On April 19 he writes:  “I am at this moment put into a very embarrassing state of suspense by a political occurrence which has caused a great excitement here, and will cause considerable interest, no doubt, throughout the country.  This morning a remonstrance was read in the House of Representatives from the Honorable Ninian Edwards against Mr. Crawford, which contains such charges and of so serious a nature as has led to the appointment of a select committee, with power to send for persons and papers in order to a full investigation; and I am told by many members of Congress that Mr. Edwards will undoubtedly be sent for, which will occasion, of course, a great delay in his journey to Mexico, if not cause a suspension of his going until the next season.”

The Mr. Crawford alluded to was William Harris Crawford, at that time a prominent candidate for the Presidency in the coming election.

With his customary faith in an overruling Providence, Morse says later in the same letter:  “This delay and suspense tries me more than distance or even absence from my dear family.  If I could be on my way and pursuing my profession I should feel much better.  But all will be for the best; though things look dark I can and will trust Him who will make my path of duty plain before me.  This satisfies my mind and does not allow a single desponding thought.”

The sending of the legation was indefinitely postponed, and Morse, much disappointed but resolved not to be overwhelmed by this crushing of his high hopes, returned to New Haven.

He spent the summer partly at home and partly in Concord, New Hampshire (where his wife and children had gone to visit her father), and in Portsmouth, Portland, and Hartford, having been summoned to those cities by patrons who wished him to paint their portraits.

We can imagine that the young wife did not grieve over the failure of the Mexican trip.  Her letters to her husband at that period are filled with expressions of the deepest affection, but with an undertone of melancholy, due, no doubt, to the increasing delicacy of her health, never very robust.

In the fall of 1824 Morse resolved to make another assault on the purses of the solid men of New York, and he established himself at 96 Broadway, where, for a time, he had the satisfaction of having his wife and children with him.  They, however, returned later to New Haven, and on December 5, 1824, he writes to his wife:—­

“I am fully employed and in excellent spirits.  I am engaged in painting the full-length portrait of Mr. Hone’s little daughter, a pretty little girl just as old as Susan.  I have made a sketch of the composition with which I am pleased, and so are the father and mother.  I shall paint her with a cat set up in her lap like a baby, with a towel under its chin and a cap on its head, and she employed in feeding it with a spoon....

“I am as happy and contented as I can be without my dear Lucrece and our dear children, but I hope it will not be long before we shall be able to live together without these separations.”