ration in
Russia. The terms of a contract had been mutually agreed upon, and all
was concluded but the signature of the Emperor to legalize it. In order
to take advantage of the ensuing summer season for my operations in
Russia, I determined to proceed immediately to the United States to make
some necessary preparations for the enterprise, without waiting for the
formal completion of the contract papers, being led to believe that the
signature of the Emperor was sure, a matter of mere form.

"Under these circumstances I left Paris on the 13th of March, 1839, and
arrived in London on the 15th of the same month. The next day I sent my
card to the Earl of Lincoln and my letter and card to the Marquis of
Northampton, and in two or three days received a visit from both. By Earl
Lincoln I was at once invited to send my Telegraph to his house in Park
Lane, and on the 19th of March I exhibited its operation to members of
both Houses of Parliament, of the Royal Society, and the Lords of the
Admiralty, invited to meet me by the Earl of Lincoln. From the
circumstances mentioned my time in London was necessarily short, my
passage having been secured in the Great Western to sail on the 23d of
March. Although solicited to remain a while in London, both by the Earl
of Lincoln and the Honorable Henry Drummond, with a view to obtaining a
special Act of Parliament for a patent, I was compelled by the
circumstances of the case to defer till some more favorable opportunity,
on my expected return to England, any attempt of the kind. The Emperor of
Russia, however, refused to ratify the contract made with me by the
Counselor of State, and my design of returning to Europe was frustrated,
and I have not to this hour [April 2, 1847] had the means to prosecute
this enterprise to a result in England. All my exertions were needed to
establish my telegraphic system in my own country.

"Time has shown conclusively the essential difference of my telegraphic
system from those of my opponents; time has also shown that my system
_was not published_ in England, as alleged by the Attorney-General, for,
to this day, no work in England has published anything that does not show
that, as yet, it is perfectly misunderstood....

"The refusal to grant me a patent was, at that period, very disastrous.
It was especially discouraging to have made a long voyage across the
Atlantic in vain, incurring great expenditure and loss of time, which in
their consequences a