Lightning Man_ The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse - Kenneth Silverman [187]
Morse received extensive notice and credit, especially in the American press—interviews, biographical sketches, engraved portraits. An interviewer for Harper’s Weekly remarked to him that many people doubted the line could be laid: “ ‘Can’t! Sir, can’t!’ replied the venerable Professor, quickly: ‘I have forgotten the meaning of that word. We must succeed.’ ’”
Morse shipped for England aboard one of the vessels contributed by the American government, the steam-and-sail frigate Niagara. Designed by George Steers, builder of the famed clipper yacht America, it was deemed for size, speed, and armament the finest man-of-war in the world. Its huge black hull was 375 feet long and 56 feet wide, its 28-foot engine room housed four boilers, its mighty guns could blast a 270-pound shot four miles with the accuracy of a rifle. Morse greatly liked the “noble” ship. He remained in high spirits during the passage, socializing with the captain and the two Russian naval officers who had come as observers. While he sat having tea in a heavy rolling sea, his table came unfastened, knocking him to the floor and throwing a chair on top of him, painfully bruising his hip and leg: “if we are in the Niagara,” he quipped, “we must expect the Falls.”
After a passage of nearly three weeks, Morse arrived on May 14 at Gravesend in the Thames estuary. The appearance of an American warship in the Thames, and the ship’s mission, drew crowds of visitors day and night as the Niagara awaited the arrival of its British counterpart, the Agamemnon.
A serious problem developed. Plans called for each ship to take on 1250 miles of the cable, which was being produced by two different British manufacturers—one at Greenwich near London, the other near Liverpool. The Niagara’s, great length made it difficult to bring her alongside the wharf in front of the Greenwich cableworks. And other peculiarities of the ship’s design made it impossible to stow the cable properly. Morse saw that the very features of the Niagara that had impressed him also unsuited her: “She is by far too splendid a ship for the purpose.” To overcome the problem, the Niagara’s, interior would have to be cut up and reshaped. The ship was sent to Portsmouth, where workmen began breaking partitions and taking down staterooms. Instead of returning to the Thames, the Niagara would then go to Liverpool to receive cable.
Despite the setback, it excited Morse to be part of the venture, “rejoiced that I have come out.” The remodeling of the Niagara and stowing of its cable would take at least six weeks. He took advantage of the delay by making an unforeseen business trip to Paris. He had hired an agent to negotiate indemnities from individual European countries that used the Morse system. But while in London he learned that France’s Minister of the Interior had proposed that the French government take the initiative and arrange a joint indemnity from them all.
Morse enthusiastically approved the idea, and went to Paris hoping to forward it. A collective European grant shared in by several countries would be a unique honor, “a distinction never before conferred on an Inventor.” Holding himself as always above vulgar materialism, he treated the amount to be given as a matter of greater concern to the governments involved than to himself. “This is not an ordinary transaction for them; they have an historic character to maintain, and its issue is to stamp that character indelibly on the pages of history.” The logic of Washingtonian aestheticism thus allowed him to hope that the nations of Europe would contribute handsomely to the indemnity—not for his sake but their own: “A petty sum would not satisfy the world, however willing I might be to accept whatever they shall deem just and proper to give.”
To reinforce the French efforts on his behalf, Morse published while in Paris a twelve-page pamphlet entitled A Memoir Showing the Grounds of my Claim to Some Indemnity. It described the spread of