Another instance of the inventor’s desire to show his gratitude towards those who had befriended him in his days of poverty and struggle is shown in a letter of November 17, 1862, to the widow of Alfred Vail:—­

“You are aware that a sum of money was voted me by a special Congress, convened at Paris for the purpose, as a personal, honorary gratuity as the Inventor of the Telegraph....  Notwithstanding, however, that the Congress had put the sum voted me on the ground of a personal, honorary gratuity, I made up my mind in the very outset that I would divide to your good husband just that proportion of what I might receive (after due allowance and deduction of my heavy expenses in carrying through the transaction) as would have been his if the money so voted by the Congress had been the purchase money of patent rights.  This design I early intimated to Mr. Vail, and I am happy in having already fulfilled in part my promise to him, when I had received the gratuity only in part.  It was only the last spring that the whole sum, promised in four annual instalments (after the various deductions in Europe) has been remitted to me....  I wrote to Mr. Cobb [one of Alfred Vail’s executors] some months ago, while he was in Washington, requesting an early interview to pay over the balance for you, but have never received an answer....  Could you not come to town this week, either with or without Mr. Cobb, as is most agreeable to you, prepared to settle this matter in full?  If so, please drop me a line stating the day and hour you will come, and I will make it a point to be at home at the time.”

In this connection I shall quote from a letter to Mr. George Vail, written much earlier in the year, on May 19:—­

“It will give me much pleasure to aid you in your project of disposing of the ’original wire’ of the Telegraph, and if my certificate to its genuineness will be of service, you shall cheerfully have it.  I am not at this moment aware that there is any quantity of this wire anywhere else, except it may be in the helices of the big magnets which I have at Poughkeepsie.  These shall not interfere with your design.

“I make only one modification of your proposal, and that is, if any profits are realized, please substitute for my name the name of your brother Alfred’s amiable widow.”

Although the malign animosity of F.O.J.  Smith followed him to his grave, and even afterwards, he was, in this year of 1862, relieved from one source of annoyance from him, as we learn from a letter of May 19 to Mr. Kendall:  “I have had a settlement with Smith in full on the award of the Referees in regard to the ‘Honorary Gratuity,’ and with less difficulty than I expected.”

Morse had now passed the Scriptural age allotted to man; he was seventy-one years old, and, in a letter of August 22, he remarks rather sorrowfully:  “I feel that I am no longer young, that my career, whether for good or evil, is near its end, but I wish to give the energy and influence that remain to me to my country, to save it, if possible, to those who come after me.”