The Code Book: The Secret History of Codes and Code-breaking. Simon Singh

contents of the treasure, and the third listed the relatives of the men who should receive a share of the treasure. When Morriss read all of this, it was some 23 years after he had last seen Thomas Beale. Working on the assumption that Beale and his men were dead, Morriss felt obliged to find the gold and share it among their relatives. However, without the promised key he was forced to decipher the ciphers from scratch, a task that troubled his mind for the next twenty years, and which ended in failure.

      In 1862, at the age of eighty-four, Morriss knew that he was coming to the end of his life, and that he had to share the secret of the Beale ciphers, otherwise any hope of carrying out Beale’s wishes would die with him. Morriss confided in a friend, but unfortunately the identity of this person remains a mystery. All we know about Morriss’s friend is that it was he who wrote the pamphlet in 1885, so hereafter I will refer to him simply as the author. The author explained the reasons for his anonymity within the pamphlet:

      I anticipate for these papers a large circulation, and, to avoid the multitude of letters with which I should be assailed from all sections of the Union, propounding all sorts of questions, and requiring answers which, if attended to, would absorb my entire time, and only change the character of my work, I have decided upon withdrawing my name from the publication, after assuring all interested that I have given all that I know of the matter, and that I cannot add one word to the statements herein contained.

      To protect his identity, the author asked James B. Ward, a respected member of the local community and the county’s road surveyor, to act as his agent and publisher.