244 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



ished line. At the suggestion of her mother she chose the 

 text, " What hath God wrought," which was transmitted by 

 Prof. Morse to Mr. Vail in Baltimore, and by him instantly re- 

 turned. The toil and struggles of twelve years were now 

 crowned with success, and the inventor received the richly 

 merited congratulations of the assembled company. Two days 

 later the complete line had its first public test. The National 

 Democratic Convention met in Baltimore and nominated James 

 K. Polk for the presidency, and the Hon. Silas Wright, then 

 a senator from New York, for the vice-presidency. Vail 

 promptly secured the news and telegraphed it to Morse, by 

 whom it was communicated to Mr. Wright, who was in 

 Washington. Within a short space of time the convention was 

 astounded at receiving a message from Mr. Wright saying that 

 he respectfully declined the nomination. Most of the mem- 

 bers were incredulous as to the genuineness of the message, 

 and the convention accordingly adjourned over to the follow- 

 ing day, so that a committee might go to Washington and con- 

 firm or disprove it. The committee returned in the morning, 

 and its report fully established the correctness and capacity 

 of the telegraph. 



The public was allowed to test the telegraph gratuitously 

 for about a year. On April i, 1845, a charge of one cent for 

 each four characters was established by the Postmaster-Gen- 

 eral, after which the telegraph was used more for business 

 purposes than when the service was free. The proprietors 

 now offered to sell the invention outright to the Government 

 for a hundred thousand dollars, but fortunately for them and 

 the country the offer was declined and the development of the 

 American telegraph was left to private enterprise. They then 

 appointed the Hon. Amos Kendall, ex-Postmaster-General, 

 their agent, and under his management the Magnetic Tele- 

 graph Company was organized in May " for the purpose of 

 constructing a line of said telegraph from New York to Wash- 

 ington." 



Prof. Morse sailed from New York early in August to pre- 

 sent his telegraph again to European nations under much more 

 favourable auspices than before. Accomplishing nothing in 

 England, he visited Hamburg and afterward Paris, but re- 

 turned to America in November, having received many honours, 

 but nothing more substantial. Meanwhile numerous lines were 



