Lightning Man_ The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse - Kenneth Silverman [189]
Morse met with the directors at the elite Reform Club in London’s Pall Mall. Dining elegantly on Aiguillettes de Canetons and Caille Bonne Bouche, he recorded the names and titles of those present, including several MPs, the mayor of Montreal, and the Lord of the Admiralty. He believed that under the new plan it would take longer to lay the cable, raising the risk, as fall approached, of encountering stormy weather. He nevertheless recommended the plan because it made ship-to-shore communication possible over the entire distance. The progress of the expedition could be continually reported to the company in London. And the working of the circuit could be continually tested all the way from Ireland to Newfoundland. He submitted two lengthy statements on the proposed change, which the company featured in a pamphlet, Reports and Opinions in Reference to the Selection of the Best Point for Laying the Cable.
The new plan was adopted. The revised schedule called for the Agamemnon to leave Greenwich late in July and meet up with the Niagara in Queenstown, Ireland, where both ships would take on coal and be joined by escort ships. From Queenstown the ships would steam together to the island of Valentia, where a cable-end aboard the Niagara would be attached to a telegraph onshore. Then the squadron would set out across the Atlantic, the giant American frigate paying out cable behind it.
Morse reboarded the Niagara in Liverpool, where he spent a Sunday with brother Sidney and his family, then traveling in Europe. When the American vessel left Liverpool harbor, British tars in the rigging of nearby warships cheered, flags of other nations dipped in salute, cannons fired, crowds on the quays waved handkerchiefs. Next day the Niagara reached Queenstown, picturesquely set on green hills overlooking the Cove of Cork, “one of the most beautiful harbors in the world,” Morse thought. The Susquehanna, the largest paddle steamer in the American navy, dropped anchor close by, having been ordered from the Mediterranean to serve as an escort. Two days later the Agamemnon arrived from London with its British tenders Cyclops and Leopard. A steamer plied all day between the assembled British-American squadron and the shore, filling the streets of Queenstown with rambling sailors, and the ships with inhabitants of Queenstown and Cork—“wildly enthusiastic,” reported a Queenstown correspondent: “This country is now filled with some of the most distinguished scholars and philosophers in the universe, all having in view the ambition of being eye witnesses of the grandest undertaking history can record.”
On July 30 Morse performed an important experiment. With the Niagara and the Agamemnon lying a few hundred yards apart in the harbor, the two 1250-mile halves of the cable were to be temporarily joined, to test whether the line functioned through its entire length. Climbing down the side of the Niagara, Morse stepped in and out of a pontoon of several small boats, making his way toward a tug that carried the span of connecting cable. The small boats rocked in the rough water. Morse misstepped. His left leg went down between two boats, scraping several inches of skin from near the knee. He had similarly injured his legs several times over the years: in 1830 a fall in Washington had lamed him for six weeks; in 1846 he fell into a coal chute on Broadway, taking off from his leg three inches of skin with some flesh and bone; only recently he had bruised his hip and leg in a heavy rolling sea. A surgeon dressed the wound, leaving Morse mobile enough to assist in connecting and testing the cables. To his great satisfaction a signal sped through the 2500 miles in half a second.
Morse’s injury confined him to his berth on the Niagara for about three days, lying on his back. He emerged on August 4, when the ship steamed into Valentia, an island of neat cottages on gently sloping hills in the far