'
The practical outcome of the trial was that the Chairman reported a
Bill appropriating 30,000 dollars for the erection of an experimental
line between Washington and Baltimore. Mr. Smith was admitted to a
fourth share in the invention, and resigned his seat in Congress to
become legal adviser to the inventors. Claimants to the invention of
the telegraph now began to spring up, and it was deemed advisable for
Mr. Smith and Morse to proceed to Europe and secure the foreign patents.
Alfred Vail undertook to provide an instrument for exhibition in Europe.
Among these claimants was Dr. Jackson, chemist and geologist, of
Boston, who had been instrumental in evoking the idea of the telegraph
in the mind of Morse on board the Sully. In a letter to the NEW YORK
OBSERVER he went further than this, and claimed to be a joint inventor;
but Morse indignantly repudiated the suggestion. He declared that his
instrument was not mentioned either by him or Dr. Jackson at the time,
and that they had made no experiments together. 'It is to Professor
Gale that I am most of all indebted for substantial and effective aid in
many of my experiments,' he said; 'but he prefers no claim of any kind.'
Morse and Smith arrived in London during the month of June.
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