F. B. Morse") to E.S. Sanford in New York; Paris, 15 Febuary l867. 2 pages, 8vo, closely written. A very good letter regarding the telegraph, revealingly tinged with Morse's resentment over the U.S. government's failure to purchase Morse's invention twenty years earlier. While Congress had voted $30,000 to establish an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore, over which the famous test phrase "What hath God wrought" was successfully transmitted on May l844, official recognition from America was slow in coming. "For years his income was slender and uncertain" (-DAB). To a business manager or associate, Morse writes: "When I wrote you...I promised to send...statistics which would be useful to you in Telegraph matters, by next steamer. For this I addressed some queries to the Count de Vongy, the Administrator of the Telegraphs, and expected answers to them long before this time. I learn from him however, that he is intending a more elaborate reply which will take time, but will be more complete....I have therefore to wait. In the meantime, however, I found some articles in Galignani's paper [Galignani's Literary Messenger, published in English at Paris] which I have cut out....If [the United States] Government thinks seriously of purchasing the Telegraph, and at this late date adopting my early suggestion that it ought to belong to the Post Office department, be it so, if they will now pay for it. They must now pay millions for that which I offered them for one hundred thousand dollars, and gave them a year for consideration, ere they adopted it. But they had the report of the then Post Master General Cave Johnson against it, as it [would] ' never be productive of revenue, ' and so they must now pay for faith & experience. "I have no personal objection to sell to the government for gold-bearing bonds, at par value for our stock, and even, (if it is considered best by the majority of Stockholders) at a lesser rate....Advise me of the condition of our Telegraph affairs, and please inform me if the rumor that a dividend is to be made in April, is likely to be verified...." Morse's original enclosure, remarkably, is still present: two long clippings from the Literary Messenger, " headed "Telegraphic Reform," and "Telegraphy in Belgium," both labelled and dated by Morse.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
