[ALUG] escaping a "!" in a bash shell

Hullo there, I'm trying to echo a command to a serial port that happens to require a "!". In order to send the command I need to escape the ! with a backslash. However, I'm finding that at the other end, the backslash stays there rather than being stripped off, so the received command is also escaped and therefore doesn't work. Emulated on a terminal: I send jenny@phaedrus:~$ echo "\!tts MALE" > /dev/ttyp2 and receive \!tts MALE But I need to receive !tts MALE Any hints on how to acheive this? Thanks, Jenny