That he should have persisted in spite of discouragement after discouragement, struggling to overcome obstacles which to the faint-hearted would have seemed insuperable, constitutes one of his greatest claims to undying fame.

He left on record an account of his experiences in Europe on this voyage, memorable in more ways than one, and extracts from this, and from letters written to his daughter and brothers, will best tell the story:-- "On May 16, 1838, I left the United States and arrived in London in June, for the purpose of obtaining letters patent for my Electro-Magnetic Telegraph System.

I learned before I left the United States that Professor Wheatstone and Mr.Cooke, of London, had obtained letters patent in England for a '_Magnetic-Needle Telegraph_,' based, as the name implies, on the _deflection of the magnetic needle_.

Their telegraph, at that time, required _six conductors_ between the two points of intercommunication _for a single instrument_ at each of the two termini.
Their mode of indicating signs for communicating intelligence was by deflecting _five magnetic needles_ in various directions, in such a way as to point to the required letters upon a diamond-shaped dial-plate.

It was necessary that the signal should be _observed at the instant_, or it was lost and vanished forever.
"I applied for letters patent for my system of communicating intelligence at a distance by electricity, differing in all respects from Messrs.
Wheatstone and Cooke's system, invented five years before theirs, and having nothing in common in the whole system but the use of _electricity_ on _metallic conductors_, for which use no one could obtain an exclusive privilege, since this much had been used for nearly one hundred years.