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298 WORKMEN AND HEROES Morse's completed instrument with that which Morse had explained on board the Sully, in 1832. During the twelve years that followed Morse was engaged in a painful strug- gle to perfect his invention and secure for it a proper presentation to the public. The refusal of the Government to commission him to paint one of the great his- torical pictures in the rotunda of the Capitol, seemed to destroy all his old artis- tic ambition. In poverty he pursued his new enterprise, making his own models, moulds, and castings, denying himself the common necessaries of life, and en- countering embarrassments and delays of the most disheartening kind. It was not until 1836 that he completed any apparatus that would work, his original idea having been supplemented by his discovery, in 1835, f the "relay," by means of which the electric current might be reinforced or renewed where it be- came weak through distance from its source. Finally, on September 2, 1837, the instrument was exhibited to a few friends at his room in the University build- ing, New York, where a circuit of 1,700 feet of copper wire had been set up, with such satisfactory results as to awaken the practical interest of the Messrs. Vail, iron and brass workers in New Jersey, who thenceforth became associated with Morse in his undertaking. Morse's petition for a patent was dated September 28, 1837,. and was soon followed by a petition to Congress for an appropriation to defray the expense of subjecting the telegraph to actual experiment over a length sufficient to establish its feasibility and demonstrate its value. The Committee on Commerce, to whom the petition was referred, reported favorably. Congress, however, adjourned without making the appropriation, and meanwhile Morse sailed for Europe to take out patents there. The trip was not a success. In England his application was refused, on the alleged ground that his invention had been already published; and while he obtained a patent in France, it was subsequently appropriated by the French Government without compensation to himself. His negotiations also with Russia proved futile, and after a year's absence he returned to New York. On February 23, 1843, Congress passed the long-delayed appropriation of $30,000; and steps were at once taken to construct a telegraph from Baltimore to Washington. On May 24, 1844, it was used for the first time, Mr. Morse himself sending over the wires the first and ever- to -be -remembered message, "What hath God wrought." Morse's patents were already secured to him and his associates, and compa- nies were soon formed for the erection of telegraph lines all over the United States. In the year 1847 he was compelled to defend his invention in the courts, and successfully vindicated his claims to be called the original inventor of the electro-magnetic recording telegraph. Thenceforward Morse's life was spent in witnessing the growth of his enterprise, and in gathering the honors which an ap- preciative public bestowed upon him. As years went by he received from the various foreign governments their highest distinctions, while in 1858 the repre- sentatives of Austria, Belgium France, the Netherlands, Piedmont, Russia, the