ff.3 MORTIMER, JOHN HAMILTON. 



this circuit, it would not be difficult to construct a system of signs by 

 which intelligence could be instantaneously transmitted." The 

 subject occupied bis thoughts during the remainder of the yoyage, 

 and within a week after his arrival in America he commenced opera- 

 tions with a view of testing the theory he had formed; but the 

 pressure of other duties, and the want of ampler means, compelled 

 him to postpone his experiments. It was not until the summer of 

 1837 that he practically satisfied himself of their success ; and in 

 October 1838, this result was more publicly demonstrated on a line half 

 a mile in length. At this period he estimated that " five words could 

 be transmitted in a minute." At the present time vastly more 

 can be accomplished. Congress had liberally granted 30,000 dollars 

 to enable the inventor to carry on his experiments ; but he had still 

 to await during long and anxious years for that extensive development 

 of his invention which should render it one of the most striking 

 improvements of modern times. Not till June 1844 had he the grati- 

 fication of witnessing all his most sanguine hopes realised in the 

 establishment of a telegraphic line forty miles in length between 

 Baltimore' and Washington. Almost immediately afterwards the 

 advantages of telegraphic communication were extended to the 

 remotest parts of the Union. 



The peculiar advantage of Morse's system consists in its great 

 simplicity. A single wire only is necessary, with a galvanic battery 

 as the source of power at the transmitting station, and an electro- 

 magnet of iron at the receiving station to record the pa-sage or 

 presence of the power. The process is self-recording or self printing. 

 Attached to the magnet is a steel pricker, which effects marks (signs) 

 on paper aa it is unrolled by clock-work mechanism from a coil 

 The alphabet is formed of a combination of dots and strokes : thus, 

 & - ,6 - - -, and so on. Visible signals are liable to be inaccurately 

 read off, and znisrendings render repetitions necessary ; but an indelible 

 transcription on paper avoids these disadvantages. In point of 

 celerity Morse's single wire apparatus exceeds the two-line wire and 

 double-needle in the ratio of 3 to 2 : Jiis single perfecting wire is 

 capable of a celerity three times greater than that of double-needle 

 instruments. In 1854, out of 41,392 telegraphic wires in the United 

 States, 36,972 were worked under Morse's patent. It has been applied 

 with some modilications on the Continent, but with little or no 

 advantage to the inventor. 



The long intarval which elapsed between the suggestion of the 

 principle in 1832 and its practical test on a small scale in 183S, and 

 a period of equal length from that year until 1844 when the invention 

 i imnphantly in operation, was one of those severe trials to which 

 inventors are proverbially liable. In America ho is now without a 

 rival, and his honourable claims are fully recognised in Europe. The 

 inrome he derived from his patents soon placed him in affluent cir- 

 cumstances, and he now enjoys the well-merited reward of his labours 

 at Poujjhkeepsie, in the State of New York, where he lives in com- 

 parative retirement. He is married, and has one son and one 

 daughter. He occupies the post of "electrician" of the New York 

 Newfoundland Telegraph Company, nnd the still more distin- 

 guished situation of electrician of the New York, Newfoundland 

 and London Telegraph Company, for connecting the continents 

 of Europe and America by a submarine electric cable. He is also 

 Professor of Natural History at Yale College. In 1856 Professor 

 Morse visited England for the purpose of promoting the project of a 

 submarine cable across the Atlantic. On the night of October 2nd, in 

 conjunction with Mr. Charles T. Bright, O.K., engineer of the Magnetic 

 Telegraph Company, and Dr. Whitehurst, experiments were made 

 at the Company's offices in London, which established the practicability 

 of the scheme. In a report dated 5 a.m., Oct. 3, written at the close 

 of the night's labours, Professor Morse stated that, upon a single con- 

 tinuous conductor of more than 2000 miles in extent, the telegraphic 

 register had counted signals at the rate of 210, 240, and even 270 

 per minute. A few days afterwards, Oct. 9, a public dinner was 

 given in his honour in London by the several telegraph companies, 

 and others interested in telegraphic communication. Shortly after- 

 wards he returned to the United States. 



MORTIMER, JOHN HAMILTON, an artist of high repute in his 

 day, was born in 1741, and was the fon of a miller who afterwards 

 became a collector of the customs at Eastbourne, Sussex. John was 

 the youngest of four children, and having discovered a taste for 

 drawing, which he is supposed to have acquired from an uncle who 

 wag an itinerant portrait-painter, he was at about the age of eighteen 

 or nineteen, placed under Hudson, who had been the instructor 

 of Reynolds. With him however ho did not continue long, but, after 

 having studied awhile in the gallery of the Duke of Richmond, began 

 to'make himself known by his productions. One of his earliest works, 

 founded on an incident in the life of Kdward the Confessor, painted 

 in competition with Romney, obtained from the Society for the 

 Encouragement of Arts a premium of fifty guineas, and that of St. 

 Paul preaching to the Britons one hundred guineas. He was further 

 distinguished by the notice and friendship of Reynolds, which friend- 

 ahip has been attributed not to the sympathy but to the opposition 

 of their tastes in art. Mortimer was no colourist, and but an indiffe- 



MORTON, EARL OF. 



354 



B1OO. ll'.V. VOL. IV. 



proups of banditti are masterly; and his 'King John signing Magna 

 Charta,' ' Tho Battlo of Agiucourt,' &c., show him to have possessed 

 original power in the higher walk of art ; and he possessed consider- 

 able knowledge of the human figure. The ' Brazen Serpent in the 

 Wilderness,' in the great window of Salisbury cathedral, and the 

 cartoons for that in Brazenose College, Oxford, were designed by him. 



In person Mortimer was handsome, his figure of athletic mould, 

 and his constitution was naturally very strong, ljut he greatly im- 

 paired it by the excesses of what is called frea living. About the 

 year 1775 his health began to decline, his former exuberant gaiety 

 abandoned him, and lie became altogether an altered man ; but though 

 he in some degree recovered, and was able to employ his pencil both 

 industriously and profitably, realising by it nine hundred pounds in 

 the course of a single year, his life was soon cut short, for he died 

 on the 4th of February 1779, in the thirty-eighth year of his age. He 

 was buried in the church at High Wycombe, near the altar ; where is 

 his painting of ' St. Paul preaching to the Britons.' 



MORTON, JAMES DOUGLAS, FOURTH EARL OF, aud Regent of 

 Scotland, was a younger son of the great family of Angus, which, 

 besides other honours, had more than once held the office of lord- 

 high-chancellor of Scotland, and by the marriage of the sixth earl of 

 Angus with Margaret of England (widow of King James IV.) had 

 recently been brought into intimate connection with Henry VIII., the 

 brother of that princess. Morton was nephew to tho above earl, 

 being second son of the earl's younger brother, Sir George Douglas of 

 Pittendreich. These two brothers had mutually assisted each other 

 in their struggle for power during the minority of King James V. ; 

 and on the earl's fall in 1528, Sir George fled and remained an exile 

 during the remainder of James's reign. He then returned to his 

 native country, and in 1543 was appointed a privy-councillor to the 

 Regent Arran. 



Previous to this period, but at what precise time is uncertain, the 

 younger son of Sir George had married Lady Elizabeth Douglas, 

 daughter of the third earl of Morton, by a natural daughter of king 

 James V. ; and on that occasion the earl, having no male issue, obtained 

 a new reversionary clause to his patent, transferring the earldom to 

 this fortunate son-in-law. In consequence of this provision he was 

 styled the Master of Morton ; and on his father-in-law's death, in 1 553, 

 he became Earl of Morton. Up to this time he followed undoubtedly 

 the footsteps of his father, who was an active promoter of the Refor- 

 mation, and a friend of king Henry VIII. in the designs of that 

 monarch in reference to Scotland. His name however does not often 

 appear in the public transactions of the period ; aud although one of 

 the original lords of the congregation 'in 1557, yet afraid perhaps of 

 the consequences, in a personal point of view, of casting off the 

 queen-regent, from whom he had already received considerable 

 favours, he long held a doubtful and irresolute course. It was this 

 which made Sadler, the English envoy, describe Morton as " a simple 

 and fearful man." From the time of the queeu-regjnt's death how- 

 ever that description was inapplicable to him ; aud on the 7th of 

 January 1563, he was constituted lord-high-ehancellor of the kingdom, 

 in the room of the forfeited Earl of Huutly, who had been the great 

 head of the Roman Catholic party "in Scotland. He had beeii only a 

 few years in that office however when he was obliged to lay it dowu 

 and fly into England, on occasion of Itizzio's murder, in which cruel 

 and lawless affair he took an active and prominent part. Ho remained 

 in England, under the protection of the English monarch, till the end 

 of the year, when he was restored to Mary's favour by the intercession 

 of Bothwell, whose ambitious designs needed all the aid which could 

 be drawn together from every quarter. Bothwell soon opc-ned to him 

 the plot which he meditated for the murder of Davnley, expecting, no 

 doubt, his ready acquiescence. In this however Bothwell was mis- 

 taken ; Morton refused to concur. But neither did he inform Daruley 

 of the plot, nor take any measures to prevent its being executed ; 

 aud he was one of those who subscribed the famous bond, to protect 

 Bothwell against the charge of being concerned in the murder, and to 

 use every endeavour to promote hia marriage with the queen. Yet 

 when this latter event took place, and when Bothwell became odious 

 to the nation, Morton was the great leader in opposition to him ; aud 

 it was to the castle of his relative, the lady of Lochleven, that Mary 

 was conducted when she delivered herself up at Carbery Hill. 



When Mary was securely lodged in this place of confinement, the 

 Earl of Murray was made regent of the kingdom, and Morton rein- 

 stated in the office of lord chancellor. He continued in this situation 

 during the regencies of Murray, Lennox, and Mar, and was indeed a 

 principal actor in all matters of importance which took place in their 

 time; and on Mar's death at the end of tho year 1572, Morton was 

 himself appointed regent of the kingdom. Here his ability aud vigour 

 indeed, but at the same time Ms ambition, his avarice, aud rapacity, 

 and his general wont of principle, became apparent to all ; he was 

 now at once feared and hated; and finding himself becoming odious 

 to the nation, he conceived the idea of retrieving his reputation by 

 resigning, or rather offering to resign, the government into the king's 

 (James VI.) own hands, his majesty being now in his twelfth year. 

 Accordingly on the 12th of September 1577, he made resignation of 

 his office, and the king, by .the advice of Athol and Argyle, accepted it, 

 to the great joy of the people. Morton, thus unexpectedly taken at 

 his word, retired in a sort of pet to Lochleven, which, from his for- 



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