Senate was even more dubious; and when it came up for consideration late one night before the adjournment, a senator, the Hon. Fernando Wood, went to Morse, who watched in the gallery, and said,'There is no use in your staying here. The Senate is not in sympathy with your project. I advise you to give it up, return home, and think no more about it.'
Morse retired to his rooms, and after paying his bill for board, including his breakfast the next morning, he found himself with only thirty-seven cents and a half in the world. Kneeling by his bed-side he opened his heart to God, leaving the issue in His hands, and then, comforted in spirit, fell asleep. While eating his breakfast next morning, Miss Annie G. Ellsworth, daughter of his friend the Hon. Henry L. Ellsworth, Commissioner of Patents, came up with a beaming countenance, and holding out her hand, said—
'Professor, I have come to congratulate you.'
'Congratulate me!' replied Morse; 'on what?'
'Why,' she exclaimed,' on the passage of your Bill by the Senate!'
It had been voted without debate at the very close of the session. Years afterwards Morse declared that this was the turning-point in the history of the telegraph. 'My personal funds,' he wrote,' were reduced to the fraction of a dollar; and had the passage of the Bill failed from any cause, there would have been little prospect of another attempt on my part to introduce to the world my new invention.'
Grateful to Miss Ellsworth for bringing the good news, he declared that when the Washington to Baltimore line was complete hers should be the first despatch.
The Government now paid him a salary of 2,500 dollars a month to superintend the laying of the
