and unworthy efforts thus made to defeat you.

"You are at liberty to use this statement in any manner you may
desire.

"Very truly and respectfully,

"Your Ob't Ser'vt,

"CHA'S E. SHERMAN."

Although not coming in the natural order of events, I quote from an
enclosure found in a letter written to Hon. H. May, evidently a member
of Congress. Mr. Hussey having failed to apply for an extension of his
1833 patent early enough, a bill was introduced in Congress with an
extension in view. In some correspondence between Mr. Hussey and the
Hon. H. May an enclosure is found reading as follows:

[Sidenote: Mr. Hussey's Defense]

"During the examination of my case in the Committee-room on the 21st
inst. you asked me a question, and accompanied it with a remark to the
effect 'Why could I not raise a company in Baltimore with sufficient
capital and make as many machines as Howard & Co. and compete with them
on equal ground? The excitement of the occasion disqualified me for
giving a full reply to your question and remarks. I was at the time so
impressed with the injustice and the great hardship of being compelled
to compete with the world for what of right belonged to myself
exclusively that I had not the words to express my feelings. Could any
gentleman look back twenty-one years and see me combating the prejudices
of the farmers, and exerting the most intense labor of body and mind,
and continuing to do so from year to year, at the very door of poverty,
and also look back on those New York parties through the same period,
accumulating wealth by the usual course of business, and perhaps
watching my progress, and waiting for the proper moment to step in with
their money power and grasp the lion's share of the prize which justly
belongs to myself. If they could look back on the circumstances and
comprehend the case in all its reality and truth I should have no fear
of a just decision by the Committee in the House of Representatives. The
Government which can tolerate and uphold such a state of things would
appear to me to be a hard Government.

"The end and design of the Patent Laws was to reward the inventor for a
valuable invention by giving him the exclusive right to make and vend
the article which he had invented and fourteen years was deemed a
sufficient time in which to secure that reward. The telegraph was
perfect on its first trial. It required no improvement. On the contrary,
half the wire was