CHAPTER XXI.
OCTOBER 1, 1832--FEBRUARY 28, 1833 Packet-ship Sully .-- Dinner-table conversation .-- Dr.Charles T.Jackson .-- First conception of telegraph .-- Sketch-book .-- Idea of 1832 basic principle of telegraph of to-day .-- Thoughts on priority .-- Testimony of passengers and Captain Pell .-- Difference between "discovery" and "invention."-- Professor E.N.

Horsford's paper .-- Arrival in New York .-- Testimony of his brothers .-- First steps toward perfection of the invention .-- Letters to Fenimore Cooper.
The history of every great invention is a record of struggle, sometimes Heart-breaking, on the part of the inventor to secure and maintain his rights.

No sooner has the new step in progress proved itself to be an upward one than claimants arise on every side; some honestly believing themselves to have solved the problem first; others striving by dishonest means to appropriate to themselves the honor and the rewards, and these sometimes succeeding; and still others, indifferent to fame, thinking only of their own pecuniary gain and dishonorable in their methods.

The electric telegraph was no exception to this rule; on the contrary, its history perhaps leads all the rest as a chronicle of "envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness." On the other hand, it brings out in strong relief the opposing virtues of steadfastness, perseverance, integrity, and loyalty.
Many were the wordy battles waged in the scientific world over the questions of priority, exclusive discovery or invention, indebtedness to others, and conscious or unconscious plagiarism.

Some of these questions are, in many minds, not yet settled.