140 BOARD OF REGENTS. 



allow it to go unanswered. I allude to an article in a periodical entitled " Shaffner's 

 Telegraph Companion," from the pen of Professor S. F. B. Morse, the celebrated in- 

 ventor of the American electro-magnetic telegraph. In this, not my scientific repu- 

 tation merely, but my moral character was pointedly assailed ; indeed, nothing less 

 was attempted than to prove that in the testimony which I had given in a case where 

 I was at most but a reluctant witness, I had consciously and wilfully deviated from 

 the truth, and this, too, from unworthy and dishonorable motives. 



Such a charge, coming from such a quarter, appeared to me then, as it appears now, 

 of too grave a character and too serious a consequence to be withheld from the notice 

 of the Board of Eegents. I, therefore, presented the matter unofficially to the Chan- 

 cellor of the Institution, Chief Justice Taney, and was advised by him to allow the 

 matter to rest until the then existing excitement with respect to the organization of 

 the institution should subside, and that in the meantime the materials for a refutation 

 of the charge might be collected and prepared, to be brought forward at the proper 

 time, if I should think it necessary. 



The article of Mr. Morse was published in 1855, but at the session of the Board in 

 1856 I was not prepared to present the case properly to your consideration, and I now 

 (1857) embrace the first opportunity of bringing the subject officially to your notice, 

 and asking from you an investigation into the justice of the charges alleged against 

 me. And this I do most earnestly, with the desire that when we shall all have 

 passed from this stage of being, no imputation of having attempted to evade in silence 

 so grave a charge shall rest on me, nor on you, of having continued to devolve upon 

 me duties of the highest responsibility, after that was known to some of you individu- 

 ally, which, if true, should render me entirely unworthy of your confidence. Duty 

 to the Board of liegents, as well as regard to my own memory, to my family, and to 

 the truth of history, demands that I should lay this matter before you, and place in 

 your hands the documents necessary to establish the veracity of my testimony, so 

 falsely impeached, and the integrity of my motives, so wantonly assailed. 



My life, as is known to you, has been principally devoted to science, and my in- 

 vestigations in diiferent branches of physics have given me some reputation in the 

 line of original discovery. I have sought, however, no patent for inventions, and 

 solicited no remuneration for my labors, but have freely given their results to the 

 world, expecting only, in return, to enjoy the, consciousness of having added, by my 

 investigations, to the sum of human knowledge, and to receive the credit to which 

 they might justly entitle me. 



I commenced my scientific career about the year 1828, with a series of experiments 

 in electricity, which were continued at intervals up to the period of my being honored 

 by election to the office of Secretary of this Institution. The object of my researches 

 was the advancement of science, without any special or immediate reference to its 

 application to the wants of life or useful purposes in the arts. It is true, neverthe- 

 less, that some of my earlier investigations had an important bearing on the electro- 

 magnetic telegraph, and brought the science to that point of development at which it 

 was immediately applicable to Mr. Morse's particular invention. 



In 1831 I published a brief account of these researches, in which I drew attention 

 to the fact 'of their applicability to the telegraph; and in 1832, and subsequently, 

 exhibited experiments illustrative of the application of the electro-magnet to the 

 transmission of power to a distance, for producing telegraphic and other effects. The 

 results I had published were communicated to Mr. Morse, by his scientific assistant, 

 Dr. Gale, as will be shown on the evidence of the latter; and the facts which I had 

 discovered were promptly applied in rendering effective the operation of his machine. 



In the latter part of 1837 I became personally acquainted with Mr. Morse, and at 

 that time, and afterwards, freely gave him information in regard to the scientific 

 principles which had been the subject of my investigations. After his return from 

 Europe, in 1839, our intercourse was renewed, and continued uninterrupted till 1845. 

 In that year, Mr. Vail, a partner and assistant of Mr. Morse, published a work pur- 

 porting to be a history of the telegraph, in which I conceived manifest injustice was 

 done me. I complained of this to a mutual friend, and subsequently received an 

 assurance from Mr. Morse that if another edition were published, all just ground of 

 complaint should be removed. A new emission of the work, however, shortly after- 

 wards appeared, without change in this respect, or further reference to my labors. 

 Still I made no public complaint, and set up no claims on account of the telegraph. 

 I was content that my published researches should remain as material for the history 

 of science, and be pronounced upon, according to their true value, by the scientific 

 world. 



After this, a series of controversies and lawsuits having arisen between rival claim- 

 ants for telegraphic patents, I was repeatedly appealed to, to act as expert and witness 



