g the least advantage from my labors, the acuteness of my
feelings is altogether inexpressible."

Finally, the states of North and South Carolina voted him a royalty upon
all the machines in use, and this enabled him to pay his debts; but
Whitney at last abandoned hope of ever receiving from his invention the
returns he had hoped for, and, turning his attention to other business,
received, in 1798, a contract from the United States government for
10,000 stand of arms. Eight years were consumed in filling this
contract. A contract for 30,000 stand followed, and so many improvements
in design and process of manufacture were made by Whitney that no other
manufacturer could compete with him.

The result of all this was that Whitney was enabled to end his life in
comparative independence. His last days were his happiest, and he found
in the care and affection of a loving family some consolation for the
injustice and ingratitude which he had suffered.

* * * * *

[Illustration: MORSE]

Sixteen years after the battle of Bunker Hill, a boy was born in a great
frame house at the foot of Breed's Hill, upon which that famous and
misnamed battle was really fought. The boy's father was a preacher named
Jedediah Morse, and the boy was named Samuel Finley, after his maternal
great grandfather, the renowned president of Princeton College, and
Breese, after his mother's maiden name, so that he comes down through
history as S. F. B. Morse. He received a thorough schooling, graduating
from Yale in 1807, and at once turned his attention to art. We have
already spoken of his achievements in that respect, which were really of
the first importance. He was an artist, heart and soul, but the whole
course of his life was to be changed in a remarkable fashion.

In the autumn of 1832, Morse, being at that time forty-one years of age,
sailed from Havre for New York in the ship Sully. It happened that there
were on board some scientists who had been interested in electrical
development, and the talk one evening turned on electricity. Morse knew
little about it, except what he had learned in a few lectures heard at
Yale; but when somebody asked how long it took a current of electricity
to pass through a wire, and when the answer was that the passage was
instantaneous, his interest was aroused.

"If that is the case," he said, "and if the passage of the current can
be made visible or audible, there is no reason wh