JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 143 



sonian Institution; and regarding the charges as undoubtedly con- 

 taining an impeachment of his moral character, as well as of his 

 scientific reputation ; and justly sensitive, not only for his own 

 honor, but for the honor of the institution, he has a right to ask 

 this Board to consider the subject, and to make their conclusions a 

 matter of record, which may 'be appealed to hereafter should any 

 question arise with regard to his conduct in the premises. 



Your committee do not conceive it to be necessary to follow Mr. 

 Morse through all the details of his elaborate attack. Fortunately, 

 a plain statement of a few leading facts will be sufficient to place 

 the essential points of the case in a clear light. 



The deposition already referred to was reluctantly given, and 

 under the compulsion of legal process, by Professor Henry, before 

 the lion. George S. Ilillard, United States Commissioner, on the 

 7th of September, 1849. 



The following is the statement of the Hon. S. P. Chase, (now 

 Governor of Ohio,) one of the counsel in the telegraph cases, in a 

 letter to Professor Henry, dated Columbus, Ohio, November 26th, 

 1856 : 



In the year 1849, I was professionally employed in the defense of certain gentlemen 

 engaged in the husiness of telegraphing between Louisville and New Orleans, against 

 whom a hill of complaint had been filed in the circuit court of the United States for 

 the district of Kentucky. The object of the bill was to restrain the defendants, my 

 clients, from the use in telegraphing of a certain instrument called the Columbian 

 Telegraph, on the ground that it was an infringement upon the rights of the com- 

 plainants under the patents granted to Professor Morse. It therefore became my 

 duty, in the preparation of their defense, to ascertain the precise nature and extent of 

 their rights. With this view I called upon you, in August or September of that 

 year, for your deposition. It was taken before George S. Hillard, Esq., a United 

 States Commissioner for the district of Massachusetts, in Boston. I remember very 

 well that you were unwilling to be involved in the controversy, even as a witness, 

 and that you only submitted to be examined in compliance with the requirements of 

 law. Not one of your statements was volunteered. They were all called out by 

 questions propounded either verbally or in writing. I was not sufficiently familiar at 

 the time with the precise merits of the case to know what would or would not be im- 

 portant, and therefore insisted on a full statement, not merely of the general history 

 of electro-magnetism as applied to telegraphing, but of all your own discoveries in 

 that science having relation to the same art, and of all that had passed between your- 

 self and Professor Morse connected with these discoveries or with the telegraph. You 

 could not have refused to respond to the questions propounded, without subjecting 

 yourself to judicial animadversion and constraint. Nothing in what you testified, 

 or your manner of testifying, suggested to me the idea that you were animated by any 

 desire to arrogate undue merit to yourself, or to detract from the just claims of Prof. 

 Morse. 



S. P. CHASE. 



Previous to this deposition, Mr. Morse, as appears from his own 

 letters and statements, entertained for Professor Henry the warmest 

 feelings of personal regard, and the highest esteem for his character 

 as a scientific man. In a letter, dated April 24, 1839, he thanks 

 Professor Henry for a copy of his " valuable contributions," and 



