Lightning Man_ The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse - Kenneth Silverman [172]
Morse sent descriptions and drawings of his proposed cable to the experimental genius Sir Michael Faraday. Twenty-five years earlier, Faraday had generated electricity by rotating a copper disk in the field of some horseshoe magnets, a demonstration of electromagnetic induction that pointed the way to the creation of electric motors and dynamos. Morse hailed him as a fellow scientist. He said he had noticed that a prospectus from the British side of Field’s New York, Newfoundland, and London company identified Faraday as “Electrician.” “I have been elected to a similar office,” Morse explained. In his eleven-page letter he boasted of his pioneer cable-laying in New York harbor and his prophecy of transatlantic communication, but mostly sought Faraday’s views on what problems underseas operation might present.
Faraday did not reply. In seeking recognition as a fellow scientist from him, Morse miscalculated. The theoretical level of Faraday’s investigations was unapproachably beyond Morse’s expertise or even comprehension. And he learned from an acquaintance in England that Faraday took offense at being addressed as an “Electrician” to a company. From love of science and a sense of civic duty Faraday freely imparted his knowledge, but he stayed out of the marketplace: “no consideration would induce him to take part in any Company of a speculative or commercial character.” Morse’s acquaintance nevertheless relayed Faraday’s view that a current could no doubt be sent across the ocean. The chief problem, Faraday believed—correctly—would be the weight and strength of the cable, and the difficulty of laying it.
Morse quickly learned that he may also have misjudged his new business associates. Given the steep cost of lawsuits, many telegraph companies bought or leased rival lines rather than fight them in court.
For the same reason, Field wanted to acquire some small eastern companies that used Royal House’s printing telegraph. Morse liked Field personally, but the idea of Field’s group operating Morse lines together with House’s “rotten affair” insulted him. “I will on no account consent to put an inflated, bepuffed, lying abortion, on the same footing with my invention,” he told Field. He still intended to sue House for infringement, and believed that in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling he would be awarded heavy damages: “I do not feel like paying them money instead of receiving it.”
Kendall too was disturbed by Field’s willingness to consolidate with House companies. What troubled him even more, however, was the risky and one-sided agreement Field had extracted from Morse. Morse’s grant of patent rights at no charge to the New York, Newfoundland, and London company would be resented by Morse companies, which had paid for the rights. Also, Morse’s attempts to persuade other lines to transmit Field’s international messages at half price created a conflict of interest, since Morse himself owned stock in many of those lines. The other stockholders would suspect him of sacrificing them to serve his interest in Field’s line. Kendall warned Morse that the agreement would bring him distrust and ill will, and implored him to cancel it. “They ought never to have asked you to enter into it,” he said; “I have reason to doubt the sincerity but none to make me doubt the utter selfishness of these people.”
But Morse felt flattered to be treated by Field’s associates as the “great high priest” of telegraphy, and viewed the transatlantic cable as a noble philosophic-scientific-humanitarian endeavor. Field and his colleagues were “honorable men,” he told Kendall. They would not try to “entrap” him. Having made his agreement he would stand by it: “I shall feel myself bound in honor to bear this sacrifice myself and penalty of my folly, if folly it is.”
It took an entire year to ready the first stage of Field’s heroic undertaking—a land-and-water line connecting Newfoundland with the American