The Memorial of Samuel F. B. Morse, Alfred Vail, and Amos Kendall, to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress, respectfully represents:

That they have read with astonishment the memorial signed by Henry O’Rielly, “in behalf of himself and his associates in the Atlantic, Lake, and Mississippi Range of Telegraphs,” “concerning the impeachment of Judge Monroe, and correcting certain fraudulent schemes for influencing legislative and judicial action and the operations of the Patent Office,” presented to both Houses of Congress, and referred to their Committees.

Of the advice which this personage gives to Congress, your Memorialists have nothing to say; nor will they comment on the spectacle of a suitor in Court coming before that body and proposing the impeachment of a Judge, before whom his case is still pending, because a preliminary question has been decided against him, weaving together a tissue of facts and fancies to cast suspicion upon him, and threatening, “by his associates in different States, if not by himself,” to invoke the aid of Congress in his warfare upon the Judiciary, until the Judges shall acquiesce in his views.

Your memorialists do not think it necessary, or even respectful, to your honorable bodies, to notice in detail the insinuations and charges of Mr. O’Rielly, concocted and put together for the sole purpose of creating false impressions, and thereby influencing improperly, the legislative and judicial authorities of the country; but there are some points on which justice to themselves requires a reply; and one upon which the public interest, as well as private reputation, demand a prompt investigation.

Whether Morse’s patents be valid or void, is a question for the courts, which it is hoped they may be permitted to decide without extraneous influences; but your memorialist, Morse, avers, that there is not, and never was anything fraudulent or covert in his claims, or in the means adopted by him to bring his Telegraph into public use. He cheerfully accords to Professor Henry all that he claims for himself, and readily admits that, in the construction of his Telegraph, he uses many things invented by others. The chief merit he claims is, that of so combining together things and inventions already existing as to produce a result never before attained, and this is the essence of his invention..

Your memorialists, one and all, deny that they had any agency, direct or indirect, in the origin or progress of the bill, “102, House, last session,” to amend ihe Patent Laws, as charged by Mr. O’Rielly, whether that bill be right or wrong.

They, one and all deny, that they, or either of them, had any agency in the origin or progress of the act to change the time of holding the United States Circuit Court in Kentucky, or knew that such an act had ever passed, until they read a notice of it in Mr. O’Rielly’s memorial.

Henry O’Rielly, in June, 1845, entered into a contract with the proprietors of Morse’s Telegraph, in which he undertook to raise funds for its construction on certain extensive lines. In 1846 a dispute arose in relation to his action under that contract; and on the 24th day of October of that year, he wrote a letter to one of the proprietors, in which, speaking of himself and associates, he said: “In their hands, sustained by their talent, character, and property, the rights and duties under my contract (which is their contract also) have been, and will be, most sedulously considered; for they esteem that contract quite as sacred as the patent, and will unite with the patentees in maintaining both with equal energy whenever either may be assailed in any form or place.”

Yet, the same Henry O’Rielly, not content with attempting to vindicate the rights claimed under that contract, is now

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found in uncompromising hostility to the very patents on which those claims rest, and which he thus pledged himself to aid in maintaining!

Mr. O’Rielly charges your memorialists with attempting to set up a gigantic monopoly. They are attempting just such a monopoly as Mr. O’Rielly has to his coat or his hat. They are his until he sells them, or gives them away; and then they are the purchaser’s until he also lawfully parts with them. A patent is as effectually private property as a man’s land, cattle, furniture, or clothing; and the person who attempts to rob him of it, the law calls a “Pirate.” Your memorialist, Morse, was too poor to be robbed, or even envied, while spending years of privation and want in bringing his invention to perfection; but no sooner is it proved to be of great value, than, like other inventors of valuable improvements, he is assailed on every side by those who wish to profit at his expense. Henry O’Rielly is at the head of these Corsairs, and finding himself checked by the arm of the law, comes to Congress to paralize that arm that he may plunder with impunity!

Who makes this charge of monopoly? The man who fixed himself upon this patent, pledged himself to aid in maintaining it, and refused to be shaken off! This is not all. In less than a month after this pledge was given, he, in connection Hugh Downing and Samuel L. Selden, contracted for the use of House’s Telegraph, which they knew could not be used without violating Morse’s patents; and a short time afterwards, Mr O’Rielly bargained with Charles B. Moss for the use of a Telegraph he was said to have invented. In January, 1847, Mr. O’Rielly’s partner, Hugh Downing, proposed to one of your memorialists, (“could matter be made satisfactory,”) “to amalgamate the systems of Morse, House, and Moss, avowedly and in so many words, “TO PREVENT THE COMPETITION OF RIVAL IMPROVEMENTS FOR ALL TIME TO COME.” This proposition to create a real monopoly was promptly repulsed; whereupon Mr. O’Rielly’s partner, Downing, replied: “I can but regret that yourself and the patentees

do not view the matter of interference of rival improvements with as much importance as I do. My opinion is not changed, but strengthened.”

Not being able to establish a real monopoly in partnership with the Morse patentees, Mr. Downing went to work in the East and Mr. O’Rielly in the West, to produce the very “interference by rival improvements,” which they had proposed to prevent, “for all time to come,” denouncing as monopolists the very men who had refused to unite with them in creating a real monopoly!

Your memorialists have uniformly refused to purchase, on any terms, other systems of Telegraphing, for the reason, among others, that it would expose them to the charge of attempting to create a monopoly, whereas no such charge could justly be made against them, so long as they confined themselves to Morse’s invention. Thus they have successively refused to bargain for House’s, Moss’, Bain’s, and other Telegraphic schemes, preferring to encounter all the annoyances they may engender, to exposing themselves to a just charge of buying up and monopolizing in themselves all Telegraphic inventions.

But Henry O’Rielly, claiming the exclusive right to use Morse’s Telegraph on the Western lines, purchased successively the exclusive right to use those of House, Moss, Pease, Barnes and Zook, Bain, and how many more your memorialists know not, with the palpable object of establishing a Telegraphic monopoly throughout the great West; and one of his principal grounds of complaint against the Morse patentees is, that they, in spite of the most resolute opposition on his part, have caused another line of Telegraph to be built through the West, which comes in competition with the lines built by him.

One of the grounds of the breach between Mr. O’Rielly and your memorialists was, the unauthorized issue of evidences of property in Morse’s patents, in the shape of certificates of stock in a Telegraph company, not having himself

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any conveyance of the title. In a verbal explanation, he declared that all the certificates so issued were gratuities to Editors. In a subsequent written explanation he said; “Another person (Mr. Rogers) has a couple of orders to receive stock when stock is issued hereafter on my share; as I wrote him lately in reply, that no stock was issued to me, excepting some gratuities to Editors,” &c. Again he says, *** “aside from GRATUITIES TO EDITORS who have befriended the Telegraphic cause generally, full as much as they have aided any projects of mine, (several others I design to remember when stock shall be issued to me, on the completion of the section,) there are no certificates issued to more than seven persons here and elsewhere.” *** The practice thus acknowledged by Mr. O’Rielly has, as your memorialists are informed and believe, been pursued to an enormous extent, East and West, poisoning the fountains of popular information, and corrupting the guardians of the public weal. The articles of a bought press in one section, are echoed by the bought press in other sections; and these mercenary effusions are collected and reprinted as evidences of public opinion. When a Judge puts his ban upon as gross a piracy as was ever committed on patent property, he instantly becomes the object of attack by the most profligate of these presses; and Mr. O’Rielly comes here to ask the aid of Congress, in alliance with his instruments elsewhere, charging or insinuating against your memorialists and others the management and crimes of which he is himself guilty.

The Legislature of Tennessee, at their last session, unwilling to see the State become the accomplice of patent pirates, and its citizens exposed to be swindled by them, vested in the Board of Public Works the power to grant the right of way to Telegraph lines within that State, on condition that they builders are the real owners of the Telegraph they propose to use, and that it is not a palpable infringement of the rights of others. By the grossest misrepresentations, the agents of Mr. O’Rielly induced one house to vote a repeal of this law;

but the repeal was defeated in the other, first by a tie vote, and afterwards by a considerable majority. It now stands on the statute book the law of the land; yet Mr. O’Rielly paid no regard to its provisions, and now, while complaining of alledged breaches of law to his injury, tells Congress this law of Tennessee has been “declared a nullity by popular sentiment.” And by “popular sentiment,” engendered by corrupt presses, this man now seeks to operate on Congress and the Judiciary, in the hope of nullifying the protection which the Constitution and laws promise to patent property.

Your memorialists, in justice to Judge Monroe, who is absent, present herewith a copy of his Opinion wherein the grounds of his action in the matter complained of, are clearly stated.

There is one charge in the memorial of Henry O’Rielly which your memorialists pray may be promptly investigated. It is contained in the following paragraph, viz: “And your memorialist further represents, that full examination by any committee charged with adequate power to these purposes, will show that 1 very particular care has been taken by some of the controllers of Morse’s Telegraph for securing such appointments to office under the Federal Government as seemed best calculated to promote their peculiar interests in establishing the attempted monopoly. Documents will prove, to any Judge or Jury, the extent to which certain testimony from a Patent Examiner (who was a partner and is yet interested with Messrs. Morse & Co.) should be credited, as it was by Judge Monroe, in defiance of other and disinterested testimony of the strongest character.”

The Patent Examiner here alluded to is universally understood to be Prof. Leonard D. Gale, who has, in common with Judge Monroe, been frequently assailed by Mr. O’Rielly and his mercenary instruments. It is due to the public, if the Patent Office be corrupt, that it be purified; and it is due alike to the public and Prof. Gale, if he be innocent, that his innocence shall be established and proclaimed, and a merited

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stigma cast upon his false accuser. The evidences are all at hand and may be collected without delay.

Your memorialists, therefore, earnestly pray that the Commissioner of Patents may be called on to state at whose instance Professor Gale was appointed, and furnish copies of his recommendations, stating all the circumstances of his appointment; and that Mr. O’Reilly be called upon to produce the evidences on which his charges are founded.

Finally, your memorialists pray for such further action, or declaration, on the part of Congress, as may be necessary to maintain the independence of the Judiciary in deciding upon their rights, and prevent “the law itself being declared a nullity by popular sentiment,” misinformed and misled by the falsehoods of purchased presses and inflammatory appeals for the interposition of Congress.