314 HENRY AND THE TELEGRAPH. 



leurned that tlie idea of au electric telegraph had been conceived hy 

 another. " * 



Some time earlier than this, or five years after their conversations on 

 ship-board, Professor Morse wrote to Dr. Jackson, (in a letter dated 

 August 27, 1837, seeking his indorsement of the writer's originality in 

 electrical telegraphy,) and avowed : " I claim for myself, and consequently 

 for America, priority over all otlipr countries in the invention of a mode 

 of communicating intelligence by electricity!" In a second letter to the 

 same person, dated New York City University, September 18, 1837, 

 acknowledging his correspondent's original introductory remarks on 

 electricity and electro-magnetism during their homeward voyage, but 

 diftering from him as to some of the consequent circumstances, he 

 aijfirmed: ^'I then remarked, this being so, if the presence of electricity 

 can be made \asible in any desired part of the circuit, I see no reason 

 why intelligence might not be transmitted instantaneously by elec- 

 tricity!" And in the same letter he contended, "The discovery is the 

 original suggestion of conveying intelligence by electricity.t The inven- 

 tion is devising the mode of conveying it. The discovery, so far as we 

 alone are concerned, belongs to me : and if by an experiment Avhich we 

 I)roposed to try together we had mutually fixed ux)on a successful mode 

 of conveying intelligence, then we might with some propriety be termed 

 mutual or joint inventors. But as wc have never tried any experiment 

 together, nor has the one proposed to be tried by you, been adopted by 

 me, I cannot see how we can be called mutual inventors. You are 

 aware perhaps that the mode I have carried into effect after many and 

 various experiments with the assistance of my colleague, Professor Gale, 

 was never mentioned either by you or to you.f ... I have always 

 said in giving any account of my telegraph, that it was on board the 

 ship during a scientific conversation with you that I first conceived the 

 thought of an electric telegraph. I have acknowledgments of similar 

 kinds to make 'to Professor Silliman and Professor Gale, . . . and 

 to the latter I am most of all indebted for substantial and effective 

 aid in many of my experiments. If any one has a claim to be mutual 

 inventor on the score of aid by hints, it is Professor Gale ; but he pre- 

 fers no claim of the kind. " § In his third letter, dated iSTew York City 



* Vail's ElectrG-Magnetlo Tdcfjrapli, j). 154. 



t Professor Morse's couceiition of "discovery" does uot apx^ear to have been very pro- 

 found. 



X [Another explicit statement that he did uot "conceive the idea" of the magnetic 

 telegraph in 1832, or on board the ship Sully. ] 



§ Dr. Jackson in his reply, dated Boston, November 7, 1837, said: "This claim of 

 yours is to me a matter of surprise and regret. . . . You will not I presume 

 venture to maintain that you at that time knew anything about electro-magnetism 

 more than what you learned from me. ... I am certainly desirous of doing you 

 justice to the fullest extent, and have "always spoken of your merits as I hope I shall 

 always have occasion to do. , . . Honor to whom honor is due shall be my 

 motto, and I must I believe fail in this dutj^ if I should say that the first idea of au 

 electro-magnetic telegrai)h was conceived by au American citizen. . . . The 'dis- 

 covery' is not then to be claimed by us. I have invented a new instrument; so per- 

 haps you have, for I do not yet know what your now one is^ since you say I have not 

 seen it nor heard about it beyond your announcement. " 



