". . . I wish . . . you would give me in Confidence the names of those in the Board of W[estern] U[nion] who are acting in so dishonorable & tricky a manner. I think I ought to know in order to avoid them and resist them in the public interest. It is a shame that an enterprise which honestly conducted is more than usual profitable should be conducted on the principles of Sharpers & tricksters.
"So far as the [Western Union] Russian Extension is concerned, I should judge from your representation, that as a Stockholder in that enterprise . . . the plan would conduce to my immediate pecuniary benefit, but so would the robbery of the Safe of a Bank. If wealth can be obtained only by Such Swindle, I prefer poverty. . . . By all means press the plan of Consolidation with the N[ew] Y[ork] N[ew]F[oundland] and London Tel. Co. Such men as [Moses] Taylor, [Marshall O. ] Roberts, [Peter] Cooper, & [Cyrus W.] Field will do more to ballast such a Great Eastern monster enterprize [sic] than any number of Western capitalists.
". . . [A]ny scheme to oppress the smaller Stockholders, for the benefit of the larger, resist to the death. I prefer to sacrifice all my stock rather than have such a stigma on my character . . . ."
Due to the breakdown of Cyrus W. Field's trans-Atlantic cable shortly after its first successful use in 1858, the Western Union Russian Extension Company was organized in 1864 to establish an overland line between New Westminster, Canada and Moscow. Work on the line was abandoned after a new trans-Atlantic cable was successfully laid in 1866.
with--two letters, each from a distant relation of Morse. The first, Abner Morse (1793-1865), writing to Samuel Morse's son, James [Edward] Morse, concerning a portrait for the section on Samuel Morse in his new book, Memorial of the Morses, (Boston, 1850). Boston, 24 October 1849. The second, Reverend James Morss [Morse] (1779-1842), to his son, James Morss, Jr., exhorting him to have nothing to do with abolitionism. Newburyport, 24 November 1837.