I shall return with the gratifying reflection that, after
all my anxieties, and labors, and privations, and your and my other
associates' expenditures and risks, we are all in a fair way of reaping
the fruits of our toil. The political troubles of France have been a
hindrance hitherto to the attention of the Government to the Telegraph,
but in the mean time I have gradually pushed forward the invention into
the notice of the most influential individuals of France. I had Colonel
Lasalle, aide-de-camp to the king, and his lady to see the Telegraph a
few days ago. He promised that, without fail, it should be mentioned to
the king. You will be surprised to learn, after all the promises hitherto
made by the Prefect of the Seine, Count Remberteau, and by various other
officers of the Government, and after General Cass's letter to the aide
on service, four or five months since, requesting it might be brought to
the notice of the king, that the king has not yet heard of it. But so
things go here.

"Such dereliction would destroy a man with us in a moment, but here there
is a different standard (this, of course, _entre nous_).... Among the
numerous visitors that have thronged to see the Telegraph, there have
been a great many of the principal English nobility. Among them the Lord
and Lady Aylmer, former Governor of Canada, Lord Elgin and son, the
Celebrated preserver, not depredator (as he has been most slanderously
called) of the Phidian Marbles. Lord Elgin has been twice and expressed a
great interest in the invention. He brought with him yesterday the Earl
of Lincoln, a young man of unassuming manners; he was delighted and gave
me his card with a pressing invitation to call on him when I came to
London.

"I have not failed to let the English know how I was treated in regard to
my application for a patent in England, and contrasted the conduct of the
French in this respect to theirs. I believe they felt it, and I think it
was Lord Aylmer, but am not quite sure, who advised that the subject be
brought up in Parliament by some member and made the object of special
legislation, which he said might be done, the Attorney-General to the
contrary notwithstanding. I really believe, if matters were rightly
managed in England, something yet might be done there, if not by patent,
yet by a parliamentary grant of a proper compensation. It is remarkable
that they have not yet made anything like mine in England. It is evident
that neither W