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 MEMOIR 
 
 ELI WHITNEY, ESQ. 
 
 DENISON^OLMSTED, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND ASTRONOMY, YALE COLLEGE. 
 
 First published in the American Journal of Science, for 1832. 
 
 NEW HAVEN: 
 
 DURRIE & PECK 
 
 PECK & STAFFORD, PRINTERS. 
 
 P 
 
 I 
 

 
 
MEMOIR 
 
 ELI WHITIEY, ESQ 
 
 DENISON OLMSTED, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND ASTRONOMY, YALE COLLEGE. 
 
 First published in the American Journal of Science, for 1832. 
 
 NEW HAVEN: 
 
 DURRIE & PECK 
 
 PECK & STAFFORD, PRINTERS. 
 1846. 
 

 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction, 5 
 
 Birth and Ancestry, ,..,-,.. { - .,, ,, . 5 
 
 Childhood, ,/ .. . '".'v'jA^^i.iX.- 1 .:.,,,;'' 6 
 
 Early indications of Mechanical Genius, .i^^Atfl^^^f..' V* ;! - ^i* v ''-*\^$ 
 
 Enterprising spirit in boyhood, , i * . . -.,>.. 8 
 
 Preparation for College, . . . f*>}<*i*vT ''!-!-, ,r* ? *. ' ^ 
 
 College life, ; * . . 10 
 
 First visit to Georgia as a Teacher, 12 
 
 Disappointments, . . ,' ' . . . . 12 
 
 Residence in the family of General Greene, 12 
 
 Incident that led to the Invention of the Cotton Gin, 13 
 
 First steps toward the Invention, 14 
 
 Liberal encouragement of Mrs. Greene, . * ; . . ; . .Jj ''* ' vV-.M- * ';/; ^ 
 
 Connection with Phineas Miller, Esq. 15 
 
 Excitement on the first knowledge of the Invention, 16 
 
 Copartnership of Miller & Whitney, 16 
 
 Steps to obtain a Patent, . . *'*Vij-: . . .,.,,' J7 
 
 Encouragement of Mr. Jefferson, ...... f' , * . 17 
 
 Plan of operations, 18 
 
 Great scarcity of Money, ...... .,,,.<. <*-.: *". .18 
 
 Sickness of Mr. Whitney, . . . , . \ . . . . 19 
 
 General resort to Cotton Planting, . . ' < .. _ . ^- <' .20 
 
 Competition for the Invention, . ' * . 20 
 
 Loss of Manufactory by fire, ... 21 
 
 Great fortitude of the Partners, 21 
 
 Pecuniary embarrassments, . . . . . ^ . f ' ,''' * ; , .22 
 
 Sad news from the English manufacturers, . ./.v^./,,./ .... 22 
 
 Prejudices excited against the machine, 23 
 
 Opposition and increasing embarrassments, 23 
 
 Alliance with Mr. J. C. Nightingale, . 24 
 
 Disastrous state of the concern, 25 
 
 Personal struggles and self-denial of Mr. Whitney, .... ^. ', . 25 
 
 Brighter prospects, . . . . * '-'* ' ' . . . . ,. 26 
 
 Unfortunate issue of the first Patent suit, ,, .... ,. . . * f . 26 
 
 Account of the Trial, . . , . . V , .' .. '. . 26 
 
 Desperate state of the concern, . . . . s " . . 27 
 
 Negotiations with South Carolina for sale of Patent, 28 
 
 Purchase by the State, 30 
 
 Negotiations with North Carolina, 31 
 
Negotiations with Tennessee, . . ..-- . -<*: .31 
 
 Attempts to annul these contracts, .. . f k 31 
 
 Violent opposition in Georgia, 32 
 
 Honorable measures of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee, . 33 
 
 First favorable decision on the Patent, . 41 
 
 Celebrated Charge of Judge Johnson, 44 
 
 Successful suits in Georgia, 46 
 
 Report of Trials, . 46 
 
 Great exertions and sufferings of the Patentee, 46 
 
 New enterprise of Mr. Whitney, 47 
 
 Contract with the United States for the manufacture of Arms, . . .47 
 
 Difficulties of the undertaking, 48 
 
 Advantageous site of the Manufactory, . -' , J ' ? ;'* "" '^ ". ' -^ . . 49 
 
 Slow progress of the works, 49 
 
 Great diligence of the Proprietor, 49 
 
 Low state of the Mechanic Arts, and great improvements by Mr. Whitney, 50 
 
 Commendations of Governor Tompkins and Governor Wolcott, '" ' . 50 
 
 111 success of other contracts, ^yi - m 53 
 
 Mechanical skill exhibited by Mr. Whitney, 52 
 
 Account of his system, 53 
 
 Public advantages of it, .' r '.*" *\ <' . v ' .' ' . 54 
 
 Petition for a renewal of the Patent, . <^*'^r '&$ t-ijfc ... 55 
 
 Requited by Congress, . . . . sT ; -* 57 
 
 Letter to Robert Fulton, 's ^,r&^" ^' J ' I 8 ' ,v ' . . . .' ' : . . 58 
 
 Marriage of Mr. Whitney, . . . . ' . ' ; ." V ... 59 
 
 Prospects of happiness, 59 
 
 First attack of illness, '.''.."' -59 
 
 Progress and fatal termination, 60 
 
 Respect of his fellow citizens, . . . .'. . . .60 
 
 Eulogy of President Day, . r j i 4 .... 60 
 
 Character, '' V" * 'V ' , . 61 
 
 Importance of his labors to society, . . . ;' v ^ V "\ . 63 
 
 Early statistics of the Cotton trade, 63 
 
 Contrast with its present state, 64 
 
 Reflections, . 64 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF PROFESSOR SILLIMAN, 66 
 
 APPENDIX, .- . '-> -'. .* -*. . . . . .77 
 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 THE memory of the late Mr. Whitney is so fondly cherished 
 by his fellow citizens, out of respect to his distinguished tal- 
 ents, his private virtues, and his public spirit, and his name 
 holds so honorable a place among the benefactors of our coun- 
 try, that the wish has often been intimated to us of seeing a 
 more extended biography of him, than has hitherto been given 
 to the public. 
 
 We now enter with pleasure upon such a task ; and to en- 
 able us to do the better justice to the subject, we have been 
 favored with access to his extensive correspondence, and to all 
 his other writings, and have conferred freely with various per- 
 sons, who were long and intimately acquainted with him. 
 
 ELI WHITNEY was born at Westborough, Worcester County, 
 Massachusetts, December 8, 1765. His parents belonged to 
 the middle class in society, who, by the labors of husbandry, 
 managed, by uniform industry and strict frugality, to provide 
 well for a rising family. From the same class have arisen 
 most of those who, in New England, have attained to high 
 eminence and usefulness ; nor is any other situation in society 
 so favorable to the early formation of those habits of econ- 
 omy, both of time and money, which, when carried forward 
 into the study of the scholar, or the field of active enterprise, 
 afford the surest pledge of success. 
 
 The paternal ancestors of Mr. Whitney emigrated from 
 England among the early settlers of Massachusetts, and their 
 descendants were among the most respectable farmers of 
 Worcester County. His maternal ancestors, of the name of 
 FAY, were also English emigrants, and ranked among the sub- 
 stantial yeomanry of Massachusetts. A family tradition re- 
 specting the occasion of their coming to this country, may 
 serve to illustrate the history of the times. The story is, that, 
 
6 
 
 % J ' 
 
 about two hundred years ago, the father of the family, who 
 resided in England, a man of large property and great re- 
 spectability, called together his five sons and addressed them 
 thus : " America is to be a great country ; I am too old to em- 
 igrate to it myself; but if any one of you will go, I will give 
 him a double share of my property." The youngest son in- 
 stantly declared his willingness to go, and his brothers gave 
 their consent. He soon set off for the New World, and land- 
 ed at Boston, in the neighborhood of which place he purchased 
 a large tract of land, where he enjoyed the satisfaction of re- 
 ceiving two visits from his venerable father. His son, John 
 Fay, from whom the subject of this memoir is immediately 
 descended, removed from Boston to Westborough, where he 
 became the proprietor of a large tract of land, since known 
 by the name of the Fay-Farm. 
 
 From Mrs. B., the sister of Mr. Whitney, we have derived 
 some particulars respecting his childhood and youth, and we 
 shall present the anecdotes to our readers in the artless style 
 in which they are related by our correspondent, believing that 
 they would be more acceptable in this simple dress, than if, 
 according to the modest suggestion of the writer, they should 
 be invested with a more labored diction. The following in- 
 cident, though trivial in itself, will serve to show at h.ow early 
 a period certain qualities of strong feeling, tempered by pru- 
 dence, for which Mr. Whitney afterwards became distin- 
 guished, began to display themselves. When he was six or 
 seven years old, he had overheard the kitchen-maid, in a fit of 
 passion, calling his mother, who was in a delicate state of health, 
 hard names, at which he expressed great displeasure to his 
 sister. " She thought (said he) that I was not big enough to 
 know any thing ; but I can tell her, I am too big to hear her 
 talk so about by mother. I think she ought to have a flog- 
 ging, and if I knew how to bring it about, she should have 
 one." His sister advised him to tell their father. "No, (he 
 replied,) that will not do ; it will hurt his feelings and mother's 
 too: and besides, it is likely the girl wilt say she never said 
 so, and that would make a quarrel. It is best to say nothing 
 about it." 
 
Indications of his mechanical genius were likewise devel- 
 oped at a very early age. Of his early passion for such em- 
 ployments, his sister gives the following account. " Our fa- 
 ther had a workshop, and sometimes made wheels, of differ- 
 ent kinds, and chairs. He had a variety of tools, and a lathe 
 for turning chair-posts. This gave my brother an opportu- 
 nity of learning the use of tools when very young. He lost 
 no time ; but as soon as he could handle tools he was always 
 making something in the shop, and seemed not to like work- 
 ing on the farm. On a time, after the death of our mother, 
 when our father had been absent from home two or three days, 
 on his return, he inquired of the housekeeper, what the boys 
 had been doing ? She told him what B. and J. had been about. 
 But what has Eli been doing ? said he. She replied, he has 
 been making a fiddle. * Ah ! (added he despondingly,) I fear 
 Eli will have to take his portion in fiddles/ He was at this 
 time about twelve years old. His sister adds, that this fiddle 
 was finished throughout, like a common violin, and made tol- 
 erably good music. It was examined by many persons, and 
 all pronounced it to be a remarkable piece of work for such a 
 boy to perform. From this time he was employed to repair 
 violins, and had many nice jobs, which were always executed 
 to the entire satisfaction, and often to the astonishment, of his 
 customers. His father's watch being the greatest piece of me- 
 chanism that had yet presented itself to his observation, he was 
 extremely desirous of examining its interior construction, but 
 was not permitted to do so. One Sunday morning, observing 
 that his father was going to meeting, and would leave at home 
 the wonderful little machine, he immediately feigned illness as 
 an apology for not going to church. As soon as the family 
 were out of sight, he flew to the room where the watch hung, 
 and taking it down, he was so delighted with its motions, that 
 he took it all in pieces before he thought of the consequences 
 of his rash deed ; for his father was a stern parent, and pun- 
 ishment would have been the reward of his idle curiosity, had 
 the mischief been detected. He, however, put the work all 
 so neatly together, that his father never discovered his auda- 
 city until he himself told him, many years afterwards." 
 
Whitney lost his mother at an early age, and when he was 
 thirteen years old, his father married a second time. His step- 
 mother, among her articles of furniture, had a handsome set 
 of table knives, she valued very highly, which our young 
 mechanic observing, said to her, * I could make as good ones, 
 if I had tools, and I could make the necessary tools, if I had a few 
 common tools to make them with/ His step-mother thought he 
 was deriding her, and was much displeased ; but it so happened 
 not long afterwards, that one of the knives got broken, and he 
 made one exactly like it in every respect, except the stamp on 
 the blade. This he would likewise have executed, had not the 
 tools required been too expensive for his slender resources. 
 
 When Whitney was fifteen or sixteen years of age, he sug- 
 gested to his father an enterprise, which was an earnest of the 
 similar undertakings in which he engaged on a far greater 
 scale in later life. This being the time of the Revolutionary 
 war, nails were in great demand, and bore a high price. At 
 that period, nails were made chiefly by hand, with little aid 
 from machinery. Young Whitney proposed to his father to 
 procure him a few tools, and to permit him to set up the man- 
 ufacture. His father consented, and he went steadily to work, 
 and suffered nothing to divert him from his task, until his day's 
 work was completed. By extraordinary diligence, he gained 
 time to make tools for his own use, and to put in knife blades, 
 and to perform many other curious little jobs, which exceeded 
 the skill of the country artisans. At this laborious occupa- 
 tion, the enterprising boy wrought alone, with great success, 
 and with much profit to his father, for two winters, pursuing 
 the ordinary labors of the farm during the summers. At this 
 time he devised a plan for enlarging his business and increas- 
 ing his profits. He whispered his scheme to his sister, with 
 strong injunctions of secrecy : and requesting leave of his fa- 
 ther to go to a neighboring town, without specifying his object, 
 he set out on horseback in quest of a fellow laborer. Not find- 
 ing one so easily as he had anticipated, he proceeded from 
 town to town, with a perseverance which was always a strong 
 trait of his character, until at the distance of forty miles from 
 home, he found such a workman as he desired. He also made 
 
his journey subservient to his improvement in mechanical 
 skill, for he called at every workshop on his way, and gleaned 
 all the information he could respecting the mechanic arts. 
 
 At the close of the war, the business of making nails was 
 no longer profitable ; but a fashion prevailing among the la- 
 dies of fastening on their bonnets with long pins, he contrived 
 to make those with such skill and dexterity, that he nearly mo- 
 nopolized the business, although he devoted to it only such 
 seasons of leisure as he could redeem from the occupations of 
 the farm, to which he now principally betook himself. He 
 added to this article, the manufacture of walking canes, which 
 he made with peculiar neatness. 
 
 In respect to his proficiency in learning, while young, we 
 are informed that he early manifested a fondness for figures, 
 and an uncommon aptitude for arithmetical calculations, though 
 in the other rudiments of education, he was not particularly 
 distinguished. Yet, at the age of fourteen, he had acquired so 
 much general information, as to be regarded, on this account, 
 as well as on account of his mechanical skill, a very remark- 
 able boy. 
 
 From the age of nineteen, young Whitney conceived the 
 idea of obtaining a liberal education ; but being warmly op- 
 posed by his step-mother, he was unable to procure the decided 
 consent of his father, until he had reached the age of twenty 
 three years. But, partly by the avails of his manual labor, 
 and partly by teaching a village school, he had been so far 
 able to surmount the obstacles thrown in his way, that he had 
 prepared himself for the Freshman class in Yale College, 
 which he entered in May, 1789. An intelligent friend and 
 neighbor of the family helped to dissuade his father from send- 
 ing him to college, observing, that " it was a pity such a fine 
 mechanical genius as his should be wasted ;" but he was unable 
 to comprehend how a liberal education, by enlarging his intel- 
 lectual powers and expanding his genius, would so much exalt 
 those powers and perfect that genius, as to place their pos- 
 sessor among the Arkwrights of the age, while without such 
 means of cultivation, he might have been only an ingenious 
 millwright or blacksmith. While a schoolmaster, the me- 
 
10 
 
 chanic would often usurp the place of the teacher ; and the 
 mind, too aspiring for such a sphere, was wandering off in 
 pursuit of perpetual motion. While at home in the month of 
 July, 1788, making arrangements to go to New Haven, for the 
 purpose of entering college, he was seized with a violent fe- 
 ver attended by a severe cough, which threatened to termi- 
 nate his life. At length the disease centered in one of his 
 limbs. A painful swelling, extending to the bone, ensued, 
 which was finally relieved by surgical operation. After his 
 recovery, he went to Durham, in Connecticut, and finished his 
 preparation for college, under the care of that eminent scholar, 
 Rev. Dr. Goodrich. As we are soon to accompany Mr. Whit- 
 ney beyond the sphere of his domestic relations, we may men- 
 tion here, that he finished his collegiate education with little 
 expense to his father. His last college bills were indeed paid 
 by him, but the money was considered as a loan, and for it 
 the son gave his note, which he afterwards duly canceled. 
 After the decease of his father, he took an active part in the 
 settlement of the estate, but generously relinquished all his 
 patrimony for the benefit of the other members of the family. 
 We have already mentioned that Mr. Whitney entered Yale 
 College at the mature age of twenty three years. He had en- 
 joyed but little intercourse with men of learning, and the state 
 of elementary education, in the part of the country where he 
 passed his minority, was unfavorable to his acquiring a know- 
 ledge of polite literature ; and while a member of college, he 
 seems to have devoted more attention to the mathematics, 
 and especially to mechanics, theoretical as well as practical, 
 than to the ancient classics. Among his files are found most or 
 all of the compositions and disputations which he wrote during 
 this period, commencing with 1789. The compositions are 
 frequently characterized by great vividness of imagination, 
 and the disputations by sound and correct reasoning. At this 
 time of life, indeed, Mr. Whitney exhibited an imagination 
 somewhat poetical ; his prose compositions had something of 
 this vein, and he occasionally wrote verses. The written dis- 
 putations found among his papers, are more than twenty in 
 number. Some of them were read before the President, (the 
 
11 
 
 late Dr. Stiles,) and others were exhibited in the literary society 
 to which he belonged. Their titles indicate the topics that 
 were agitated by the students of that day. The subjects dis- 
 cussed were oftener political than literary. The writers par- 
 took largely of the enthusiasm which pervaded all ranks of 
 our countrymen. They exulted in their release from a foreign 
 yoke, and boasted of the victory they had achieved over Brit- 
 ish arms. They extolled the matchless wisdom of the new 
 government, and contrasted its free spirit with the tyranny of 
 most of the governments of the old world, and its youthful 
 vigor with those mouldering fabrics. With a spirit somewhat 
 prophetical, they anticipated the decline and overthrow of all 
 arbitrary governments, and the substitution in their place, of 
 a purely representative system, like our own, and thus main- 
 tained, (what is now even more probable than it was then,) that 
 this government was set up to be a model to all the nations of 
 the earth. 
 
 The propensity of Mr. Whitney to mechanical inventions 
 and occupations, was frequently apparent during his residence 
 at college. On a particular occasion, one of the tutors hap- 
 pening to mention some interesting philosophical experiment, 
 regretted that he could not exhibit it to his pupils, because the 
 apparatus was out of order, and must be sent abroad to be 
 repaired. Mr. Whitney proposed to undertake this task, and 
 performed it greatly to the satisfaction of the Faculty of the 
 college. 
 
 A carpenter being at work upon one of the buildings of the 
 gentleman with whom Mr. Whitney boarded, the latter begged 
 permission to use his tools during the intervals of study; but the 
 mechanic being a man of careful habits, was unwilling to trust 
 them with a student, and it was only after the gentleman of 
 the house had become responsible for all damages, that he 
 would grant the permission. But Mr. Whitney had no sooner 
 commenced his operations, than the carpenter was surprised 
 at his dexterity, and exclaimed, "there was one good me- 
 chanic spoiled when you went to college." 
 
 Soon after Mr. Whitney took his degree, in the autumn of 
 1792, he entered into an engagement with a Mr. B., of Geor- 
 
If. 
 
 gia, to reside in his family as a private teacher. On his way 
 thither, he was so fortunate as to have the company of Mrs. 
 Greene, the widow of General Greene, who, with her family, 
 was returning to Savannah, after spending the summer at the 
 north. At that time it was deemed unsafe to travel through 
 our country without having had the small-pox, and accordingly 
 Mr. W. prepared himself for the excursion, by procuring in- 
 oculation while in New York. As soon as he was sufficiently 
 recovered, the party set sail for Savannah. As his health 
 was not fully re-established, Mrs. Greene kindly invited him 
 to go with the family to her residence at Mulberry Grove, near 
 Savannah, and remain until he was recruited. The invitation 
 was accepted ; but lest he should not yet have lost all power 
 of communicating that dreadful disease, Mrs. Greene had 
 white flags (the meaning of which was well understood) hoist- 
 ed at the landing, and at all the avenues leading to the house. 
 As a requital for her hospitality, her guest procured the virus 
 and inoculated all the servants of the household, more than 
 fifty in number, and carried them safely through the disorder. 
 
 Mr. Whitney had scarcely set his foot in Georgia, before he 
 was met by a disappointment which was an earnest of that 
 long series of adverse events which, with scarcely an exception, 
 attended all his future negotiations in the same State.* On his 
 arrival, he was informed that Mr. B. had employed another 
 teacher, leaving Whitney entirely without resources or friends, 
 except those whom he had made in the family of Gen. Greene. 
 In these benevolent people, however, his case excited much 
 interest, and Mrs. Greene kindly said to him, my young friend, 
 you propose studying the law ; make my house your home, 
 your room your castle, and there pursue what studies you 
 please. He accordingly commenced the study of law under 
 that hospitable roof. 
 
 Mrs. Greene was engaged in a piece of embroidery in which 
 
 * In a letter to his friend, Josiah Stebbins, Esq., (the late Judge Stebbins of Maine,) 
 dated Geo., April 11, 1793, Mr. Whitney says, " Fortune has stood with her back 
 towards me ever since I have been here." It does not appear that so far as related 
 to Georgia, he ever found her position reversed. 
 
13 
 
 she employed a peculiar kind of frame called a tambour. She 
 complained that it was badly constructed, and that it tore 
 the delicate threads of her work. Mr. Whitney, eager for an 
 opportunity to oblige his hostess, set himself at work and 
 speedily produced a tambour frame made on a plan entirely 
 new, which he presented to her. Mrs. Greene and her family 
 were greatly delighted with it, and thought it a wonderful 
 proof of ingenuity.* 
 
 Not long afterwards, a large party of gentlemen came from 
 Augusta and the Upper country, to visit the family of Gen. 
 Greene, consisting principally of officers who had served un- 
 der the General in the Revolutionary army. Among the 
 number were Major Bremen, Major Forsyth, and Major 
 Pendleton. They fell into conversation upon the state of ag- 
 riculture among them, and expressed great regret that there 
 was no means of cleaning the green seed cotton, or separating 
 it from its seed, since all the lands which were unsuitable for 
 the cultivation of rice, would yield large crops of cotton. But 
 until ingenuity could devise some machine which would great- 
 ly facilitate the process of cleaning, it was in vain to think of 
 raising cotton for market. Separating one pound of the clean 
 staple from the seed was a day's work for a woman ; but the 
 time usually devoted to picking cotton was the evening, after 
 the labor of the field was over. Then the slaves, men, women 
 and children, were collected in circles with one whose duty 
 it was to rouse the dozing and quicken the indolent. While 
 the company were engaged in this conversation, " gentlemen 
 (said Mrs. Greene,) apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney 
 he can make any thing." Upon which she conducted them 
 into a neighboring room, and showed them her tambour frame, 
 and a number of toys which Mr. W. had made, or repaired 
 for the children. She then introduced the gentlemen to Whit- 
 ney himself, extolling his genius and commending him to their 
 
 * Several years afterwards, his partner, Mr. Miller, writes to Mr. Whitney, "I 
 presume your skill in mechanics is likely to give you employment enough with the 
 ladies ; for your name is often coupled with work-frames, needles, &c. &c. ; so that 
 I apprehend you will ultimately be compelled to become ignorant and unskilful in. 
 these things, hi your own defence." 
 
14 
 
 notice and friendship. He modestly disclaimed all pretensions 
 to mechanical genius ; and when they named their object, he 
 replied that he had never seen either cotton or cotton seed in 
 his life. Mrs. G. said to one of the gentlemen, " I have ac- 
 complished my aim. Mr. Whitney is a very deserving young 
 man, and to bring him into notice was my object. The inter- 
 est which our friends now feel for him, will, I hope, lead to his 
 getting some employment to enable him to prosecute the study 
 of the law." 
 
 But a new turn that no one of the company dreamed of, 
 had been given to Mr. Whitney's views. It being out of sea- 
 son for cotton in the seed, he went to Savannah and searched 
 among the warehouses and boats, until he found a small par- 
 cel of it. This he carried home, and communicated his in- 
 tentions to Mr. Miller, who warmly encouraged him, and 
 assigned him a room in the basement of the house, where he 
 set himself at work with such rude materials and instruments 
 as a Georgia plantation afforded. With these resources, how- 
 ever, he made tools better suited to his purpose, and drew his 
 own wire, (of which the teeth of the earliest gins were made,) 
 an article which was not at that time to be found in the mark- 
 et of Savannah. Mrs. Greene and Mr. Miller were the only 
 persons ever admitted to his workshop, and the only persons 
 who knew in what way he was employing himself. The 
 many hours he spent in his mysterious pursuits, afforded mat- 
 ter of great curiosity and often of raillery to the younger 
 members of the family. Near the close of the winter, the 
 machine was so nearly completed as to leave no doubt of its 
 success. 
 
 Mrs. Greene was eager to communicate to her numerous 
 friends the knowledge of this important invention, peculiarly 
 important at that time, because then the market was glutted 
 with all those articles which were suited to the climate and 
 soil of Georgia, and nothing could be found to give occupation 
 to the negroes, and support to the white inhabitants. This 
 opened suddenly to the planters boundless resources of wealth, 
 and rendered the occupations of the slaves less unhealthy and 
 laborious than they had been before. 
 
 
15 
 
 Mrs. Greene, therefore, invited to her house gentlemen from 
 different parts of the State, and on the first day after they had 
 assembled, she conducted them to a temporary building, which 
 had been erected for the machine, and they saw with aston- 
 ishment and delight, that more cotton could be separated from 
 the seed in one day, by the labor of a single hand, than could 
 be done in the usual manner in the space of marty months. 
 
 Mr. Whitney might now have indulged in bright reveries of 
 fortune and of fame ; but we shall have various opportunities 
 of seeing, that he tempered his inventive genius with an un- 
 usual share of the calm, considerate qualities of the financier. 
 Although urged by his friends to secure a patent, and devote 
 himself to the manufacture and introduction of his machines, 
 he coolly replied, that on account of the great expense and 
 trouble which always attend the introduction of a new inven- 
 tion, and the difficulty of enforcing a law in favor of paten- 
 tees, in opposition to the individual interests of so large a 
 number of persons as would be concerned in the culture of 
 this article, it was with great reluctance that he should consent 
 to relinquish the hopes of a lucrative profession, for which he 
 had been destined, with an expectation of indemnity either 
 from the justice or the gratitude of his countrymen, even should 
 the invention answer the most sanguine anticipations of his 
 friends. 
 
 The individual who contributed most to incite him to per- 
 severe in the undertaking, was Phineas Miller, Esq. Mr. 
 Miller was a native of Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale 
 College. Like Mr. Whitney, soon after he had completed his 
 education at college, he came to Georgia as a private teacher, 
 in the family of Gen. Greene, and after the decease of the 
 General, he became the husband of Mrs. Greene. He had 
 qualified himself for the profession of law, and was a gentle- 
 man of cultivated mind and superior talents ; but he was of 
 an ardent temperament, and therefore well fitted to enter with 
 zeal into the views which the genius of his friend had laid 
 open to him. He had also considerable funds at command, 
 and proposed to Mr. Whitney to become his joint adventurer, 
 and to be at the whole expense of maturing the invention until 
 
16 
 
 it should be patented. If the machine should succeed in its 
 intended operation, the parties agreed, under legal formalities, 
 " that the profits and advantages arising therefrom, as well as 
 all privileges and emoluments to be derived from patenting, 
 making, vending, and working the same, should be mutually 
 and equally shared between them." This instrument bears 
 date May 2%, 1793, and immediately afterwards they commen- 
 ced business, under the firm of Miller fy Whitney. 
 
 An invention so important to the agricultural interest, (and, 
 as has proved, to every department of human industry,) could 
 not long remain a secret. The knowledge of it soon spread 
 through the State, and so great was the excitement on the 
 subject, that multitudes of persons came from all quarters of the 
 State to see the machine ; but it was not deemed safe to grat- 
 ify their curiosity until the pateixt-right had been secured. 
 But so determined were some of the populace to possess this 
 treasure, that neither law nor justice could restrain them they 
 broke open the building by night and carried off the machine. 
 In this way the public became possessed of the invention ; and 
 before Mr. Whitney could complete his model and secure his 
 patent, a number of machines were in successful operation, 
 constructed with some slight deviation from the original, with 
 the hope of evading the penalty for violating the patent-right. 
 
 As soon as the copartnership of Miller & Whitney was 
 formed, Mr. Whitney repaired to Connecticut, where, as far as 
 possible, he was to perfect the machine, obtain a patent, and 
 manufacture and ship for Georgia such a number of machines 
 as would supply the demand. 
 
 Within three days after the conclusion of the copartnership, 
 Mr. Whitney having set out for the north, Mr. Miller com- 
 menced his long correspondence relative to the Cotton Gin.* 
 The first letter announces that encroachments upon their rights 
 had already commenced. " It will be necessary (says Mr. 
 Miller) to have a considerable number of gins made, to be in 
 readiness to send out as soon as the patent is obtained, in or- 
 der to satisfy the absolute demand, and make people's heads 
 
 * This name was not applied by the inventor, but became such by popular use. 
 
17 
 
 easy on the subject ; for I am informed of two other claimants 
 for the honor of the invention of cotton gins, in addition to 
 those we knew before." 
 
 On the 20th of June, 1793, Mr. Whitney presented his pe- 
 tition for a patent to Mr. Jefferson, then Secretary of State ; 
 but the prevalence of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, (which 
 was then the seat of government,) prevented his concluding 
 the business relative to the patent, until several months after- 
 wards. To prevent being anticipated, he took however the 
 precaution to make oath to the invention before the Notary 
 Public of the city of New Haven, which he did on the 28th 
 of October, of the same year. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson, who had much curiosity in regard to mechan- 
 ical inventions, took a peculiar interest in this machine, and 
 addressed to the inventor an obliging letter, desiring farther 
 particulars respecting it, and expressing a wish to procure one 
 for his own use. Mr. Whitney accordingly sketched the his- 
 tory of the invention, and of the construction and perform- 
 ances of the machine. " It is about a year (says he) since* I 
 ~first turned my attention to constructing this machine, at which 
 time I was in the State of Georgia. Within about ten days 
 after my first conception of the plan, I made a small, though 
 imperfect model. Experiments with this encquraged me to 
 make one on a larger scale ; but the extreme difficulty of pro- 
 curing workmen and proper materials in Georgia, prevented 
 my completing the larger one until some time in April last. 
 This, though much larger than my first attempt, is not above 
 one third as large as the machines may be made with conven- 
 ience. The cylinder is only two feet two inches in length, 
 and six inches diameter. It is turned by hand, and requires 
 the strength of one man to keep it in constant motion. It is 
 the stated task of one negro to clean fifty weight, (I mean fifty 
 pounds after it is separated from the seed,) of the green seed 
 cotton per day." In the same letter Mr. J efferson assured Mr. 
 Whitney, that a patent would be granted as soon as the model 
 was lodged in the Patent Office. In mentioning the favorable 
 
 * This letter is dated Nov. 24, 1793. 
 
18 
 
 notice of Mr. Jefferson to his friend Stebbins, he adds, with 
 characteristic moderation, I hope, by perseverance, I shall make 
 something of it yet. 
 
 At the close of this year, (1793,) Mr. Whitney was to return 
 to Georgia with his cotton gins, and Mr. Miller had made ar- 
 rangements for commencing business immediately after his ar- 
 rival. The plan was to erect machines in every part of the 
 cotton district, and engross the entire business themselves. 
 This was evidently an unfortunate scheme. It rendered the 
 business very extensive and complicated, and as it did not at 
 once supply the demands of the cotton growers, it multiplied 
 the inducements to make the machines in violation of the 
 patent. Had the proprietors confined their views to the manu- 
 facture of the machines, and to the sale of patent rights, it is 
 probable they would have avoided some of the difficulties with 
 which they afterwards had to contend. The prospect of 
 making suddenly an immense fortune by the business of gin- 
 ning, where every third pound of cotton (worth at that time 
 from twenty five to thirty three cents) was their own, pre- 
 sented great and peculiar attractions. Mr. Whitney's return 
 to Georgia was delayed until the following April. The im- 
 portunity of Mr. Miller's letters, written during the preceding 
 period, urgingjiim to come on, evinces how eager the Geor- 
 gia planters were to enter the new field of enterprise, which 
 the genius of Whitney had laid open to them. Nor did they, 
 at first, in general, contemplate availing themselves of the in- 
 vention unlawfully. But the minds of the more honorable 
 class of planters were afterwards deluded by various artifices, 
 set on foot by designing men, with the view of robbing Mr. 
 Whitney of his just right. To these we shall advert more par- 
 ticularly hereafter. 
 
 One of the greatest difficulties experienced by men of enter- 
 prise, at the period under review, was the extreme scarcity of 
 money. In order to carry on the manufacture of cotton gins, 
 and to make advances in the purchase of cotton, and establish- 
 ments for ginning, to an extent in any degree proportioned to 
 their wishes, Miller & Whitney required a much greater cap- 
 ital than they could command ; and the sanguine temperament 
 
19 
 
 of Mr. Miller was constantly prompting him to advance in 
 hazards, much farther than the more cautious spirit of Mr. 
 Whitney would follow. But even the latter found it necessary 
 sometimes to borrow money at an enormous interest. The first 
 loan (for two thousand dollars) was made on terms which were 
 deemed at that time peculiarly favorable ; yet the company 
 were to pay five per cent, premium in addition to the lawful 
 interest. This was in 1794. In consequence of the numer- 
 ous speculations in new lands into which so many of our coun- 
 trymen were deluded, and the wantpf confidence created by 
 the very application for a loan, the pressure for money was 
 continually increasing. In 1796, Mr. Whitney applied to a 
 friend in Boston to raise money for him on a loan, and received 
 the following reply: " I applied to one of those vultures called 
 brokers, who are preying on the purse-strings of the industri- 
 ous, and was informed that he can procure the sum you wish 
 at a premium of twenty per cent, on the following conditions, 
 viz : You must make over and deposit with him public secu- 
 rities, such as funded stock, bank stock, or any kind of State 
 notes, or Connecticut reservation land certificates, sufficient, at 
 the going prices, fully to secure the debt and premium." In a 
 more embarrassed state of Mr. Miller's private affairs, several 
 years afterwards, he paid the enormous interest of five, six, 
 and even seven per cent, per month. 
 
 We have said that the loan contracted by Mr. Whitney, in 
 1794, at a premium of five per cent, in addition to the lawful 
 interest, was regarded as peculiarly favorable ; this is evident 
 from the fact that, during the same year, Mr. Miller urges him 
 to contract a new loan, if possible, for three thousand dollars, 
 at twelve or fourteen per cent, provided it could be extended 
 over a year. 
 
 In July, 1794, Mr. Whitney was confined by a severe ill- 
 ness, from which he recovered slowly; but his business re- 
 ceived a still farther interruption from a very fatal sickness, (the 
 scarlet fever,) which prevailed in New Haven during this year, 
 and which attacked a number of his workmen. 
 
 Under all these discouragements, Mr. Miller was constantly 
 writing the most urgent letters from Georgia, to press forward 
 
20 
 
 the manufacture of machines. " Do not let a deficiency of 
 money, do not let any thing (says Mr. Miller) hinder the speedy 
 construction of the gins. The people of the country are al- 
 most running mad for them, and much can be said to justify 
 their importunity. When the present crop is harvested, there 
 will be a real property of at least fifty thousand, yes, of a hun- 
 dred thousand dollars, lying useless, unless we can enable the 
 holders to bring it to market. Pray remember that we must 
 have from fifty to one hundred gins between this and another 
 fall,* if there are any workmen in New England, or in the 
 Middle States, to make them. In two years we will begin to 
 take long steps up hill, in the business of patent ginning, for- 
 tune favoring." 
 
 The general resort of the planters to the cultivation of cot- 
 ton, and its consequent production in vast quantities, the value 
 of which depended entirely upon the chance of getting it clean- 
 ed by the gin, created great uneasiness, which first displayed 
 itself in this pressure upon Miller & Whitney, and afterwards 
 afforded great encouragement to the marauders upon the pa- 
 tent-right, who were now becoming numerous and audacious. 
 
 The roller gin was at first the most formidable competitor 
 with Whitney's Machine. It extricated the seeds by means of 
 rollers, crushing them between revolving cylinders, instead of 
 disengaging them by means of teeth. The fragments of seeds 
 which remained in the cotton, rendered its execution much in- 
 ferior in this respect to Whitney's gin, and it was also much 
 slower in its operation. Great efforts were made, however, to 
 create an impression in favor of its superiority in other re- 
 spects, to which we shall advert by and by. 
 
 But a still more formidable rival appeared early in the year 
 1795, under the name of the Saw Gin. It was Whitney's gin, 
 except that the teeth were cut in circular rims of iron, instead 
 of being made of wires, as was the case in the earlier forms 
 of the patent gin. The idea of such teeth had early occurred 
 to Mr. Whitney, as he afterwards established by legal proof. 
 But they would have been of no use except in connection with 
 the other parts of his machine ; and, therefore, this was a pal- 
 
 * This letter is dated Oct. 26, 1794. 
 
21 
 
 pable attempt to evade the patent-right, and it was principally 
 in reference to this, that the lawsuits were afterwards held. 
 
 In March, 1795, in the midst of these perplexities and dis- 
 couragements, Mr. Whitney went to New York, on business, 
 and was detained there three weeks, by an attack of fever and 
 ague, the seeds of which had been sown the previous season 
 in Georgia. As soon as he was able to leave the house, he 
 embarked on board a packet for New Haven. On his arrival 
 at this place, he was suffering under one of those chills which 
 precede the fever. As was usual, on the arrival of the packet, 
 people came on board to welcome their friends, and to ex- 
 change salutations, when Mr. Whitney was informed that on 
 the preceding day his shop, with all his machines and papers, 
 had been consumed by fire ! Thus, suddenly, was he reduced 
 to absolute bankruptcy, having debts to the amount of four 
 thousand dollars, without any means of making payment. 
 Mr. Whitney, however, had not a spirit to despond under dif- 
 ficulties and disappointments, but was aroused by them to still 
 more vigorous efforts. 
 
 Mr. Miller, also, on hearing of this catastrophe, manifested 
 a kindred spirit. The letters written by Mr. Whitney on the 
 occasion, we have not been able to obtain ; but the reply of 
 Mr. Miller indicates what were the feelings of both parties. 
 It. may be of service to enterprising young men, who meet 
 with misfortunes, to read an extract or two. 
 
 " I think with you, (says Mr. M,,) that we ought to meet such 
 events with equanimity. We have been pursuing a valuable 
 object by honorable means ; and I trust that all our measures 
 have been such as reason and virtue must justify. It has 
 pleased Providence to postpone the attainment of this object. 
 In the midst of the reflections which your story has suggested, 
 and with feelings keenly awake to the heavy, the extensive 
 injury we have sustained, I feel a secret joy and satisfaction, 
 that you possess a mind in this respect similar to my own 
 that you are not disheartened that you do not relinquish the 
 pursuit and that you will persevere, and endeavor at all 
 events to attain the main object. This is exactly consonant 
 to my own determinations. I will devote all my time, all my 
 
22 
 
 thoughts, all my exertions, and all the money I can earn or 
 borrow, to encompass and complete the business we have un- 
 dertaken ; and if fortune should, by any future disaster, deny 
 us the boon we ask, we will at least deserve it. It shall never 
 be said that we have lost an object which a little perseverance 
 could have attained. I think, indeed, it will be very extraor- 
 dinary, if two young men, in the prime of life, with some share 
 of ingenuity, with a little knowledge of the world, a great deal 
 of industry, and a considerable command of property, should 
 not be able to sustain such a stroke of misfortune as this, heavy 
 as it is." 
 
 After this disaster the company began to feel much straight- 
 ened for want of funds. Mr. Miller expresses a confidence 
 that they should be able to raise money in some way or other, 
 though he knows not how. He recommends to Mr. Whitney 
 to proceed forthwith to erect a new shop, and to recommence 
 his business ; and requests him to tell the people of New Ha- 
 ven, who might be disposed to render them any service, that 
 they required nothing but a little time to get their machinery 
 in motion, before they could make payment, and that the loan 
 of money at twelve per cent, per annum would be as great a 
 favor as they could ask. But, he adds, " in doing this, use 
 great care to avoid giving an idea that we are in a desperate 
 situation, to induce us to borrow money. To people who are 
 deficient in understanding, this precaution will be extremely 
 necessary ; men of sense can easily distinguish between the 
 prospect of large gains and the approaches to bankruptcy. 
 Such is the disposition of man, (he observes on another occa- 
 sion,) that while we keep afloat, there will not be wanting 
 those who will appear willing to assist us ; but let us once be 
 given over, and they will immediately desert us." 
 
 While struggling with these multiplied misfortunes, intelli- 
 gence was received from England, which threatened to give 
 a final blow to all their hopes. It was, that the English manu- 
 facturers condemned the cotton cleaned by their machines, 
 on the ground that the staple was greatly injured. On the 
 receipt of this intelligence, Mr. Miller writes as follows : 
 " This stroke of misfortune is much heavier than that of 
 
23 
 
 the fire, unless the impression is immediately removed. For, 
 with that which now governs the public mind on this sub- 
 ject, our patent would be worth extremely little. Every one 
 is afraid of the cotton. Not a purchaser in Savannah will 
 pay full price for it. Even the merchants with whom I have 
 made a contract for purchasing, begin to part with their money 
 reluctantly. The trespassers on our right only laugh at our 
 suits, and several of the most active men are now putting up 
 the roller gins ; and, what is to the last degree vexing, many 
 prefer their cotton to ours." 
 
 At this time, (1796,) Miller & Whitney had thirty gins, at 
 eight different places in the State of Georgia, some of which 
 were carried by horses or oxen, and some by water. A num- 
 ber of these were standing still for want of the means of sup- 
 plying them. The company had also invested about 810,000 
 in real estate, which was suited only to the purposes of gin- 
 ning cotton. All things now conspired to threaten them with 
 deep insolvency. Under date of April 27th, Mr. Miller writes 
 thus : " A few moments only are allowed me to tell you, that 
 the industry of our opponents is daily increasing, and that pre- 
 judices appear to be rapidly extending themselves in London 
 against our cotton. Hasten to London, if you return imme- 
 diately our fortune, our fate depends on it. The process of 
 patent ginning is now quite at a stand. I hear nothing of it, 
 except the condolence of a few real friends, who express their 
 regret that so promising an invention has entirely failed." 
 
 Through nearly the whole of the year 1796, Mr. Whitney 
 was on the eve of departing for England, whither he was go- 
 ing with the view of learning the certainty of the prejudices, 
 which were so currently reported to be entertained by the 
 English manufacturers against the cotton cleaned by the patent 
 gin, and the fame of which was so industriously circulated 
 throughout the southern papers ; and should he find these pre- 
 judices to exist, firmly believing, as the event has shown, that 
 they were utterly unfounded, he hoped to be able to remove 
 them by challenging the most rigorous trials. He had several 
 times fixed on the day of his departure, and on one occasion 
 had actually engaged his passage and taken leave of some of 
 
24 
 
 his friends. But he was in each case thwarted by an unex- 
 pected disappointment in regard to the funds necessary to de- 
 fray the expenses of the journey. 
 
 Mr. Whitney had counted on obtaining one thousand dollars 
 for this -purpose, through the aid of Mr. John C. Nightingale, 
 who, having married a daughter of Mrs. Miller, had become 
 interested in their concerns. Mr. Nightingale had inherited a 
 considerable fortune, but had become greatly embarrassed by 
 speculations in the Yazoo lands. He had, however, some 
 credit left, while neither Miller nor Whitney, nor both together, 
 had credit enough to borrow a thousand dollars. The plan 
 was, therefore, for Nightingale to borrow the money and lend 
 it to them ; and Miller urges this, even at the rate of thirty 
 per cent, per annum. After various ineffectual trials, Night- 
 ingale abandoned all hope of affording the promised succor, 
 and thus Whitney was compelled to forego the great advan- 
 tages he confidently anticipated from the voyage to England. 
 
 We regret that we have not been able to obtain the letters 
 written at this period by Mr. Whitney to his partner, but the 
 nature of their contents will be easily gathered from those of 
 Mr. Miller. 
 
 In March, 1797, Mr. Miller says, "Unless Nightingale should 
 have the power to assist you with some supplies, which your 
 letter furnishes little ground to hope, I foresee that our money 
 engagements cannot be complied with ; and we can only re- 
 gret as a misfortune what we cannot remedy. In the event 
 of this failure, I can only take to myself the one half of the 
 blame which may attach itself to our misplaced confidence in 
 the public opinion. I confess myself to have been entirely 
 deceived in supposing that an egregious error, and a general 
 deception with regard to the quality of our cotton, could not 
 long continue to influence the whole of the manufacturing, the 
 mercantile, and the planting interests, against us. But the 
 reverse of this fact, allowing the staple of our cotton to be 
 uninjured, has to our sorrow proved true, and I have long 
 apprehended that our ruin would be the inevitable conse- 
 quence. 
 
 " I am now devoting my time and attention to prepare, in 
 
25 
 
 the best manner in my power, the suits which are to be tried 
 in April ; and am determined that all the dark clouds of ad- 
 versity, which at present overshadow our affairs, shall not 
 abate my ardor in laboring to burst through them, in order 
 to reach the dawn of prosperity, that has so long been with- 
 held from our view." 
 
 Notwithstanding the disastrous condition of the affairs of 
 Miller & Whitney, Mr. Nightingale, who was of an adven- 
 turous spirit, having partially extricated himself from his own 
 embarrassments, was ready to purchase a part of their con- 
 cern, and offered upon certain conditions to advance five thou- 
 sand dollars to the company. 
 
 We have before us a letter written by Mr. Whitney, dated 
 Oct. 7th, 1797, from which it will be seen what was the state 
 of his affairs and of his feelings at this period. " The extreme 
 embarrassments (says he) which have been for a long time ac- 
 cumulating upon me, are now become so great, that it will be 
 impossible for me to struggle against them many days longer. 
 It has required my utmost exertions to exist, without making 
 the least progress in our business. I have labored hard against 
 the strong current of disappointment, which has been threat- 
 ening to carry us down the cataract, but I have labored with 
 a shattered oar and struggled in vain, unless some speedy 
 relief is obtained. I am now quite far enough advanced in 
 life to think seriously of marrying. I have ever looked for- 
 ward with pleasure to an alliance with an amiable and virtuous 
 companion, as a source from whence I have expected one day 
 to derive the greatest happiness. But the accomplishment of 
 . my tour to Europe, and the acquisition of something which I 
 can call my own, appears to be absolutely necessary, before it 
 will be admissable for me even to think of family engagements. 
 Probably a year and a half, at least, will be required to per- 
 form that tour, after it is entered upon. Life is but short at 
 best, and six or seven years out of the midst of it, is, to him 
 who makes it, an immense sacrifice. My most unremitted 
 attention has been devoted to our business. I have sacrificed 
 to it other objects from which, before this time, I might cer- 
 tainly have gained twenty or thirty thousand dollars. My 
 
26 
 
 whole prospects have been embarked in it, with the expectation 
 that I should, before this time, have realized something from it." 
 
 These observations are made with reference to a proposi- 
 tion which he had brought forward, to be allowed to retain 
 a certain portion of the proceeds of the receipts from Mr. 
 Nightingale as his private property ; or, at least, to be per- 
 mitted to adopt such arrangements as would secure it to him 
 after a limited period. But the involved state of the company 
 concerns was such that Mr. Miller would not consent to such 
 an arrangement, nor does it appear to have ever been made. 
 However, brighter prospects seemed now to be opening upon 
 them, from the more favorable reports that were made re- 
 specting the quality of their cotton. Respectable manufac- 
 turers, both at home and abroad, gave favorable certificates, 
 and retailing merchants sought for the cotton cleaned by 
 Whitney's gin, because it was greatly preferred by their cus- 
 tomers to any other in the market. This favorable turn in 
 public opinion, would have restored prosperity to the com- 
 pany, had not the encroachments on the patent-right become 
 so extensive as almost to annihilate its value. 
 
 The issue of the first trial they were able to obtain, is an- 
 nounced in the following letter from Mr. Miller, dated May 
 11, 1797. 
 
 " The event of the first patent suit, after all our exertions 
 made in such a variety of ways, has gone against us. The 
 preposterous custom of trying civil causes of this intricacy 
 and magnitude, by a common jury, together with the imper- 
 fection of the patent law, frustrated all our views, and disap- 
 pointed expectations, which had become very sanguine. The 
 tide of popular opinion was running in our favor, the Judge 
 was well disposed towards us, and many decided friends were 
 with us, who adhered firmly to our cause and interests. The 
 Judge gave a charge to the jury pointedly in our favor ; after 
 which the defendant himself told an acquaintance of his, that 
 he would give two thousand dollars to be free from the ver- 
 dict ; and yet the jury gave it against us after a consultation 
 of about an hour. And having made the verdict general, no 
 appeal would lie. 
 
27 
 
 " On Monday morning, when the verdict was rendered, we 
 applied for a new trial ; but the Judge refused it to us on the 
 ground that the jury might have made up their opinion on 
 the defect of the law, which makes an aggression consist of 
 making, devising, and using, or selling : whereas we could 
 only charge the defendant with using. 
 
 " Thus after four years of assiduous labor, fatigue and diffi- 
 culty, are we again set afloat by a new and most unexpected 
 obstacle. Our hopes of success are now removed to a period 
 still more distant than before, while our expenses are realized 
 beyond all controversy." 
 
 Great efforts were made to obtain a trial in a second suit, 
 at the session of the court in Savannah, in May, 1798. A 
 great number of witnesses were collected from various parts 
 of the country, to the distance of a hundred miles from Sa- 
 vannah, when, behold, no Judge appeared, and of course no 
 court was held. In consequence of the failure of the first suit, 
 and so great a procrastination of the second, the encroach- 
 ments on the patent-right had been prodigiously multiplied, so 
 as almost entirely to destroy the business of the patentees. 
 
 In April, 1799, Mr. Miller writes as follows. " The pros- 
 pect of making any thing by ginning in this State, is at an end. 
 Surreptitious gins are erected in every part of the country ; 
 and the jurymen at Augusta have come to an understanding 
 among themselves, that they will never give a verdict in our 
 favor, let the merits of the case be as they may." 
 
 The company would now have gladly relinquished the plan 
 of working their own machines, and confined their operations 
 to the sale of patent-rights ; but few would buy a patent-right 
 which they could use with impunity without purchasing, and 
 those few, hardly in a single instance, paid cash, but gave their 
 notes, which they afterwards to a great extent avoided paying, 
 either by obtaining a verdict from the juries declaring them 
 void, or by contriving to postpone the collection until they 
 were barred by the statute of limitations, a period of only 
 four years. When thus barred, the agent of Miller & Whit- 
 ney, who was dispatched on a collecting tour through the 
 State of Georgia, informed them, that such obstacles were 
 
28 
 
 thrown in his way from one or the other of the foregoing 
 causes, he was unable to collect money enough from all these 
 claims to bear his expenses, but was compelled to draw for 
 nearly the whole amount of these upon his employers. 
 
 The agent here referred to was Russel Goodrich, Esq., who 
 had engaged in the service of Miller & Whitney, as early as 
 the year 1798. He was educated at Yale College, in the same 
 class with Mr. Miller, and was for many years an able and 
 zealous agent in the affairs, first of the company, and after the 
 decease of Mr. Miller, of Mr. Whitney. 
 
 In a letter addressed to Mr. Whitney, dated Georgia, Sep- 
 tember 3d, 1801, Mr. Goodrich writes thus : "I have spent a 
 part of this summer in South Carolina, upon the business of 
 Miller & Whitney. Many of the planters of that region ex- 
 pressed an opinion, that if an application were made to their 
 legislature by the citizens to purchase the right of the paten- 
 tees for that State, there was no doubt that it would be done 
 to the satisfaction of all parties. Accordingly, they had peti- 
 tions circulated among the people, which appeared to be gen- 
 erally approved of, and were very generally signed." Mr. 
 Goodrich further urges the importance of Mr. 'Whitney's com- 
 ing on to South Carolina, to attend at the approaching session 
 of the legislature, in order to make the proposed contract. 
 
 Accordingly, Mr. Whitney repaired to Columbia, taking the 
 city of Washington in his way, where he was furnished with 
 very obliging letters from President Jefferson and Mr. Madi- 
 son, then Secretary of State, testimonials which no doubt 
 were of great service to him in his subsequent negotiations. 
 Soon after the opening of the session of the legislature, in the 
 month of Dec., 1801, the business was regularly brought before 
 the legislature, and a joint committee of both Houses appointed 
 to treat with the patentees. To this committee Messrs. Miller 
 & Whitney submitted the following proposals : 
 
 " To the Joint Committee of both Houses of the Legislature of South Carolina. 
 
 " GENTLEMEN, 
 
 " The subscribers, in estimating the value of their property 
 in the Patent Machine for cleaning cotton, commonly called the 
 Saw Gin, are influenced by the following considerations, viz : 
 
29 
 
 " That no right of property is so well founded in nature, as 
 that of one's own invention ; that their fellow citizens by their 
 representatives in the national Government, from considera- 
 tions both of policy and justice, have declared that individuals 
 who will use their exertions to acquire this species of prop- 
 erty, shall enjoy an exclusive right in the same for fourteen 
 years ; that influenced by, and relying on, these declarations 
 of their country, they have spent a number of years, and ex- 
 hausted their funds, in inventing and bringing into use, their 
 Saw Gin ; that notwithstanding the innumerable misrepresen- 
 tations and prejudices which have gone forth respecting this 
 concern, they have firm reliance on the laws of their country, 
 and feel a conscious rectitude in the justice of their cause. 
 
 " When we look around and see many of our fellow citi- 
 zens, who are engaged in pursuits exclusively for their own 
 benefit, guarded and protected in those pursuits by the laws 
 of their country, we cannot believe that those who have con- 
 tributed, in any degree, to benefit their fellow citizens and the 
 public, will be deprived of the same protection, and aban- 
 doned to poverty. 
 
 " We will not go into any detailed calculations as to the 
 value of this invention, but only observe, that the citizens of 
 South Carolina have gained, and will gain, many millions of 
 dollars by the use of this machine, which they never could 
 have acquired without it. Being under embarrassments in 
 consequence of debts incurred in prosecuting this undertaking, 
 and desirous of obtaining some compensation for our labors, 
 we will not measure our demand by the value of the property, 
 but are willing to dispose of it to the State of South Carolina 
 for a sum far below its real value ; and therefore we submit 
 to the committee the following PROPOSALS : 
 
 " The subscribers will relinquish and transfer to the legisla- 
 ture of South Carolina so much of their patent-right of the 
 machine for separating cotton from its seeds, commonly called 
 the Saw Gin, as appertains to said State, for the sum of one 
 hundred thousand dollars, the one half of the said sum to be 
 paid on the transfer of said right, the other by installments, as 
 shall be hereafter agreed upon. MILLER & WHITNEY." 
 
 4 
 
30 
 
 Aftdt some discussion, it was agreed by the legislature to 
 offer to the patentees the sum of fifty thousand dollars. We 
 subjoin a letter, addressed at this time by Mr. Whitney to his 
 friend Stebbins, both as a statement of the particulars relating 
 to the contract, and as evincive of the feelings of the writer : 
 
 " COLUMBIA, South Carolina, Dec. 20, 1801. 
 
 " Dear Stebbins, 
 
 " I have been at this place a little more than two weeks, at- 
 tending the legislature. They closed their session at ten 
 o'clock last evening. A few hours previous to their adjourn- 
 ment, they voted to purchase, for the State of South Carolina, 
 my patent-right to the machine for cleaning cotton, at fifty 
 thousand dollars, of which sum, twenty thousand is to be paid 
 in hand, and the remainder in three annual payments of ten 
 thousand dollars each. 
 
 "This is selling the right at a great sacrifice. If a regular 
 course of law had been pursued, from two to three hundred 
 thousand dollars would undoubtedly have been recovered. The 
 use of the machine here is amazingly extensive, and the value of 
 it beyond all calculation. It may, without exaggeration, be said 
 to have raised the value of seven eights of all the three South- 
 ern States from fifty to one hundred per cent. We get but a 
 song for it in comparison with the worth of the thing ; but it 
 is securing something. It will enable Miller & Whitney to 
 pay all their debts, and divide something between them. It 
 establishes a precedent which will be valuable as it respects our 
 collections in other States, and I think there is now a fair 
 prospect that I shall in the event realize property enough to 
 render me comfortable, and in some measure independent. 
 
 "Though my stay here has been short, I have become ac- 
 quainted with a considerable part of the members of the legis- 
 lature, and of the most distinguished characters in the State. 
 My old classmate, H. D. W., is one of the Senate. He ranks 
 among the first of his age in point of talents and respectability. 
 He has shown me much polite attention, as have also many- 
 others of the citizens. 
 
 Truly your friend, 
 
 /. Stebbins, Esq. ELI WHITNEY." 
 
31 
 
 In December, 1802, Mr. Whitney negotiated a sale of his 
 patent-right with the State of North Carolina. The legisla- 
 ture laid a tax of two shillings and sixpence upon every saw* 
 employed in ginning cotton, to be continued for five years, 
 which sum was to be collected by the sheriffs in the same 
 manner as the public taxes ; and after deducting the expenses 
 of collection, the avails were faithfully paid over to the 
 patentee. At that time the culture of cotton had made com- 
 paratively little progress in the State of North Carolina ; but, 
 in proportion to the amount of interest concerned, this com- 
 pensation was regarded by Mr. Whitney as more liberal than 
 that received from any other source. 
 
 While these encouraging prospects were rising in North Car- 
 olina, Mr. Goodrich, the agent of the company, was entering 
 into a similar negotiation with the State of Tennessee. The im- 
 portance of the machine began to be universally acknowledged 
 in that State, and various public meetings of the citizens were 
 held, in which were adopted resolutions strongly in favor of 
 a public contract with Miller & Whitney, f Accordingly, the 
 legislature of Tennessee, at their session in 1803, passed an 
 act laying a tax of thirty seven cents and a half per annum on 
 every saw, for the period of four years. 
 
 But while a fairer day seemed dawning upon the company 
 in this quarter, an unexpected and threatening cloud was rising 
 in another. It was during Mr. Whitney's negotiation with 
 the legislature of North Carolina, that he received intelligence 
 that the legislature of South Carolina had annulled the con- 
 tract made with Miller & Whitney the preceding year, had 
 suspended payment of the balance (thirty thousand dollars) due 
 them, and instituted a suit for the recovery of what had 
 already been paid to them. 
 
 The ostensible causes of this extraordinary measure adopted 
 by the legislature of South Carolina, were a distrust of the 
 validity of the patent-right, and failure on-the part of the pat- 
 entees to perform certain conditions agreed on in the contract. 
 
 * Some of the gins had forty saws. 
 
 t Of one of these meetings. General Jackson, late President of the United States, 
 was chairman. 
 
32 
 
 Great exertions had constantly been made in Georgia to im- 
 press the public with the nation, that Mr. Whitney was not 
 the original inventor of the cotton gin, somebody in Switzer- 
 land having conceived the idea of it before him, and, especially, 
 that he was not entitled to the credit of the invention in its 
 improved form, in which saws were used instead of wire teeth, 
 inasmuch as this particular form of the machine was intro- 
 duced by one Hodgin Holmes. It was on these grounds that 
 the Governor of Georgia, in his message to the legislature of 
 that State in 1803, urged the inexpediency of granting any 
 thing to Miller & Whitney. We have before us a copy of 
 the report of the committee appointed on that part of the Gov- 
 ernor's message, and since it will serve to show both the 
 grounds and the character of the opposition, we will subjoin 
 a few extracts from it.* 
 
 " The Committee to whom was referred, &c. Report : 
 " That they have carefully attended to that part of the com- 
 munication which relates to the Cotton Gin, and cordially 
 agree with the Governor in his observations, that monopolies 
 are at all times odious, particularly in free governments, and 
 that some remedy ought to be applied to the wound which the 
 cotton gin monopoly has given, and will otherwise continue to 
 give, to the culture and cleaning of that precious and increas- 
 ing staple. They have examined the Rev. James Hutchin- 
 son, who declares that Edward Lyon, at least twelve months 
 before Miller & Whitney's machine was brought into view, 
 had in possession a saw or cotton gin, in miniature, of the 
 same construction ; and it further appears to them, from the 
 information of Doctor Cortes Pedro Dampiere, an old and re- 
 spectable citizen of Columbia County, that a machine of a 
 construction similar to that of Miller & Whitney, was used in 
 Switzerland, at least forty years ago, for the purpose of pick- 
 ing rags to make lint and paper. 
 
 " That, however, as Congress has the constitutional power 
 
 *In adverting to these transactions of former times, it is no part of our purpose to 
 revive unpleasant recollections, or to throw discredit on the history of the very re- 
 spectable States above named ; but without the recital of these facts, the life of 
 Whitney could not have been written. 
 
33 
 
 to establish patents of the nature of Miller & Whitney's, the 
 commitee, uniting with the Governor in opinion that no legis- 
 lative power but Congress can interfere, and also convinced 
 that in the passage of the law Congress could have had no 
 idea of laying the two Southern States, and in all probability 
 North Carolina and Tennessee, under contribution to two 
 individuals, (the article at the passing of the first act not being 
 thought of, as about to become the principal staple of export 
 from those States,) do recommend the following resolutions : 
 
 " Resolved, That the Senators and Representatives of this 
 State in Congress be, and they hereby are, instructed to use 
 their utmost endeavors to obtain a modification of the act, en- 
 titled an act to extend the privilege of obtaining Patents for 
 useful discoveries and inventions, to certain persons therein 
 mentioned, and to enlarge and define the penalties for violating 
 the rights of patentees, so as to prevent the operation of it, to 
 the injury of that most valuable staple cotton, and the cramp- 
 ing of genius in improvements, in Miller & Whitney's pat- 
 ent Gin, as well as to limit the price of obtaining a right of 
 using it, the price at present being unbounded, and the planter 
 and poor artificer altogether at the mercy of the patentees, 
 who may raise the price to any sum they please. 
 
 " And in case the said Senators and Representatives of this 
 State shall find such modification impracticable, that they do- 
 then use their best endeavors to induce Congress, from the ex- 
 ample of other nations, to make compensation to Miller & 
 Whitney for their discovery, take up the patent-right, and re- 
 lease the Southern States from so burthensome a grievance. 
 
 " Resolved, That his Excellency the Governor be requested 
 to transmit copies of the foregoing report and resolutions to 
 the Executives of the States of South Carolina, North Caro- 
 lina, and Tennessee, to be laid before their respective legisla- 
 tures, with a request of cooperation, through their Senators 
 and Representatives in Congress." 
 
 Popular feeling, stimulated by the most sordid motives, was 
 now awakened throughout all the cotton-growing States. 
 Tennessee followed the example of South Carolina, in sus- 
 pending the payment of the tax laid upon cotton gins, and a. 
 
34 
 
 similar attempt was made at a subsequent session of the legis- 
 lature of North Carolina ; but it wholly failed, and the report of 
 a committee, offering a resolution that " the contract ought to 
 be fulfilled with punctuality and good faith," was adopted by 
 both branches of the legislature. 
 
 There were also high-minded men in South Carolina, who 
 were indignant at the dishonorable measures adopted by their 
 legislature of 1803, and their sentiments had impressed the 
 community so favorably with regard to Mr. Whitney, that at 
 the session of 1804, the legislature not only rescinded what the 
 previous legislature had done, but signified their respect for 
 Mr. Whitney, by marked commendations. 
 
 Nor ought it to be forgotten, that there were in Georgia too 
 those who viewed with scorn and indignation the base 
 attempts of men, led by unprincipled demagogues, to defraud 
 Mr. Whitney. The Augusta Herald of January 10, 1805, 
 mentions the transactions in South Carolina in the following 
 manner : 
 
 " Our readers will no doubt recollect that the legislature of 
 South Carolina, a year or two past, purchased of Messrs. Mil- 
 ler & Whitney the patent-right of using the Saw Gin in that 
 State, for the sum of fifty thousand dollars. In this contract, 
 Mr. Whitney was obligated, within a stipulated time, to fur- 
 nish the State with two models of the Saw Gin, of the best 
 size and make, according to his opinion, for separating cotton 
 from its seed. From some unexpected circumstances the 
 models were not furnished in due time ; and some gross mis- 
 representations having been made to a subsequent legislature 
 of that State, and considerable improper exertion having been 
 made to persuade them that Mr. Whitney was not the original 
 inventor of the Saw Gin, they rather precipitately passed, an 
 act for a resolution, suspending the execution of their con- 
 tract, and directing a suit to be brought against Messrs. Miller 
 & Whitney for the recovery of twenty thousand dollars, 
 which, as part of the contract, had been paid them. At the 
 last session of the legislature, Mr. Whitney was enabled 
 not only to furnish satisfactory evidence of his being the 
 original inventor of the gin, but to explain away all former 
 
35 
 
 misrepresentations, and to show that the very patent of the 
 person who had attempted to wrest from him his right, had 
 been repealed in a court of justice. Two models of a gin 
 were also furnished by Mr. Whitney, executed, we are told, in 
 a most superior and masterly manner, and far surpassing in 
 excellence any machinery of the kind ever before seen they 
 were of metal, and so nicely and substantially made, that it 
 was hardly possible for them to get out of order ; and they 
 worked with such ease, that when the hopper of a forty Saw 
 Gin was filled with cotton, the labor of turning it was not 
 greater than that of turning a common grindstone. The mod- 
 els were highly approved, and the legislature did not hesitate 
 to do justice to the ingenious inventor, according to their orig- 
 inal agreement ; and we are pleased to see that they dis- 
 claimed the monstrous doctrine of a legislature's having au- 
 thority to rescind a solemn contract made with an individual, 
 and of their being justified in refusing to do right, because they 
 have the power to do wrong. 
 
 " Our sister State of South Carolina has usually been very 
 far from discovering any disposition to do injustice to individ- 
 uals, and their proceedings against Mr. Whitney were predi- 
 cated upon imposition practised on them, and their recent con- 
 duct evidences that they were satisfied thereof. 
 
 " The following is the report of the committee : 
 " The joint Committee of both branches of the legislature, to 
 
 whom was referred the memorial of Eli Whitney, Report, 
 
 " That on the most mature deliberation, they are of opinion 
 that Miller & Whitney, from whom the State of South Caro- 
 lina purchased the patent-right for using the Saw Gin within 
 this State, have used due and proper diligence to refund the 
 money and notes received by them from divers citizens ; and 
 as from several unforeseen occurrences the said Miller & 
 Whitney have heretofore been prevented from refunding the 
 same, they therefore recommend that the money and notes 
 aforesaid be deposited with the Comptroller General, to be 
 paid over, on demand, to the several persons from whom the 
 same have been received, upon their delivering up the licenses 
 for which the said notes of hand were given, and said moneys 
 
36 
 
 paid to the Comptroller General, and that he be directed to 
 hold the said licenses subject to the order of said Whitney. 
 
 " That the excellent and highly improved models now 
 offered by the said Whitney, be received in full satisfaction of 
 the stipulations of the contract between the State and Miller & 
 Whitney, relative to the same ; and that the suit commenced 
 by the State against said Miller & Whitney, be discontinued. 
 
 " The joint committee taking every circumstance alledged in 
 the memorial into their serious consideration, further recom- 
 mend, that (as the good faith of this State is pledged for the 
 payment of the purchase of the said patent-right) the contract 
 be now fulfilled, as in their opinion it ought to be, according to 
 the most strict justice and equity. 
 
 " And although from the documents exhibited by said Whit- 
 ney to the committee, they are of opinion that the said Whit- 
 ney is the true, original inventor of the Saw Gin, yet in order 
 to guard the citizens from any injury hereafter, the committee 
 recommend, that before the remaining balance is paid, the said 
 Whitney be required to give bond and security to the Comp- 
 troller General, to indemnify each and every citizen of South 
 Carolina against the legal claims of all persons whatsoever, 
 other than the said Miller & Whitney, to any patent or exclu- 
 sive right to the invention or improvement of the machine for 
 separating cotton from its seeds, commonly called the Saw Gin, 
 in the form and upon the principles which it is now and has 
 heretofore been used in this State. 
 
 " The preceding report was adopted by both branches of 
 the legislature." 
 
 When Mr. Whitney first heard of the transactions of the 
 South Carolina legislature annulling their contract, he was at 
 Raleigh, where he had just concluded his negotiation with the 
 legislature of North Carolina. In a letter written to Mr. Mil- 
 ler at this time he remarks : " I am, for my own part, more 
 vexed than alarmed by their extraordinary proceedings. I 
 think it behooves us to be very cautious and circumspect in our 
 measures and even in our remarks with regard to it. Be cau- 
 tious what you say or publish till we meet our enemies in a 
 court of justice, when, if they have any sensibility left, we 
 
37 
 
 will make them very much ashamed of their childish con- 
 duct." 
 
 But that Mr. Whitney felt very keenly in regard to the se- 
 verities afterwards practised towards him, is evident from the 
 tenor of the remonstrance which he presented to the legisla- 
 ture. " The subscriber (says he) respectfully solicits permis- 
 sion to represent to the legislature of South Carolina, that he 
 conceives himself to have been treated with unreasonable se- 
 verity in the measures recently taken against him by and under 
 their immediate direction. He holds that, to be seized and 
 dragged to prison without being allowed to be heard in answer 
 to the charge alledged against him, and indeed without the ex- 
 hibition of any specific charge, is a direct violation of the com- 
 mon right of every citizen of a free government ; that the 
 power, in this case, is all on one side ; that whatever may be 
 the issue of the process now instituted against him, he must, in 
 any case, be subjected to great expense and extreme hardships ; 
 and that he considers the tribunal before which he is holden to 
 appear, to be wholly incompetent to decide, definitely, existing 
 disputes between the State and Miller & Whitney. 
 
 " The subscriber avers that he has manifested no other than 
 a disposition to fulfill all the stipulations entered into with the 
 State of South Carolina, with punctuality and good faith ; and 
 he begs leave to observe farther, that to have industriously, 
 laboriously, and exclusively devoted many years of the prime 
 of his life to the invention and the improvement of a ma- 
 chine, from which the citizens of South Carolina have already 
 realized immense profits, which is worth to them millions, 
 and from which their posterity, to the latest generations, must 
 continue to derive the most important benefits, and in return 
 to be treated as a felon, a swindler, and a villain, has stung him 
 to the very soul. And when he considers that this cruel per- 
 secution is inflicted by the very persons who are enjoying 
 these great benefits, and expressly for the purpose of prevent- 
 ing his ever deriving the least advantage from his own labors, 
 the acuteness of his feelings is altogether inexpressible." 
 
 At this time a new and unexpected responsibility devolved 
 on Mr. Whitney, in consequence of the death of his partner, 
 
 5 
 
Mr. Miller, who died on the 7th of December, 1803. Mr. 
 Miller had, in the early stages of the enterprise, indulged very 
 high hopes of a sudden fortune ; but perpetual disappoint- 
 ments appear to have attended him throughout the remainder 
 of his life. The history of them, as detailed in his volumin- 
 ous correspondence, which is now before us, affords an in- 
 structive exemplification of the anxiety, toil, and uncertainty, 
 that frequently accompany too eager a pursuit of wealth, and 
 the pain and disappointment that follow in the train of ex- 
 pectations too highly elated. If Mr. Miller anticipated a great 
 bargain from an approaching auction of cotton, some sly ad- 
 venturer was sure to step in before him, and bid it out of his 
 hands. If he looked to his extensive rice crops, cultivated on 
 the estate of General Greene, as the means of raising money 
 to extricate himself from the numerous embarrassments into 
 which he had fallen, a severe drought came on and shriveled 
 the crop, or floods of rain suddenly destroyed it. The mar- 
 kets unexpectedly changed at the very moment of selling, and 
 always to his disadvantage. Heavy rains likewise destroyed 
 the cotton crops on which he had counted for thousands ; and 
 more than all, wicked and dishonest men contrived to cheat 
 him of his just rights ; and thus his airy hopes were often frus- 
 trated, until at length the speculations in Yazoo lands beguiled 
 him into inextricable difficulties, and in the midst of all, and 
 on the dawn of a brighter day, death stepped in and dissolved 
 the pageant that had so long been dancing before his eyes. 
 
 Mr. Whitney was now left alone, to contend singly against 
 those difficulties which had for a series of years almost bro- 
 ken down the spirits of both the partners. The light, more- 
 over, which seemed to be rising upon them, from the favorable 
 occurrences of the preceding year, proved but. the twilight of 
 prosperity, and a darker night seemed about to supervene. 
 
 But the favorable issue of the affairs of Mr. Whitney in 
 South Carolina, during the subsequent year, and the generous 
 receipts that he obtained from the avails of his contracts with 
 North Carolina, relieved him from the embarrassments under 
 which he had so long groaned, and made him in some degree 
 independent. Still, no small portion of the funds thus collected 
 
39 
 
 in North and South Carolina, was expended in carrying on 
 the fruitless, endless lawsuits in Georgia. 
 
 In the United States Court, held in Georgia, in December, 
 1807, Mr. Whitney obtained a most important decision, in a 
 suit brought against a trespasser of the name of Fort. It was 
 on this trial that Judge Johnson gave his celebrated decision. 
 It was in the following words : 
 
 " Whitney, survivor of ^ 
 Miller ^Whitney, I ]n equi(y _ 
 
 Arthur Fort. J 
 
 " The complainants, in this case, are proprietors of the ma- 
 chine called the saw gin. The use of which is to detach the 
 short staple cotton from its seed. 
 
 " The defendant, in violation of their patent-right, has con- 
 structed, and continues to use this machine ; and the object of 
 this suit is to obtain a perpetual injunction to prevent a con- 
 tinuance of this infraction of complainant's right. 
 
 " Defendant admits most of the facts in the bill set forth, 
 but contends that the complainants are not entitled to the ben- 
 efits of the act of Congress on this subject, because 
 
 1st. The invention is not original. 
 
 2d. Is not useful. 
 
 3d. That the machine which he uses is materially different 
 from their invention, in the application of an improvement, 
 the invention of another person. 
 
 " The court will proceed to make a few remarks upon the 
 several points, as they have been presented to their view: 
 whether the defendant was now at liberty to set up this de- 
 fence, whilst the patent-right of complainants remains unre- 
 pealed, has not been made a question, and they will therefore 
 not consider it. 
 
 " To support the originality of the invention, the complain- 
 ants have produced a variety of depositions of witnesses, ex- 
 amined under commission, whose examination expressly proves 
 the origin, progress, and completion of the machine by Whit- 
 ney, one of the co-partners. Persons who were made privy 
 to his first discovery, testify to the several experiments which 
 
40 
 
 he made in their presence, before he ventured to expose his 
 invention to the scrutiny of the public eye. But it is not ne- 
 cessary to resort to such testimony to maintain this point- 
 The jealousy of the artist to maintain that reputation which 
 his ingenuity has justly acquired, has urged him to unnecessa- 
 ry pains on this subject. There are circumstances in the 
 knowledge of all mankind, which prove the originality of this 
 invention more satisfactorily to the mind, than the direct tes- 
 timony of a host of witnesses. The cotton plant furnished cloth- 
 ing to mankind before the age of Herodotus. The green seed 
 is a species much more productive than the black, and by na- 
 ture adapted to a much greater variety of climate. But by 
 reason of the strong adherence of the fibre to the seed, with- 
 out the aid of some more powerful machine for separating it, 
 than any formerly known among us, the cultivation of it would 
 never have been made an object. The machine of which Mr. 
 Whitney claims the invention, so facilitates the preparation of 
 this species for use, that the cultivation of it has suddenly be- 
 come an object of infinitely greater national importance than 
 that of the other species ever can be. Is it then to be imag- 
 ined that if this machine had been before discovered, the 
 use of it would ever have been lost, or could have been con- 
 fined to any tract or country left unexplored by commercial 
 enterprise ? But it is unnecessary to remark further upon this 
 subject. A number of years have elapsed since Mr. Whitney 
 took out his patent, and no one has produced or pretended to 
 prove the existence of a machine of similar construction or 
 use. 
 
 * 2d. With regard to the utility of this discovery, the Court 
 would deem it a waste of time to dwell long upon this topic. 
 Is there a man who hears us, who has not experienced its util- 
 ity ? The whole interior of the Southern States was languish- 
 ing, and its inhabitants emigrating for want of some object to 
 engage their attention and employ their industry, when the 
 invention of this machine at once opened views to them, which 
 set the whole country in active motion. From childhood to 
 age it has presented to us a lucrative employment. Individ- 
 uals who were depressed with poverty and sunk in idleness, 
 
41 
 
 have suddenly risen to wealth and respectability. Our debts 
 have been paid off. Our capitals have increased, and our lands 
 trebled themselves in value. We cannot express the weight 
 of the obligation which the country owes to this invention. 
 The extent of it cannot now be seen. Some faint presenti- 
 ment may be formed from the reflection that cotton is rapidly 
 supplanting wool, flax, silk, and even furs in manufactures, and 
 may one day profitably supply the use of specie in our East 
 India trade. Our sister States, also, participate in the benefits 
 of this invention ; for, besides affording the raw material for 
 their manufacturers, the bulkiness and quantity of the article 
 afford a valuable employment for their shipping. 
 
 "3d. The third and last ground taken by defendant, appears 
 to be that on which he mostly relies. In the specification, the 
 teeth made use of are of strong wire inserted into the cylin- 
 der. A Mr. Holmes has cut teeth in plates of iron, and passed 
 them over the cylinder. This is certainly a meritorious im- 
 provement in the mechanical process of constructing this ma- 
 chine. But at last, what does it amount to, except a more con- 
 venient mode of making the same thing ? Every characteris- 
 tic of Mr. Whitney's machine is preserved. The cylinder, 
 the iron tooth, the rotary motion of the tooth, the breast work 
 and brush, and all the merit that this discovery can assume, is 
 that of a more expeditious mode of attaching the tooth to the 
 cylinder. After being attached, in operation and effect they 
 are entirely the same. Mr. Whitney may not be at liberty to 
 use Mr. Holmes' iron plate, but certainly Mr. Holmes' im- 
 provement does not destroy Mr. Whitney's patent-right. Let 
 the decree for a perpetual injunction be entered." 
 
 This favorable decision, however, did not put a final stop to 
 aggression. At the next session of the United States Court, 
 two other actions were brought, and verdicts for damages 
 gained of two thousand dollars in one case, and one thousand 
 five hundred dollars in the other. The history of these suits, 
 as reported for one of the journals of the day, appears to us 
 to be a document worth preserving, on account of the light it 
 throws on the subject of patent-rights in general, as well as 
 in relation to the subject before us. 
 
42 
 
 LAW CASE. At a Circuit Court of the United States, for the 
 district of Georgia, lately holden in this city, [Savannah,] was 
 tried the case of Eli Whitney vs. Isaiah Carter, for infringing 
 a right vested by patent, " for a new and useful improvement 
 in the mode of ginning cotton." The plaintiff supported his 
 declaration by proving the patent, model, and specification, 
 and proving the use of the machine in question by the defend- 
 ant. He also introduced the testimony of several witnesses 
 residing in New Haven, to prove the origin and progress of 
 his invention. 
 
 The defendant rested his defence on two grounds First : 
 That the machine was not originally invented by Whitney. 
 Second : That the specification does not contain the whole 
 truth, relative to the discovery. 
 
 General Mitchell, of counsel for the defendant, produced a 
 model which was intended to represent a machine used in 
 Great Britain for cleaning cotton, denominated the " Teazer or 
 Devil." A witness was produced, who testified that he had 
 seen in England, about seventeen years ago, a machine for 
 separating cotton from the seed, which resembled in principle 
 the model now exhibited by defendant. 
 
 Another witness testified, that he had seen a machine in 
 Ireland, upon the same principle, which was used for separa- 
 ting the motes from the cotton before going to the carding 
 machine. 
 
 By the machine, of which a model was exhibited, the cotton 
 is applied in the first instance to rollers made of iron, revolv- 
 ing conversely. By these rollers, the fibres are separated from 
 the seeds and protruded within the sweep of certain straight 
 pieces of wire, revolving on a cylinder, which tear and loosen 
 the cotton as they revolve. It was contended by the defend- 
 ant's counsel, that this model conforms 'in principle to Mr* 
 Whitney's machine, and that the evidence given in support of 
 it, establishes a presumption, that he must have derived the 
 plan of his machine from a similar one used in the cotton 
 manufactories in Great Britain. 
 
 In support of the second ground of defence, evidence was 
 produced to show that Mr. Whitney now uses, and that the 
 
43 
 
 defendant also uses, teeth formed of circular iron plates, in- 
 stead of teeth made of wire. And it was contended that this 
 is a departure from the specification, and an improvement on 
 the original discovery, which destroys the merit of that dis- 
 covery, and the validity of plaintiff's patent. It was also 
 insisted that the plaintiff had concealed the best means of pro- 
 ducing the effect contemplated. 
 
 Mr. Noel, of counsel for the plaintiff, in opposition to the 
 first ground of defence, stated two points First : That if the 
 principle be the same, yet the plaintiff's application of that 
 principle being new, and for a distinct purpose, has all the 
 merit of an original invention. Second : That the principle 
 of Mr. Whitney's machine is entirely different from that ex- 
 hibited by defendant. 
 
 He defined the term principle, as applied to mechanic arts, 
 to mean the elements and rudiments of those arts, or, in other 
 words, the first ground and rule for them : that for a mere 
 principle, a patent cannot be obtained : that neither the ele- 
 ments, nor the manner of combining them, nor even the effect 
 produced, can be the subject of a patent, and that it can only 
 be obtained for the application of this effect to some new and 
 useful purpose. 
 
 To prove this position, several examples were stated of im- 
 portant inventions, for which patents had been obtained, which 
 had resulted from principles previously in common use, and 
 an argument of a celebrated Judge, at Westminster Hall, was 
 cited, in which it was asserted, "that two thirds or three 
 fourths of all patents granted since the statute passed, are for 
 methods of operating and manufacturing, producing no new 
 substances, and employing no new machinery ;" and he adds, 
 in the significant words of Lord Mansfield, " a patent must be 
 for method, detached from all physical existence whatever." 
 
 The second point was principally relied on, to wit : That 
 the principle of Mr. Whitney's machine is distinct from that 
 produced by defendant, and new in its origin. 
 
 It consists of teeth, or sharp metallic points, of a particular 
 form and shape, and its application is to separate cotton from 
 the seed ^ whereas the principle of the model exhibited by the 
 
44 
 
 defendant, and of every other machine before invented, and 
 used for the same, or any similar purpose, consists of two 
 small rollers made of wood or iron. In illustration of this 
 point, the plaintiff's counsel cited the opinion of this court, 
 delivered by Judge Johnson, in December term, 1807, in the 
 case of Whitney and others vs. Fort, upon a bill for injunction. 
 
 The second objection relied on by the defendant, was " that 
 the specification does not contain the whole truth respecting 
 the discovery." To this it was answered, that by the testi- 
 mony it appears Mr. Whitney, in the original construction of 
 his machine, contemplated each mode of making the teeth, and 
 doubted which mode was best adapted to the purpose. If the 
 alteration which forms the basis of this objection has the merit 
 of an improvement, how far does it extend ? An improve- 
 ment, not in the principle, nor in the operation of the machine, 
 but in making one of its component parts ; merely in forming 
 the same thing, to produce the same effect, by means some- 
 what different. In the case above cited, Judge Johnson re- 
 marked on this point, as follows : 
 
 " A Mr. Holmes has cut teeth in plates of iron, and passed 
 them over the cylinder. This is certainly a meritorious im- 
 provement in the mechanical process of constructing this ma- 
 chine. But at last, what does it amount to, except a more con- 
 venient mode of making the same thing ? Every character- 
 istic of Mr. Whitney's machine is preserved. The cylinder, 
 the iron tooth, rotary motion of the tooth, the breast work and 
 brush, and all the merit that this discovery can assume, is that 
 of a more expeditious mode of attaching the tooth to the cyl- 
 inder." 
 
 The counsel for Whitney admitted that an improvement in 
 a particular part of the machine would entitle the inventor to 
 a patent for a new and better mode of making that specific 
 part, but not for the whole machine, as in the case of Boulton 
 vs. Bull, where a patent was granted for an invention to les- 
 sen the quantity of fuel in the use of a certain Steam Engine. 
 It was decided " that the patent was valid for this improve- 
 ment, but that it gave no title to the engine itself." 
 
 It was also stated, that by experiments made on plaintiff's 
 
45 
 
 
 
 model in the face of the court and jury, and by testimony pro- 
 duced, it was apparent no improvement had resulted from this 
 alteration ; that no beneficial change or amendment in the 
 principle had taken place ; nor had the effect been aided or fa- 
 cilitated. In the charge of the court to the jury, Judge Ste- 
 phens remarked, that the case cited, Whitney and others vs. 
 Fort t was decided without any evidence on the part of the de- 
 fendant : that from the testimony now produced, his opinion 
 is, that the plaintiff must have received his first impressions 
 from a machine previously in use, on a similar principle ; and 
 that an improvement had been made as to the teeth, by which 
 the merit of Mr. Whitney's original invention was diminished. 
 For these reasons Judge Stephens had some doubts whether 
 the plaintiff ought to recover. 
 
 Judge Johnson remarked to the jury, that after hearing the 
 evidence which had been relied on by the defendant, he re- 
 mained content with the opinion which he had given in the 
 case of Whitney against Fort, and that he was also as fully 
 satisfied with the charge he was about to give, as any he had 
 delivered. That as to the origin of this invention, the plain- 
 tiffs title remained unimpeached by any evidence which has 
 been adduced in this cause. He agreed with the plaintiff's 
 counsel, that the legal title to a patent consists not in a princi- 
 ple merely, but in an application of a principle, whether pre- 
 viously in existence or not, to some new and useful purpose. 
 And he was also of opinion, that the principle of Mr. Whit- 
 ney's machine was entirely new, that it originated with him- 
 self, and that it had no resemblance to that of the model ex- 
 hibited by the defendant. 
 
 He considered the defendant's second objection equally un- 
 supported, and referred to the sixth section of the Patent Law 
 of the United States, by which it is required that the conceal- 
 ment alledged (in order to defeat the patentee's recovery) must 
 appear to have been made for the purpose of deceiving the 
 public. That Mr. Whitney, in the original formation of this 
 machine, could have no motive for such concealment, and that 
 in making use of wire, in preference to the other mode, he ap- 
 pears to have acted according to the dictates of his judgment. 
 
 6 
 
46 
 
 
 
 If in this instance he erred, the error related to a point not af- 
 fecting the merit of his invention, or the validity of his patent. 
 Verdict for plaintiff damages two thousand dollars. 
 
 Same Term, Whitney against Gachet, same cause of action. 
 Verdict for plaintiff damages one thousand five hundred dol- 
 lars. 
 
 The influence of these decisions, however, availed Mr. 
 Whitney very little, for now the term of his patent-right was 
 nearly expired. More than sixty suits had been instituted in 
 Georgia before a single decision on the merits of his claim was 
 obtained, and at the period of this decision, thirteen years of 
 his patent had expired. In prosecution of this troublesome 
 business, Mr. Whitney had made six different journeys to 
 Georgia, several of which were accomplished by land, at a 
 time when, compared with the present, the difficulties of such 
 journeys were exceedingly great, and exposed him to excess- 
 ive fatigues and privations, which at times seriously affected 
 his health, and even jeopardized his life. A gentleman* of 
 much experience in the profession of law, who was well ac- 
 quainted with Mr. Whitney's affairs in the South, and some- 
 times acted as his legal adviser, observes, in a letter obligingly 
 communicated to the writer of this memoir, that " in all his 
 experience in the thorny profession of the law, he has never 
 seen such a case of perseverance, under such persecution ; nor 
 (he adds) do I believe that I ever knew any other man who 
 would have met them with equal coolness and firmness, or who 
 would finally have obtained even the partial success which he 
 had. He always called on me in New York, on his way 
 South, when going to attend his endless trials, and to meet the 
 mischievous contrivances of men who seemed inexhaustible in 
 their resources of evil. Even now, after thirty years, my 
 head aches to recollect his narratives of new trials, fresh dis- 
 appointments, and accumulated wrongs." 
 
 We have thought the Cotton Gin sufficiently instructive in 
 its history, and important in its consequences, to merit the 
 attention we have bestowed upon it. After a more cursory 
 
 * Hon. S. M. Hopkins. 
 
47 
 
 notice of the other chief enterprise which occupied the life of 
 Mr. Whitney, we shall hasten to the conclusion of this memoir. 
 
 In 1798, Mr. Whitney became deeply impressed with the 
 uncertainty of all his hopes founded upon the Cotton Gin, not- 
 withstanding their high promise, and he began to think seri- 
 ously of devoting himself to some business in which superior 
 ingenuity, seconded by uncommon industry, qualifications 
 which he must have been conscious of possessing in no ordin- 
 ary degree, would conduct him by a slow, but sure route, to a 
 competent fortune ; and we have always considered it indic- 
 ative of a solid judgment and a well balanced mind, that he 
 did not, as is frequently the case with men of inventive genius, 
 become so poisoned with the hopes of vast and sudden wealth, 
 as to be disqualified for making a reasonable provision for 
 life, by the sober earnings of frugal industry. 
 
 The enterprise which he selected in accordance with these 
 views, was the Manufacture of Arms for the United States. 
 He accordingly addressed a letter to the Hon. Oliver Wolcott, 
 Secretary of the Treasury, and through his influence obtained 
 a contract for ten thousand stand of arms, amounting (as the 
 price of each musket was to be thirteen dollars and forty 
 cents) to one hundred and thirty four thousand dollars, an 
 undertaking of great responsibility, considering the limited 
 pecuniary resources of the undertaker. This contract was 
 concluded on the 14th of January, 1798, and four thousand 
 were to be delivered on or before the last day of September 
 of the ensuing year, and the remaining six thousand in one 
 year from that time ; so that the whole contract was to be 
 fulfilled within a little more than the period of two years ; and 
 for the due fulfillment of it, Mr. Whitney entered into bonds to 
 the amount of thirty thousand dollars. He must have enga- 
 ged in this undertaking resolved " to attempt great things," 
 without stopping to weigh all the chances against him ; for as 
 yet, the works were all to be erected, the machinery to be 
 made, and much of it to be invented ; the raw materials were 
 to be collected from different quarters, and the workmen them- 
 selves, almost without exception, were yet to learn the trade. 
 Nor was it a business with which Mr. Whitney himself was 
 
48 
 
 particularly conversant. Mechanical invention, a sound judg- 
 ment, and persevering industry, were all that he possessed, at 
 first, for the accomplishment of a manufacturing enterprise, 
 which was at that time probably greater than any man had 
 ever undertaken, in the State of Connecticut. 
 
 The low state of the mechanic arts, moreover, increased 
 his difficulties. There were in operation near him no kindred 
 mechanical establishments, upon which some branches of his 
 own business might lean : even his very tools required to be 
 to a great extent fabricated by himself. If it is recollected 
 also, in what a depressed state the cotton ginning business was 
 at this period, it will appear still more evincive of the bold 
 spirit of enterprise which Mr. Whitney possessed, as it will be 
 seen that he could not avail himself of any resources from 
 that quarter, nor could he reasonably hope to derive from the 
 same source any future succor. But Mr. Whitney had strong 
 friends among the most substantial citizens of New Haven, 
 who had been witnesses alike of the fertility of his genius 
 and the extent of his industry. Ten of these came forward 
 as his security to the bank of New Haven, for a loan of ten 
 thousand dollars. Mr. Wolcott, on the part of the United 
 States, advanced five thousand more at the time of contract, 
 with the promise of a similar sum, as soon as the preparatory 
 arrangements for the manufacture of arms was completed. 
 No farther advances were to be demanded, until one thousand 
 stand of arms were ready for delivery; at which time the addi- 
 tional sum of five thousand dollars was to be advanced. Full 
 payment was to be made on the delivery of each successive 
 thousand, with occasional advances at the discretion of the 
 Secretary. 
 
 The expenses incurred in getting the establishment fully into 
 operation, must have greatly exceeded -the expectation of the 
 parties, for advances of ten and fifteen thousand dollars were 
 successively made by the government, above what was orig- 
 inally contemplated ; but the confidence of the government 
 seems never to have been impaired ; for the Secretary, after 
 having examined Mr. Whitney's works in person, declared to 
 him, in the presence of witnesses, that the advances which he 
 
49 
 
 had made had been laid out with great prudence and econ- 
 omy, and that the undertaker had done more than he should 
 have supposed possible with the sum advanced. 
 
 The site which Mr. Whitney had purchased for his works, 
 was at the foot of the celebrated precipice called East Rock, 
 within two miles of New Haven. This spot (which is now 
 called Whitneyville) is justly admired for the romantic beauty 
 of its scenery. A waterfall of moderate extent afforded here 
 the necessary power for propelling the machinery. In this 
 pleasant retreat Mr. Whitney commenced his operations, with 
 the greatest zeal ; but he soon became sensible of the multi- 
 plied difficulties which he had to contend with. A winter of 
 uncommon severity set in early and suspended his labors, and 
 when the spring returned, he found himself so little advanced, 
 that he foresaw that he should be utterly unable to deliver the 
 four thousand muskets according to contract. In this predica- 
 ment, he resolved to throw himself on the indulgence of the en- 
 lightened Secretary of the Treasury, to whom he explained at 
 length the various causes which had conspired to retard his 
 operations. 
 
 " I find, (says he,) that my personal attention and oversight 
 are more constantly and essentially necessary to every branch 
 of the work, than I apprehended. Mankind, generally, are not 
 to be depended on, and the best workmen I can find are inca- 
 pable of directing. Indeed, there is no branch of the work that 
 can proceed well, scarcely for a single hour, unless I am present." 
 At the end of the first year after the contract was made, 
 instead of four thousand muskets, only five hundred were de- 
 livered, and it was eight years, instead of two, before the 
 whole ten thousand were completed. The entire business re- 
 lating to the contract was not closed until January, 1809, 
 when, (so liberally had the government made advances to the 
 contractor,) the final balance due Mr. Whitney was only two 
 thousand four hundred and fifty dollars. 
 
 During the ten years Mr. Whitney was occupied in perform- 
 ing this engagement, he applied himself to business with the 
 most exemplary diligence, rising every morning as soon as it 
 was day, and at night, setting every thing in order appertain- 
 
50 
 
 ing to all parts of the establishment, before he retired to rest. 
 His genius impressed itself on every part of the manufactory, 
 extending even to the most common tools, all of which re- 
 ceived some peculiar modification which improved them in 
 accuracy, or efficacy, or beauty. His machinery for making 
 the several parts of a musket, was made to operate with the 
 greatest possible degree of uniformity and precision. The 
 object at which he aimed, and which he fully accomplished, 
 was to make the same part of different guns, as the locks, for 
 example, as much like each other as the successive impres- 
 sions of a copper-plate engraving. It has generally been con- 
 ceded that Mr. Whitney greatly improved the art of manu- 
 facturing arms, and laid his country under permanent obliga- 
 tions, by augmenting her facilities for national defence. So 
 rapid has been the improvement in the arts and manufactures 
 in this country, that it is difficult to conceive of the low state 
 in which they were thirty years ago. To this advancement, 
 the genius and industry of Mr. Whitney most essentially con- 
 tributed, for while he was clearing off the numerous impedi- 
 ments which were thrown in his way, he was at the same time 
 performing the office of a pioneer to the succeeding generation. 
 In the year 1812, he entered into a new contract with the 
 United States, to manufacture for them fifteen thousand stand 
 of arms ; and in the meantime he executed a similar engage- 
 ment, (we know not how extensive,) for the State of New 
 York. Although his resources enabled him now to proceed 
 with much greater dispatch, and with far less embarrassment 
 than in his first enterprise, yet some misunderstanding arose 
 with one of the agents of the government, which made it ne- 
 cessary for him to bring his case before the Secretary of 
 War. The following testimonials, which he obtained on 
 this occasion from Governor Tompkins, and from Governor 
 Wolcott, will serve to show in what estimation he was held 
 by those who knew him best, and who were most competent 
 ' to judge of his merits. The letters, dated May, 1814, are both 
 addressed to General Armstrong, the existing Secretary of 
 War. Governor Tompkins observes as follows : " I have vis- 
 ited Mr. Whitney's establishment at New Haven, and have no 
 
51 
 
 hesitation in saying, that I consider it the most perfect I have 
 ever seen ; and I believe it is well understood, that few per- 
 sons in this country surpass Mr. Whitney in talents as a me- 
 chanic, or in experience as a manufacturer of muskets. Those 
 which he has made for us, are generally supposed to exceed, 
 in form and quality, all the muskets either of foreign or do- 
 mestic fabrication, belonging to the State, and are universally 
 preferred and selected by the most competent judges. 
 
 " It is perhaps proper for me to observe further, that all Mr. 
 Whitney's contracts with the State of New York have been 
 performed with integrity, and to the entire satisfaction of the 
 several military commissaries of the State." 
 
 Governor Wolcott's testimony is still more full, as his op- 
 portunities for acquaintance with Mr. Whitney had been more 
 extensive. We insert the letter entire, as not only indicating 
 the high reputation of the individual to whom it relates, but 
 as exemplifying the liberality with which the writer is known 
 always to have fostered and encouraged genius and merit. 
 
 " New York, May 7, 1814. 
 
 Sir I have the honor to address you on behalf of my 
 friend, Eli Whitney, Esq., of New Haven, who is a manufac- 
 turer of arms, under a contract with your department. Mr. 
 Whitney first engaged in this business under a contract with 
 me, as Secretary of the Treasury ; when, according to exist- 
 ing laws, all contracts for military supplies were formed under 
 my superintendence. I have since been constantly acquainted 
 with him, and venture to assure you that the present improved 
 state of our manufactures is greatly indebted to his skill and 
 exertions ; that though a practical mechanic, he is also a gen- 
 tleman of liberal education, a man of science, industry and in- 
 tegrity, and that his inventions and labors have been as useful 
 to this country as those of any other individual. Moreover, 
 that if any further alterations or improvements in the con- 
 struction of military machines are proposed, Mr. Whitney is 
 one of the few men who can safely and advantageously be 
 consulted, respecting the best mode of giving them effect. 
 
 " I make these declarations to you with a perfect convic- 
 tion that they express nothing more than Mr. Whitney has a 
 
52 
 
 right to demand from every man who is acquainted with his 
 merits and capable of estimating their value ; and understand- 
 ing that he experiences some difficulties in regard to his con- 
 tract, I venture respectfully to request that you would so far 
 extend to him your favor as to inform yourself particularly of 
 the merits of his case and the services he can perform ; in 
 which case I am certain he will receive all the patronage and 
 protection to which he is entitled. 
 
 " I have the honor to remain, with the highest respect, Sir, 
 your obedient servant, (Signed) OLIVER WOLCOTT. 
 
 " The Hon. Secretary Armstrong." 
 
 ^Several other persons made contracts with the government 
 at about the same time, and attempted the manufacture of 
 muskets, following substantially, so far as they understood it, 
 the method pursued in England. The result of their efforts 
 was a complete failure to manufacture muskets of the quality 
 required, at the price agreed to be paid by the government ; 
 and in some instances they expended in the execution of their 
 contracts, a considerable fortune in addition to the whole 
 amount received for their work. 
 
 The low state to which the arts had been depressed in this 
 country by the policy of England, under the colonial system, 
 and from which they had then scarcely begun to recover, to- 
 gether with the high price of labor and other causes, con- 
 spired to render it impracticable at that time even for those 
 most competent to the undertaking, to manufacture muskets 
 here in the English method. And doubtless Mr. Whitney 
 would have shared the fate of his enterprising, but unsuccess- 
 ful competitors, had he adopted the course which they pur- 
 sued ; but his genius struck out for him a course entirely new. 
 
 In maturing his system he had many obstacles to combat, 
 and a much longer time was occupied than he had anticipated ; 
 but with his characteristic firmness he pursued his object, in 
 the face of the obloquy and ridicule of his competitors, the 
 evil predictions of his enemies, and the still more discoura- 
 
 * For the following remarks on the manufacture of arms, the writer of this arti- 
 cle is indebted to a gentleman who is personally and intimately acquainted with the 
 subject 
 
53 
 
 ging and disheartening misgivings, doubts and apprehensions 
 of his friends. His efforts were at length crowned with suc- 
 cess, and he had the satisfaction of finding that the business 
 which had proved so ruinous to others, was likely to prove not 
 altogether unprofitable to himself. 
 
 Our limits do not permit us to give a minute and detailed 
 account of this system ; and we shall only glance at two or 
 three of its more prominent features, for the purpose of illus- 
 trating its general character. 
 
 The several parts of the musket were, under this system, 
 carried along through the various processes of manufacture, 
 in lots of some hundreds or thousands of each. In their va- 
 rious stages of progress, they were made to undergo success- 
 ive operations by machinery, which not only vastly abridged 
 the labor, but at the same time so fixed and determined their 
 form and dimensions, as to make comparatively little skill 
 necessary in the manual operations. Such were the construc- 
 tion and arrangement of this machinery, that it could be 
 worked by persons of little or no experience, and yet it per- 
 formed the work with so much precision, that when, in the 
 later stages of the process, the several parts of the musket came 
 to be put together, they were as readily adapted to each other, 
 as if each had been made for its respective fellow. A lot of 
 these parts passed through the hands of several different work- 
 men successively, (and in some cases several times returned, at 
 intervals more or less remote, to the hands of the same work- 
 man,) each performing upon them every time some single and 
 simple operation, by machinery or by hand, until they were 
 completed. Thus Mr. Whitney reduced a complex business, 
 embracing many ramifications, almost to a mere succession of 
 simple processes, and was thereby enabled to make a division 
 of the labor among his workmen, on a principle which was not 
 'only more extensive, but also altogether more philosophical 
 than that pursued in the English method. In England, the la- 
 bor of making a musket was divided by making the different 
 workmen the manufacturers of different limbs, while in Mr. 
 Whitney's system the work was divided with reference to its 
 
 7 
 
54 
 
 nature, and several workmen performed different operations 
 on the same limb. 
 
 It will be readily seen that under such an arrangement any 
 person of ordinary capacity would soon acquire sufficient dex- 
 terity to perform a branch of the work. Indeed, so easy did 
 Mr. Whitney find it to instruct new and inexperienced work- 
 men, that he uniformly preferred to do so, rather than to at- 
 tempt to combat the prejudices of those who had learned the 
 business under a different system. 
 
 When Mr. Whitney's mode of conducting the business was 
 brought into successful operation, and the utility of his ma- 
 chinery was fully demonstrated, the clouds of prejudice which 
 lowered over his first efforts were soon dissipated, and he had 
 the satisfaction of seeing not only his system, but most of his 
 machinery, introduced into every other considerable establish- 
 ment for the manufacture of arms, both public and private, in 
 the United States. 
 
 The labors of Mr. Whitney in the manufacture of arms 
 have been often and fully admitted by the officers of the gov- 
 ernment, to have been of the greatest value to the public in- 
 terest. A former Secretary of War admitted, in a conversa- 
 tion with Mr. Whitney, that the government were saving 
 twenty five thousand dollars per annum at the two public ar- 
 mories alone, by his improvements. This admission, though 
 it is believed to be far below the truth, is sufficient to show 
 that the subject of this memoir deserved well of his country 
 in this department of her service. 
 
 It should be remarked that the utility of Mr. Whitney's la- 
 bors during the period of his life which we have now been 
 contemplating, was not limited to the particular business in 
 which he was engaged. Many of the inventions which he 
 made to facilitate the manufacture of muskets, were applica- 
 ble to most other manufactures of iron and steel. To many 
 of these they were soon extended, and became the nucleus 
 around which other inventions clustered ; and at the present 
 time some of them may be recognized in almost every consid- 
 erable workshop of that description in the United States. 
 
 In the year 1812, Mr. W. made application to Congress for 
 
55 
 
 the renewal of his patent for the cotton gin. In his memorial 
 he presented a history of the struggles he had been forced to 
 encounter in defence of his right, observing that he had been 
 unable to obtain any decision on the merits of his claim until 
 he had been eleven years in the law, and thirteen years of his 
 patent term had expired. He sets forth, that his invention 
 had been a source of opulence to thousands of citizens of the 
 United States ; that as a labor-saving machine it would ena- 
 ble one man to perform the work of a thousand men ; and that 
 it furnishes to the whole family of mankind, at a very cheap 
 rate, the most essential article of their clothing. Hence, he 
 humbly conceived himself entitled to a further remuneration 
 from his country, and thought he ought to be admitted to a 
 more liberal participation with his fellow citizens in the bene- 
 fits of his invention. Although so great advantages had been 
 already experienced, and the prospect of future benefits was 
 so promising, still many of those whose interest had been most 
 promoted, and the value of whose property had been most en- 
 hanced by this invention, had obstinately persisted in refusing 
 to make any compensation to the inventor. The very men 
 whose wealth had been acquired by the use of this machine, 
 and who had grown rich beyond all former example, had 
 combined their exertions to prevent the patentee from deriving 
 any emolument from his invention. From that State in which 
 he had first made and where he had first introduced his ma- 
 chine, and which had derived the most signal benefits from it, 
 he had received nothing ; and from no State had he received 
 the amount of half a cent per pound on the cotton cleaned 
 with his machines in one year. Estimating the value of the 
 labor of one man at twenty cents per day, the whole amount 
 which had been received by him for his invention, was not 
 equal to the value of the labor saved in one hour by his machines 
 then in use in the United States. " This invention (he pro- 
 ceeds) now gives to the southern section of the Union, over 
 and above the profits which would be derived from the culti- 
 vation of any other crop, an annual emolument of at least 
 three millions of dollars."* The foregoing statement does not 
 
 * This was in 1812 ; the amount of profit is at this time incomparably greater. 
 
56 
 
 rest on conjecture, it is no visionary speculation, all these 
 advantages have been realized ; the planters of the southern 
 States have counted the cash, felt the weight of it in their 
 pockets, and heard the exhilarating sound of its collision. 
 Nor do the advantages stop here ; this immense source of 
 wealth is but just beginning to be opened. Cotton is a more 
 cleanly and healthful article of cultivation than tobacco and 
 indigo, which it has superseded, and does not so much impov- 
 erish the soil. This invention has already trebled the value of 
 the land through a great extent of territory ; and the degree 
 to which the cultivation of cotton may be still augmented, is 
 altogether incalculable. This species of cotton has been 
 known in all countries where cotton has been raised, from time 
 immemorial, but was never known as an article of commerce, 
 until since this method of cleaning it was discovered. In 
 short, (to quote the language of Judge Johnson,) if we should 
 assert that the benefits of this invention exceed one hundred 
 millions of dollars, we can prove the assertion by correct cal- 
 culation. It is objected that if the patentee succeeds in pro- 
 curing the renewal of his patent, he will be too rich. There 
 is no probability that the patentee, if the term of his patent 
 were extended for twenty years, would ever obtain for his in- 
 vention one half as much as many an individual will gain by 
 the use of it. Up to the present time, the whole amount of 
 what he has acquired from this source, (after deducting his ex- 
 penses,) does not exceed one half the sum which a single indi- 
 vidual has gained by the use of the machine in one year. It 
 is true that considerable sums have been obtained from some 
 of the States where the machine is used ; but no small portion 
 of these sums has been expended in prosecuting his claim in a 
 State where nothing has been obtained, and where his ma- 
 chine has been used to the greatest advantage. 
 
 " Your memorialist has not been able to discover any reason 
 why he, as well as others, is not entitled to share the benefits 
 of his own labors. He who speculates upon the markets, and 
 takes advantage of the necessities of others, and by these 
 means accumulates property, is called 'a man of enterprise' *a 
 man of business* he is complimented for his talents, and is pro- 
 
57 
 
 tected by the laws. He, however, only gets into his possession 
 that which was before in the possession of another ; he adds 
 nothing to the public stock ; and can he who has given thousands 
 to others, be thought unreasonable if he asks one in return ? 
 
 "It is to be remembered that the pursuit of wealth, by 
 means of new inventions, is a very precarious and uncertain 
 one ; a lottery where there are many thousand blanks to one 
 prize. Of all the various attempts at improvements, there is 
 probably not more than one in five hundred for which a patent 
 is taken out ; and of all the patents taken out, not one in 
 twenty has yielded a net profit to the patentee equal to the 
 amount of the patent fees. In cases where a useful and valu- 
 able invention is brought into operation, the reward ought to 
 be in proportion to the hazard of the pursuit. The patent law 
 has now been in operation more than fourteen years. Many 
 suits for damages have been instituted against those who have 
 infringed the right of patentees ; and it is a fact, that very 
 rarely has the patentee ever recovered. If you would hold 
 out inducements for men of real talents to engage in these 
 pursuits, your rewards must be sure and substantial. Men of 
 this description can calculate and will know how to appre- 
 ciate the recompense which they are to receive for their labors. 
 If the encouragement held out be specious and delusive, the 
 discerning will discover the fallacy and will despise it ; the 
 weak and visionary only will be decoyed by it, and your pat- 
 ent office will be filled with rubbish. The number of those 
 who succeed in bringing into operation really useful and im- 
 portant improvements, always has been, and always must be, 
 very small. It is not probable that this number can ever be 
 as great as one in a hundred thousand. It is therefore impos- 
 sible that they can ever exert upon the community an undue 
 influence. There is, on the contrary, much probability and 
 danger that their rights will be trampled on by the many." 
 
 Notwithstanding these cogent arguments, the application 
 was rejected by Congress. Some liberal-minded and enlight- 
 ened men from the cotton districts, favored the petition ; but 
 a majority of the members from that section of the Union 
 were warmly opposed to granting it. 
 
58 
 
 In a correspondence with the late Mr. Robert Fulton, on the 
 same subject, Mr. Whitney observes as follows : " The diffi- 
 culties with which I have had to contend have originated, prin- 
 cipally, in the want of a disposition in mankind to do justice. 
 My invention was new and distinct from every other : it stood 
 alone. It was not interwoven with any thing before known ; 
 and it can seldom happen that an invention or i mprovement 
 is so strongly marked, and can be so clearly and specifically 
 identified ; and I have always believed, that I should have had 
 no difficulty in causing my rights to be respected, if it had 
 been less valuable, and been used only by a small portion of 
 the community. But the use of this machine being immensely 
 profitable to almost every planter in the cotton districts, all 
 were interested in trespassing upon the patent-right, and each 
 kept the other in countenance. Demagogues made themselves 
 popular by misrepresentation and unfounded clamors, both 
 against the right and against the law made for its protection. 
 Hence there arose associations and combinations to oppose 
 both. At one time, but few men in Georgia dared to come 
 into court and testify to the most simple facts within their 
 knowledge, relative to the use of the machine. In one in- 
 stance, I had great difficulty in proving that the machine had 
 been used in Georgia, although, at the same moment, there 
 were three separate sets of this machinery in motion, within 
 fifty yards of the building in which the court sat, and all so 
 near that the rattling of the wheels was distinctly heard on 
 the steps of the court-house."* 
 
 * In one of his trials, Mr. Whitney adopted the following plan, in order to show 
 how nugatory were the methods of evasion practised by his adversaries. They 
 were endeavoring to have his claim to the invention set aside, on the ground that 
 the teeth in his machine were made of wire, inserted into the cylinder of wood, 
 while in the machine of Holmes, the teeth were cut in plates, or iron surrounding 
 the cylinder, forming a circular saw. Mr. Whitney, by an ingenious device, (con- 
 sisting chiefly of sinking the plate below the surface of the cylinder, and suffering 
 the teeth to project,) contrived to give to the saw teeth the appearance of wires, 
 while he prepared another cylinder in which the wire teeth were made to look 
 like saw teeth. The two cylinders were produced in court, and the witnesses were 
 called on to testify which was the invention of Whitney, and which that of Holmes. 
 They accordingly swore the saw teeth upon Whitney, and the wire teeth upon 
 Holmes ; upon which the Judge declared that it was unnecessary to proceed any 
 farther, the principle of both being manifestly the same. 
 
59 
 
 In the midst of these fruitless efforts to secure to himself 
 some portion of the advantages, which so many of his fellow 
 citizens were reaping from his ingenuity, his armory pro- 
 ceeded with sure but steady pace, which bore him on to afflu- 
 ence. For the few following years he occupied himself prin- 
 cipally in the concerns of his manufactory, inventing new 
 kinds of machinery, and improving and perfecting the old. 
 
 In January, 1817, Mr. Whitney was married to Miss Hen- 
 rietta F. Edwards, youngest daughter of the Hon. Pierpont 
 Edwards, late Judge of the District Court for the State of 
 Connecticut. The fond and quiet scenes of domestic life, 
 after which he had so long aspired, but from which he had 
 been debarred by the embarrassed or unsettled state of his 
 affairs, now spread before him in the fairest light. Four chil- 
 dren, a son and three daughters,* added successively fresh 
 attractions to the family circle. Happy in his home and easy 
 in his fortune, with a measure of respectability among his fel- 
 low citizens, and celebrity abroad, which might well satisfy 
 an honorable ambition, he seemed to have in prospect, after a 
 day of anxiety and toil, an evening unusually bright and serene. 
 
 In this uniform and happy tenor, he passed the five follow- 
 ing years, when a formidable maladyf began to make its ap- 
 proaches, by a slow but hopeless progress, which at length ter- 
 minated his life. 
 
 We are indebted to a near friend and eye witness, for the 
 following account of his last illness. In September, 1822, im- 
 mediately after his return from Washington, he experienced 
 the first attack of his complaint, which immediately threat- 
 ened his life. For three weeks the event was very doubtful, 
 during which time he occasionally suffered paroxysms of pain, 
 of from thirty to forty minutes continuance, severe beyond 
 description. These were repeated six or eight times in every 
 twenty four hours. For six weeks he was confined to his 
 
 * The youngest of these died in September, 1823, aged one year and nine months. 
 Two daughters, and a son hearing his father's name, (the youngest of the three,) 
 still survive. 
 
 t An enlargement of the prostate gland. 
 
60 
 
 room, at the end of which time he was able to walk about 
 the house, and to enjoy the society of his friends. Early in 
 January, 1823, he had to endure another period of suffering, 
 not less alarming or distressing than the former. With such 
 alternations of awful suffering and partial repose, he reached 
 the 12th of November, 1824, at which period his sufferings be- 
 came almost unremitted until the 8th of January, 1825, when 
 he expired, retaining his consciousness to the last, closing 
 his own eyes, and making an effort to close his mouth. 
 
 It was his particular request that there should be no exam- 
 ination of his body with a view of ascertaining the nature of 
 his disease, and he desired his funeral to be conducted with as 
 little parade as possible. 
 
 The strongest demonstrations of respect and regard were 
 manifested by the citizens of New Haven, in committing his 
 remains to the earth, and the Rev. President Day pronounced 
 over his grave the following eulogy. 
 
 " How frequent and how striking are the monitions to us, 
 that this world is not the place of our rest ! It is not often 
 the case, that a man has laid his plans for the business and the 
 enjoyment of life, with a deeper sagacity, than the friend 
 whose remains we have now committed to the dust. He had 
 received, as the gift of heaven, a mind of a superior order. 
 Early habits of thinking gave to it a character of independ- 
 ence and originality. He was accustomed to form his decis- 
 ions, not after the model of common opinion, but by his own 
 nicely balanced judgment. His mind was enriched with 
 the treasures which are furnished by a liberal education. 
 He had a rare fertility of invention in the arts ; an exactness 
 of execution almost unequalled. By a single exercise of his 
 powers, he changed the state of cultivation, and multiplied the 
 wealth of a large portion of our country. He set an example 
 of system and precision in mechanical operations, which others 
 had not thought of even attempting. 
 
 " The high qualities of his mind, instead of unfitting him 
 for ordinary duties, were finely tempered with taste and judg- 
 ment in the business of life. His manners were formed by 
 an extensive intercourse with the best society. He had an 
 
61 
 
 energy of character, which carried him through difficulties, 
 too formidable for ordinary minds. 
 
 " With these advantages, he entered on the career of life. 
 His efforts were crowned with success. An ample compe- 
 tency was the reward of his industry and skill. He had 
 gained the respect of all classes of the community. His opin- 
 ions were regarded with peculiar deference, by the man of 
 science, as well as the practical artist. His large and liberal 
 views, his knowledge of the world, the wide range of his ob- 
 servations, his public spirit, and his acts of beneficence, had 
 given him a commanding influence in society. The gentle- 
 ness and refinement of his manners, and the delicacy of his 
 feelings in the social and domestic relations, had endeared 
 him to a numerous circle of relatives and friends. 
 
 *' And what were his reflections in review of the whole, in 
 connection with the distressing scenes of the last period of 
 life ? * All is as the flower of the grass : the wind passeth 
 over it, and it is gone/ All on earth is transient ; all in eter- 
 nity is substantial and enduring. His language was, ' I am a 
 sinner. But God is merciful. The only ground of accept- 
 ance before Him, is through the great Mediator.' From this 
 mercy, through this Mediator, is derived our solace under this 
 heavy bereavement. On this, rest the hopes of the mourners, 
 that they shall meet the deceased with joy, at the resurrection 
 of the just." 
 
 In his person, Mr. Whitney was considerably above the or- 
 dinary size, of a dignified carriage, and of an open, manly, and 
 agreeable countenance. His manners were conciliatory, and 
 his whole appearance such as to inspire universal respect. 
 Among his particular friends, no man was more esteemed. 
 Some of the earliest of his intimate associates were also among 
 the latest. With one or two of the bosom friends of his youth 
 he kept up a correspondence by letter for thirty years, with 
 marks of continually increasing regard. His sense of honor 
 was high, and his feelings of resentment and indignation occa- 
 sionally strong. He could, however, be cool when his oppo- 
 nents were heated ; and, though sometimes surprised by pas- 
 sion, yet the unparalleled trials of patience which he had sus- 
 
 8 
 
62 
 
 tained did not render him petulant, nor did his strong sense of 
 the injuries he had suffered in relation to the cotton gin impair 
 the natural serenity of his temper. 
 
 But the most remarkable trait in the character of Mr. Whit- 
 ney, aside from his inventive powers, was his perseverance; 
 and this is the more remarkable, because it is so common to 
 find men of great powers of mechanical invention deficient in 
 this quality. Nothing is more frequent than to see a man of 
 the most fertile powers of invention, run from one piece of 
 mechanism to another, leaving the former half finished ; or if 
 he has completed any thing, it is usual to find him abandon it 
 to others, too fickle to pursue the advantages he might reap 
 from it, or too sensitive to struggle with the sordid and avari- 
 cious, who may seek to rob him of the profits of his invention. 
 We cannot better express our views on this subject, than by 
 transcribing from a letter now before us the following remarks 
 communicated to us by a gentleman* who had intimately 
 known Mr. W. from early life. 
 
 " I have reflected often and much upon Mr. Whitney's char- 
 acter, and it has been a delightful study to me. I wish I had 
 time to bring fully to your view, for your consideration, that 
 particular excellence of mind in which he excelled all men 
 that I have ever heard of. I do not mean that his power of 
 forming mechanical combinations was unlimited, but that he 
 had it under such perfect control. I imagine that he never yet 
 failed of accomplishing any result of mechanical powers and 
 combinations which he sought for ; nor ever sought for one 
 for which he had not some occasion, in order to accomplish 
 the business in hand. I mean that his invention never failed, 
 and never ran wild. It accomplished, I imagine, without ex- 
 ception, all that he ever asked of it, and no more. I empha- 
 size this last expression, from having in -mind the case of a 
 man whose invention appeared to be more fertile even than 
 Whitney's ; but he had it under no control. When he had 
 imagined and half executed one fine thing, his mind darted off 
 to another, and he perfected nothing : Whitney perfected all 
 that he attempted ; carried each invention to its utmost limit 
 
 Hon. S. M. Hopkins. 
 
63 
 
 of usefulness ; and then reposed until he had occasion for 
 something else." 
 
 It would be difficult to estimate the full value of Mr. Whit- 
 ney's labors, without going into a minuteness of detail incon- 
 sistent with our limits. Every cotton garment bears the im- 
 press of his genius, and the ships that transported it across the 
 waters were the heralds of his fame, and the cities that have 
 risen to opulence by the cotton trade, must attribute no small 
 share of their prosperity to the inventor of the cotton gin. 
 We have before us the declaration of the late Mr. Fulton, that 
 Arkwright, Watt and Whitney, (we would add Fulton to the 
 number,) were the three men who did most for mankind, of 
 any of their cotemporaries ; and, in the sense in which he in- 
 tended it, the remark is probably true. 
 
 Fabrics of cotton are now so familiar to us and so univer- 
 sally diffused, that we are apt to look upon them rather as ori- 
 ginal gifts of nature, than as recent products of human inge- 
 nuity. The following statements, however, will show how 
 exceedingly limited the cotton trade was previous to the in- 
 vention of the cotton gin. 
 
 In 1784, an American vessel arrived at Liverpool, having 
 on board, for part of her cargo, eight bags of cotton, which 
 were seized by the officers of the custom-house, under the con- 
 viction that they could not be the growth of America.* The 
 following extracts from old newspapers, will exhibit the extent 
 of the cotton trade for the subsequent years. 
 
 Cotton from America arrived at Liverpool. 
 
 1785. January. Diana, from Charleston, 1 bag. 
 February. Tenign, from New York, 1 do. 
 
 June. Grange, from Philadelphia, 3 do. 5 bags. 
 
 1786. May. Thomas, from Charleston, 2 do. 
 June. Juno, from Charleston, 4 do. 6. 
 
 1787. April. John, from Philadelphia, 6 do. 
 June. Wilson, from New York, 9 do. 
 
 Grange, from Philadelphia, 9 do. 
 August. Henderson, from Charleston, 40 do. 
 Dec. John, from Philadelphia, 44 do. 108. 
 
 1788. January. Mersey, from Charleston, 1 do. 
 
 Grange, from Philadelphia, 5 do. 
 
 * See Southern Review for May, 1831. 
 
64 
 
 1788. June. John, from Philadelphia, 30 bags. 
 July. Harriott, from New York, 62 do. 
 Grange, from Philadelphia, 111 do. 
 Polly, from Charleston, 73 do. 282. 
 
 The whole domestic exports of the United States in 1825, 
 were valued at 66,940,000 dollars, of which value 36,846,000 
 was in cotton only. In general, this article is equal to some 
 millions more than one half the whole value of our exports. 
 The average growth for the three years previous to 1828. was 
 estimated at 900,000 bales, which is nearly THREE HUNDRED 
 MILLIONS OF POUNDS, of which about one fifth was consumed 
 in our own manufactories.* 
 
 We cannot close this article without adding one or two re- 
 flections that have occurred to us while perusing the papers of 
 Mr. Whitney. President Dwight, in his counsels to his pupils, 
 often insisted on the duty of men of high standing in society* 
 to lend their influence in bringing forward young men of prom- 
 ise ; and no one was ever more ready than that great and 
 good man to take by the hand, and lead forward into the world, 
 young men of modest merit. This noble disposition he man- 
 ifested strongly in his treatment of the subject of this memoir. 
 He smiled upon his enterprising undertakings, encouraged him 
 by the kindest assurances, and commended him strongly to the 
 countenance and support of his friends. When Mr. W. was 
 about to negotiate a sale of his patent-right with the State of 
 South Carolina, Dr. D. furnished him with a letter to the Hon. 
 Charles Cotesworth Pickney, from which we subjoin the fol- 
 lowing extract. After adverting to the proposed application 
 of Mr. W., Dr. Dwight proceeds : " To you, sir, it will be in 
 the stead of many ordinary motives to know that your aid 
 will, in this case, be given to a man who has rarely, perhaps 
 never, been exceeded in ingenuity or industry; and not often 
 in worth of every kind. Every respectable man in this region 
 will rejoice to see him liberally rewarded for so useful an ef- 
 fort, and for a life of uncommon benefit to the public. 
 
 " Mr. Whitney is now employed in manufacturing muskets 
 for the United States. In this business he has probably ex- 
 
 * Niles' Weekly Register. 
 
65 
 
 ceeded the efforts not only of his countrymen, but of the whole 
 civilized world, by a system of machinery of his own inven- 
 tion, in which expedition and accuracy are united to a degree 
 probably without example. I should not have thought it neces- 
 sary to speak of him in so strong terms, had I not believed that 
 his own modesty would keep him from discovering his real 
 character." 
 
 Governor Wolcott, who cherished similar dispositions to- 
 wards young men of merit and ingenuity, gave him similar let- 
 ters to Mr. Pickney and Judge Dessaussure. These testimo- 
 nials no doubt contributed much to inspire confidence in the 
 leading men at the south. Such efforts on the part of eminent 
 men in favor of rising worth, enrich the modest youth without 
 impoverishing themselves. 
 
 To a number of respectable gentlemen of New Haven, par- 
 ticularly the Hon. James Hillhouse, the Hon. Elizur Goodrich, 
 the Hon. Simeon Baldwin, and the late Isaac Beers, Esq., Mr. 
 W. was under similar obligations for lending him the credit of 
 their names, and standing sureties for him in the heavy loans 
 which his first great enterprise required, without which aid it 
 could never have been carried forward. 
 
 The advantages of a liberal education to a man of mechan- 
 ical invention, as well as to the man of business, was very con- 
 spicuous in the case of Mr. Whitney. By this means his powers 
 of thought, and his materials for combination, were greatly aug- 
 mented. The letters exchanged between Messrs. Miller & 
 Whitney, both of whom were educated men, are marked by a 
 high degree of intelligence, and are written in a style of great 
 correctness, and sometimes even of elegance. None but men 
 of enlarged and liberal minds could have furnished to their 
 counsel the arguments by which they gained their first triumph 
 over their legal adversaries. It no doubt also contributed not 
 a little to conciliate the respect of those States which pur- 
 chased the patent-right, to find in the person of the patentee, 
 instead of some illiterate visionary projector, a gentleman of 
 elevated mind and cultivated manners, and of a person ele- 
 gant and dignified. 
 
 In presenting to the public the foregoing sketch of the life of 
 
66 
 
 this extraordinary man, the writer has had it constantly in 
 view to render the narrative useful to the enterprising mechan- 
 ic and the man of business, to whom Whitney may be confi- 
 dently proposed as a model. To such, it is believed, the de- 
 tails given respecting his various struggles and embarrass- 
 ments may afford a useful lesson, a fresh incentive to perse- 
 verance, and stronger impressions of the value of a character 
 improved by intellectual cultivation, and adorned with all the 
 moral virtues. 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF MR. WHITNEY, 
 
 BY 
 
 PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 
 
 THE preceding memoir has so fully elucidated the character 
 of Mr. Whitney, that the following observations may perhaps 
 appear superfluous. I have, however, been led to make them, 
 both by affection for the memory of a man so highly valued, 
 and also because it is often in the power of a friend to give 
 some additional touches, even to a faithful picture. 
 
 Mr. Whitney received the degree of A. B. in Yale College, 
 at the same commencement (1792) when I became a member 
 of that institution. I had only a general knowledge of him 
 until 1798, when I was made acquainted with his then pending 
 arrangement with the government of the United States, for 
 the manufacture of arms, and by request I copied some of the 
 papers relating to that contract. In the autumn of 1799, just 
 after I had accepted an appointment in the government of 
 Yale College, I was much interested by an unexpected appli- 
 cation from Mr. Whitney, to visit the principal countries of 
 Europe, (all indeed which had cotton-growing colonies, in 
 either hemisphere,) for the purpose of obtaining patents for the 
 Cotton Gin. Gratifying as the application was to my feelings, 
 my recent engagements with the College, and my youth and 
 inexperience, concurred with other reasons to make me de- 
 cline accepting the overture, which was sufficiently tempting 
 to my curiosity and to the desire of foreign travel. 
 
67 
 
 This affair would not be worth mentioning, except that the 
 confidence which it implied naturally led to a familiar inter- 
 course of friendship, which for twenty five years was never 
 clouded for a moment, and often gave me interesting views of 
 Mr. Whitney's character. 
 
 I was frequently led to observe that his ingenuity extended 
 to every subject which demanded his attention ; his arrange- 
 ments, even of common things, were marked by singular 
 good taste and a prevailing principle of order. The effect 
 of this mental habit is very obvious in the disposition of 
 the buildings and accommodations of his manufactory of 
 arms ; although, owing to the infirmities of his later years, 
 and to other causes, his arrangements were never finished 
 to the full extent of his views. The machinery has great 
 neatness and finish, and in its operation evinces a degree 
 of precision and efficiency which gratifies every curious and 
 intelligent observer. I have many times visited the establish- 
 ment with strangers and foreigners, who have gone away de- 
 lighted with what they have seen.* Under all of the success- 
 ive administrations of the general government, from that of 
 the first President Adams, repeated contracts have been ob- 
 tained for the supply of arms. 
 
 Mr. Whitney received substantial proofs of the approbation 
 of the government in the terms which he obtained. He was 
 personally acquainted with all the Presidents of the United 
 States from the beginning of the government, and in every 
 fluctuation of party he retained their confidence, although his 
 own political sentiments were decided and well known. He 
 was, from frequent and long visits at the seat of govern- 
 ment, familiar with the principal officers, and with the leading 
 members of both Houses of Congress ; and thus he was ena- 
 bled to sustain the influence which he had acquired, and even 
 to extend it, so as to obtain important contracts from several 
 of the State governments. 
 
 * The manufactory has advanced in these respects since it has been superintended 
 by Mr. Whitney's nephews, the Messrs. Blakes, and to them it is indebted for some 
 valuable improvements ; and it is at present ably conducted by the son of the foun- 
 der and inheritor of his name. 
 
68 
 
 The private establishment of Mr. Whitney has proved a 
 a model for the more extensive manufactories which are the 
 property of the nation. Into them, as the writer of the fore- 
 going article has stated, and as I have been informed by Mr- 
 Whitney, his principal improvements have been transplanted, 
 chiefly by the aid of his workmen, and have now become com- 
 mon property. 
 
 A few years before Mr. Whitney's death it became neces- 
 sary to renew the mill-dam at the manufactory; it having been 
 originally constructed for a flour mill, and being both defective 
 in plan and dilapidated by time. Mr. Whitney, then in de- 
 clining health, superintended every part of the business in per- 
 son, although its execution was protracted almost into the win- 
 ter, when massive stones were to be laid, in the midst of cold 
 water and ice. It is necessary only to inspect the work, and 
 the flume ways, and the walled borders of the river below, 
 and the canal which he constructed, to take the water from the 
 dam to the forging shop, to be satisfied that both genius and 
 taste presided over these useful, although unostentatious con- 
 structions. The small river, by and upon which they were 
 raised, washes the foot of the celebrated mountain ridge called 
 East Rock, as already mentioned in the preceding memoir. 
 From its precipices and those of one of its branches, which 
 are composed of greenstone trap, Mr. Whitney selected his 
 materials with such skill, and arranged them with such judg- 
 ment and taste, that the walls, arches, and passages, and some 
 of the shops and other buildings constructed of this rock, are 
 admired both for their solidity and beauty, and will remain to 
 future generations. Some of the works are laid in a cement, 
 composed, in part, of a mixture of iron rust and siliceous and 
 micaceous sand, derived from the grinding of the gun-barrels 
 and other pieces of iron upon the grindstones a cement which 
 appears almost as firm as the rocks themselves. There are 
 two buildings for fuel : the one for charcoal, and the other for 
 mineral coal ; both are finished with great exactness, by se- 
 lecting smooth natural faces of the trap rock, which are accu- 
 rately laid in mortar and carefully pointed ; the floors are also 
 of firm stone, laid with equal exactness. These store-houses 
 
69 
 
 stand by the side of the mountain and at its foot, and by ex- 
 cavating a road in the bank above, the coal carts are driven 
 quite up to the gable end of the building, and their loads are 
 discharged into them simply by tipping up the cart. This no- 
 tice of these humble buildings is given to show Mr. Whitney's 
 exactness in every thing. It was a maxim with him, which I 
 have often heard him repeat, that there is nothing worth doing 
 that is not worth doing well. As far as circumstances permit- 
 ted, he always acted up to this maxim. 
 
 The houses for his workmen, at the manufactory, are beau- 
 tifully constructed, and arranged upon one plan ; they also are 
 of trap rock,* and covered by a white cement, and together 
 with the other buildings, the mountain and river scenery, and 
 the bridge,f they give this picturesque valley no small degree 
 of beauty. It was Mr. Whitney's intention to erect his own 
 mansion house in this valley, which would doubtless have then 
 received all the embellishment of which it is so susceptible. 
 With this view he had constructed an ample barn,J which is 
 a model of convenience, and even of taste and beauty, and 
 contains many accommodations, not usually found in such es- 
 tablishments. It was visited and examined by the late Presi- 
 dent Monroe, during his excursion through the Eastern States, 
 in 1816. It is perfectly characteristic of Mr. Whitney, that 
 his attention was directed even to the mangers for the cattle, 
 and to their fastenings. The latter are so contrived, by means 
 of a small weight at the end of the halter, that the animal 
 could always move his head with facility, but could not draw 
 out the rope so as to become entangled in it, nor could he easi- 
 ly waste his hay. The fastenings of the doors, as well as all 
 the other appendages and accommodations, are equally in- 
 genious. 
 
 The great water wheels which move the machinery of the 
 manufactory, are constructed entirely of wrought iron, com- 
 bining the greatest strength, durability and beauty, with a pro- 
 
 * Since Mr. Whitney's death, other houses have been built of wood, 
 t Constructed by that ingenious architect, Mr. Ithiel Town, 
 t There is a farm connected with the manufactory. 
 
 9 
 
70 
 
 jectile power like that of the fly-wheels in steam engines. 
 They are elegant objects, especially when in motion. 
 
 Mr. Whitney did not forget the domestic arrangements of 
 his own house, which contained many specimens of that inge- 
 nuity which he evinced in common things, as well as in those 
 that are more important. The several drawers of his bureaus 
 were locked by a single movement of one key, of a peculiar 
 construction, and an attempt to open any drawer except one 
 would prove ineffectual, even with the right key, which, how- 
 ever, being applied in the proper place, threw all the bolts at 
 one movement. These bureaus are now in the house of Mrs. 
 Whitney. 
 
 During the decline of his health, and especially during his 
 severest attacks, I was with him almost daily, and saw how 
 intensely his powerful and acute mind was directed to his own 
 case, of which he made himself perfect master.* It has been 
 already stated in the memoir, that his health was subverted, 
 and his life ultimately terminated by a very painful local af- 
 fection^ brought on, as he informed me. by exposure and fa- 
 tigue during the last of his land journeys through North Car- 
 olina, on his way to Georgia, to assert his just claims, so long 
 and so injuriously frustrated. J He examined with great care 
 and coolness the best medical writers on his disease ; he in- 
 spected their plates ; conversed freely with his professional 
 
 * Such was the remark made to him by one of the greatest surgeons of this coun- 
 try, who, after a painful examination hi one of the great cities, gave him no encour- 
 agement to hope for any permanent relief. 
 
 t Not only of the prostate gland, but of the vicinal organs ; this was the fatal 
 disease of Mr. Whitney's illustrious friend, the late President Dwight. Thus were 
 removed most painfully, from life, two of the greatest and most useful men which 
 this country has produced. 
 
 t He made many journeys to Georgia on this painful business, and generally by 
 land, hi an open sulkey. Near the close of life, he said in my hearing, that all he 
 had received for the invention of the cotton gin, had not more than compensated 
 him for the enormous expenses which he had incurred, and for the time which he 
 had devoted during many of the best years of his life, in the prosecution of this sub- 
 ject. He therefore felt that his just claims on the cotton-growing States, especially 
 on those that had made him no returns for this invention, so important to his coun- 
 try, were still unsatisfied, and that both justice and honor required that compensation 
 should be made. 
 
71 
 
 advisers, who withheld nothing from him, and he was not sat- 
 isfied without such anatomical illustrations as were furnished 
 from the museum of an eminent professor of anatomy. He 
 critically recorded such facts in his case as interested him the 
 most, and in coolness and decision, acted rather as if he him- 
 self had been the physician than the patient. 
 
 During this period, embracing at intervals several years, he 
 devised and caused to be constructed various instruments, for 
 his own personal use, the minute description of which would 
 not be appropriate to this place. Nothing that he ever in- 
 vented, not even the cotton gin, discovered a more perfect 
 comprehension of the difficulties to be surmounted, or evinced 
 more efficient ingenuity in the Accomplishment of his object. 
 Such was his resolution and perseverance, that from his sick 
 chamber he wrote both to London and Paris, for materials im- 
 portant to his plans, and he lived to receive the things he re- 
 quired, and to apply them in the way that he had intended. 
 He was perfectly successful, so far as any mechanical means 
 could afford relief or palliation ; but his terrible malady bore 
 down his constitution, by repeated, and eventually by inces- 
 sant inroads, upon the powers of life, which at last yielded to 
 assaults which no human means could avert or sustain. One 
 of the important inventions of that distressing period is in 
 the possession of the artist who was employed to construct the 
 instrument,* but it is to be feared that other contrivances, re- 
 markable for their simplicity and efficiency, as well as origin- 
 ality, are but imperfectly remembered by the friends and at- 
 tendants. I urged Mr. Whitney, and the late Dr. Smith, his 
 attending physician, to make sure of these inventions while it 
 was possible, but I believe no record was ever made of them, 
 and it is but too probable that the instruments are lost. 
 
 I have mentioned these facts connected with Mr. Whitney's 
 last illness, merely as instances of his never-sleeping ingenuity 
 and mental acuteness, rendered still more active, without be- 
 ing enfeebled, by intense suffering. 
 
 I have seen the same traits manifested on occasions far less 
 
 * Mr. Doming. 
 
72 
 
 important, but to him, at the time, equally novel. In the sum- 
 mer of 1808, application was made by myself and others, to 
 Mr. Whitney, for tubes of block tin, for the purpose of draw- 
 ing through an innocuous metal, the soda water* highly charged 
 with carbonic acid gas. Lead and copper tubes were rejected 
 on account of their poisonous properties, and there were then 
 no facilities in this country for constructing the tubes that were 
 desired. Mr. Whitney accomplished the object, with his usual 
 precision. The tubes were required to be many feet long, and 
 strong enough to resist a heavy pressure. He caused a mould 
 to be constructed of cast brass, in two parts, each con- 
 taining for about two feet in length, one half of the cylin- 
 drical cavity, correspondmg*to the desired tube. When the 
 parts of the mould were accurately fitted, by their faces, and 
 screwed together, they contained the entire cylindrical cavity 
 between them, and to secure the duct through the tube, a pol- 
 ished steel rod, of the proper size, and made very slightly ta- 
 pering, was fixed in the centre and the melted metal was cast 
 around it; the rod, being terminated by a ring, was easily 
 knocked out. The separate parts of the tube, thus produced, 
 were then joined into one, by having the contiguous ends of 
 two of them brought longitudinally into contact, and included 
 in another mould, containing an enlarged cavity, into which 
 melted tin was poured. The duct was preserved by a steel rod 
 passing through it as before, and thus the joint was perfected 
 by a knob of metal, which at once united the two tubes into 
 one, gave them great additional strength, and furnished a beau- 
 tiful ornament. Nothing could be more perfect for the object. 
 The moulds are still in existence, and were it necessary, tubes 
 could be thus made a mile long. Mr. Whitney did not state 
 that this method was original, nor do I certainly know whether 
 it was ; but I have never heard of a similar method of casting 
 block tin tubes. Mr. Whitney considered it as so valuable, 
 that he chose to pay for the moulds, although they were expen- 
 sive, and he retained them with reference to future use for 
 himself. 
 
 * Then just beginning to be known in this country. 
 
73 
 
 The operations of Mr. Whitney's mind were not so remark- 
 able for rapidity as for precision. This arose, not from the 
 want of mental activity and ardor of feeling, but from habit- 
 ual caution, and from his having made it his rule to be satisfied 
 with nothing short of perfection. Hence, he delayed to men- 
 tion a projected invention or improvement until he was entire- 
 ly satisfied with his own views. He did not disclose them until, 
 in his own opinion, he had hit upon the best conception and the 
 best means of execution, and when these were attained, and not 
 before, he brought his project forward, or, more frequently, put 
 it into successful operation before he divulged his plan. Hence, 
 he rarely found it necessary to retrace his steps. In early life 
 he so effectually disciplined his mind, that he could not only 
 confine it to the contemplation of one subject, but he could sus- 
 pend his train of thought and the execution of his inventions, 
 and resume them at distant intervals without confusion or loss. 
 He was very patient of interruption, and would cheerfully leave 
 his own engagements and suspend his mechanical arrange- 
 ments, his repasts, or his business, to attend to the numerous 
 applications which were constantly made to him, both by those 
 who had, and those who had not, any proper claims to his 
 time and services. 
 
 No man, as stated in the memoir, knew better how to con- 
 trol the excursions of an inventive mind. I have heard him 
 speak feelingly of the ruin often brought by ingenious men upon 
 themselves, by allowing their minds to wander from invention 
 to invention ; devising many things and completing nothing ; 
 and he considered it equally his own duty and interest to ad- 
 here inflexibly to those undertakings which he could carry into 
 successful operation, and to deny himself the luxury of a per- 
 petual mental creation. 
 
 With all his contemplative ingenuity and habitual attention 
 to mechanical details, Mr. Whitney did not allow his mind to 
 be narrowed down to a limited horizon. His views of men and 
 things were on the most enlarged scale. The interests of 
 mankind, and especially of his native country, as connected 
 with government, liberty, order, science, arts, literature, mor- 
 
74 
 
 als, and religion, were familiar to his mind, and he delighted in 
 conversing with men of a similar character. 
 
 His amiable and generous dispositions also prompted him 
 strongly to social intercourse. His countenance and person 
 were so prepossessing as to excite an active interest, especially 
 whenever he spoke ; his gentlemanly manners, marked by a 
 calm, but dignified modesty, were still those of a man not un- 
 conscious of his own mental powers ; he was therefore self- 
 possessed, while a winning affability and an agreeable voice 
 made his conversation as attractive as it was instructive. He 
 abounded in information and in original thoughts ; he was al- 
 ways welcome in the best society, both at home and when he 
 traveled ; the first men of the country, and from almost every 
 State in the Union, called on him, and much of his time was 
 necessarily passed in society. Before he had a family, his 
 carriage was often observed standing, till a late hour in the 
 evening, at the doors of some of his friends, and he seemed 
 reluctantly to withdraw to his manufactory, which was two 
 miles from the town. Mr. Whitney was constant and warm 
 in his friendships, and his efficient pecuniary aid, (after he 
 came to be possessed of the means,) was often afforded not 
 only to his friends, but to persons who had sometimes no 
 claims except those that addressed themselves to his kindness 
 and generosity. Those who relied upon these traits were 
 rarely disappointed, but he did not consider himself as being 
 'always requited, either with substantial justice or with grati- 
 tude ; a case which is, however, not altogether singular in the 
 world. Many thousands of dollars, amounting to a consider- 
 able fortune, were lost to Mr. Whitney, through his generosity. 
 
 It is perhaps worthy of being mentioned, that Mr. Whit- 
 ney's amiable dispositions and power of pleasing were mani- 
 fested in the pleasure which he took in caressing children, and 
 in the ease with which he won their attachment. In my own 
 family, as a visiting friend, he always allured the children, at 
 once, around him, and neither he nor they were soon tired of 
 the little gambols and pastimes started for their amusement. 
 Such happy dispositions eminently fitted him for the high do- 
 mestic happiness which he found in his own family, during the 
 
75 
 
 few years that he was permitted to enjoy their society. After 
 he became convinced that he could not survive his disease, he 
 manifested a wise prospective forecast for their welfare ; and it 
 is characteristic of his peculiar turn of mind, that the ample 
 house which, had he lived, he had intended to erect, he 
 ordered to be built after his death, for his lady and their chil- 
 dren. His fortitude and sense of decorum never forsook him 
 during his long and distressing decline. He almost always 
 saw his friends, and some of them he would never suffer to be 
 denied ; even when in intense pain, he was cheerful, social, 
 courteous, and, to the last, he maintained the observance of 
 order and proper attention to his person. He desired that the 
 writer of these notes should be in the house at the closing scene ; 
 and although this was prevented by circumstances, he ex- 
 pressed to him, near the close of life, sentiments such as we 
 should wish to hear from a dying friend. As is common in 
 cases where there has been severe suffering, his countenance,, 
 after death, assumed its natural expression, even in a greater 
 degree than for several weeks before. 
 
 His funeral was attended by a large concourse of his fellow 
 citizens, who assembled in one of the churches, to which the 
 body was conveyed, and where an appropriate religious ser- 
 vice was performed. 
 
 His tomb is after the model of that of Scipio at Rome, a 
 miniature of which, of the same stone of which it was orig- 
 inally made, was sent out cut from Italy by Mr. William C. 
 Woodbridge, and has been adopted in the case of two other 
 eminent men, the late Dr. Nathan Smith, and Mr. Ashmun, the 
 founder of the colony of Liberia. It is simple, beautiful, and 
 grand, and promises to endure for centuries.* An accurate 
 drawing of it, by Mr. R. Bakewell, Jr., is annexed. 
 
 * The foundations of the monument are laid at the bottom of the grave, by the 
 sides of the coffin, and depressed below it ; an arch of stone is thrown over the cof- 
 fin, and the structure then rises, solid as an ancient temple. The material of the 
 monument is the fine grained sandstone, of Chatham, Conn. The several layers of 
 stone are composed each of one piece only. 
 
 The following observations of a distinguished scholar and statesman, elicited in 
 consequence of a recent visit to the cemetery of New Haven, evince the estimation 
 
76 
 
 On Mr. Whitney's tomb is the following inscription : 
 
 ELI WHITNEY, 
 
 The inventor of the Cotton Gin. 
 Of useful Science and Arts, the efficient Patron and Improver. 
 
 In the social relations of life, a Model of excellence. 
 
 While private affection weeps at his tomb, his country honors his memory. 
 
 Born Dec. 8, 1765. Died Jan. 8, 1825. 
 
 in which Mr. Whitney's name is held, by one who is fully capable of appreciating 
 his merits. After alluding to the monument of Gen. Humphreys, who introduced the 
 fine wooled sheep into this country, the stranger remarks : " But Whitney's monu- 
 ment perpetuates the name of a still greater public benefactor. His simple name 
 would have been epitaph enough, with the addition perhaps of ' the inventor of the 
 cotton gin.' How few of the inscriptions in Westminster Abbey could be compared 
 with that ! Who is there that, like him, has given bis country a machine the pro- 
 duct of his own skill which has furnished a large part of its population, ' from child- 
 hood to age, with a lucrative employment ; by which their debts have been paid off ; 
 their capitals increased ; their lands trebled in valve. 9 * It may be said indeed that 
 this belongs to the physical and material nature of man, and ought not to be com- 
 pared with what has been done by the intellectual benefactors of mankind the 
 Miltons, the Shakspeares, and the Newtons. But is it quite certain that any thing 
 short of the highest intellectual vigor the brightest genius is sufficient to invent 
 one of these extraordinary machines? Place a common mind before an oration of 
 Cicero and a steam engine, and it will despair of rivaling the latter as much as the 
 former ; and we can by no means be persuaded, that the peculiar aptitude for com- 
 bining and applying the simple powers of mechanics, so as to produce these marvel- 
 ous operations, does not imply a vivacity of the imagination, not inferior to that of 
 the poet and the orator. And then, as to the effect on society, the machine, it is 
 true, operates, in the first instance, on mere physical elements, to produce an accu- 
 mulation and distribution of property. But do not all the arts of civilization follow 
 hi the train? and has not he who has trebled the value of land, created capital, 
 rescued the population from the necessity of emigrating, and covered a waste with 
 plenty has not he done a service to the country of the highest moral and intellect- 
 ual character ? Prosperity is the parent of civilization, and all its refinements ; and 
 every family of prosperous citizens added to the community, is an addition of so 
 many thinking, inventing, moral and immortal natures." New England Magazine, 
 Nov. 1831. 
 
 * The words of Mr. Justice Johnson of South Carolina, in the opinion in the case of Whitney 
 vertua Carter. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The Effect of the Invention of the Cotton-Gin on the Production of Cotton, 
 
 THE influence of mechanical inventions on the improvement of the human race, 
 and the wealth of nations, is a circumstance which has peculiarly impressed the 
 minds of practical men and of philosophic observers alike, since the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century. Changes in the condition of society and in the intercourse 
 of nations, far more momentous and lasting than the revolutions previously produced 
 by political causes, have, within the last fifty years, been effected by the action of 
 individual minds, in the development of neglected physical facts, and in the applica- 
 tion of material agencies to the use and benefit of man. As new wants have been 
 felt, and the needed uses of yet undiscovered powers have been made known in the 
 progress of society, art and science have met each occasion ; and the demand for 
 new combinations of matter and motion has been continually answered by widely- 
 various, unwearied invention. 
 
 The application of steam to machinery, to navigation and to land carriage, the in- 
 vention of the spinning-frame, and of the cotton-gin, are imposing instances of the 
 operation of such causes, so insignificant in their inception, so immensely important 
 in their results, to the convenience and happiness of mankind. The agency of Watt, 
 Fulton, Stevens, Telford, Arkwright, and Whitney, in the production of the present 
 wealth of the world, and in the development of the before-unappreciated resources 
 of the rapidly improving commonwealths and empires of progressive Christendom, 
 has been greater than that of all other human causes. What may have been ac- 
 complished by government, by policy and by science, for the promotion of the gen- 
 eral good of civilized nations, is little in comparison with the production of these indi- 
 vidual minds acting wholly without the sphere of political agencies, and has been 
 wholly subordinate and secondary to it. 
 
 These views of the relative influence and importance of merely personal, private 
 agency, and of national or governmental movements, would have startled the world 
 in the last century, and would have received a contemptuous condemnation ; but to 
 the present generation, they have been made familiar by reiteration, almost to 
 triteness. 
 
 The increase of the production of a cheap material for woven fabrics, adapted in 
 some degree to the use of the human race in every climate and region, is a matter 
 of more importance to commerce and to the interests of civilization, than may ap- 
 pear to a superficial observer. The supply of this primary necessity of man, (hardly 
 less essential than that of food,) with an article capable of being substituted, to a 
 great extent, for every other material hitherto converted into cloth, has been, during 
 the present half-century, by far the most important element in the commercial rela- 
 tions of the United States and Europe, has been the source of the largest amount 
 of acquired wealth, and has given employment to the greatest aggregate of profit- 
 able labor. There is no parallel in history to the changes which the cotton trade has 
 made in the direction of commerce, in the employment of mechanical industry, in 
 the dress, habits, conveniences, and health of mankind, and in the intercourse and 
 mutual dependence of nations. And when it is remembered, that the material was, 
 by the invention of the COTTON-GIN, furnished to the manufacturer with the cheap- 
 
78 
 
 ness, abundance and dispatch which insured these great results, it becomes manifest 
 that the importance of this mechanism has not been overrated. 
 
 The memoir, which this statement accompanies, furnishes some facts relating to 
 the consequences of jVIr. Whitney's invention to the growth of cotton ; but the in- 
 crease of the production, manufacture, and exportation of that great American sta- 
 ple during the years which have intervened, has created a necessity for an extended 
 view of the statistics of the subject. The limits of the present sketch permit only 
 an outline or abstract of the facts. It is a topic which has largely employed the 
 faculties of commercial writers and statesmen in the United States and in Great 
 Britain, the results of whose labors may be obtained from the public documents of 
 the American government, and from the various volumes of Hunt's " Merchants' 
 Magazine," a periodical of great merit and value for commercial statistics of this 
 and similar character. 
 
 Numerous statistical tables have been published in works of this description, ex- 
 hibiting the annual cultivation of cotton in the different States of the Union and 
 throughout the world, and also showing the amount and value of the exportations of 
 cotton from the United States to the various countries of Europe. The influence of 
 the cotton-gin on the increase and relative amount of American production and ex- 
 portation, is thus exhibited by a statement of the growth here and elsewhere, in cer- 
 tain years, at fixed periods. 
 
 Tables, exhibiting at great length all the particulars of production and export, for 
 each year, from 1791 to the present time, are given in several articles in Hunt's 
 " Merchants' Magazine," especially in a History of the American Cotton Trade, by 
 JAMES H. LANMAN, hi Vol. IV, page 201, of that work. A document prepared by 
 the Treasury Department in 1836, in obedience to a resolution passed in Congress, 
 presents also very ample and valuable tabular details of the progress of the cotton 
 trade and culture for more than forty years. The Merchants' Magazine contains 
 also a very valuable series of articles on this subject, (by Professor M'Cay, of the 
 University of Georgia,) presenting minute statements of the annual production and 
 exportation of cotton during recent years. (Merchants' Magazine, Vol. IX, p. 516 ; 
 Vol. XI, p. 517; Vol. XIII, p. 507.) From these, most of the particulars here 
 given are derived ; and to these and the American Almanac for 1837, and to the 
 Annual Reports on Commerce and Navigation prepared by the Treasury Depart- 
 ment, the inquiring reader is referred for the complete statistics of the agriculture, 
 commerce and manufacture of cotton. 
 
 The grand results, however, may be viewed effectively from a few points of time, 
 selecting the statistics of certain dates, taken at random. In the year 1791, the 
 whole cotton crop of the United States was but 2,000,000 of pounds. In 1845, 
 (fifty -two years after the invention of the cotton-gin,) it was more than 1,000,000,000 
 of pounds, (2,395,000 bales, averaging above 430 pounds.) In 1791, the cotton 
 annually produced in the whole world was estimated at 490,000,000 Ibs., of which 
 the United States, consequently, produced only 2 Is"' ^ n 1845, the total supply 
 furnished in the markets of the civilized world, was 1,169,600,000 Ibs., (2,720,000 
 bales,} of which the United States produced, therefore, more than SEVEN-EIGHTHS. 
 
 In 1791, the whole amount of cotton exported from the United States was 189,316 
 pounds, this being the first definite statement of the kind on record. Previous to 
 that year, the growth and sale of cotton had been so trifling in amount, as to be ac- 
 counted unworthy of any notice in the statistics of American commerce, or even in 
 
79 
 
 those of Southern agriculture. Although it is known that even in 1770 there 
 were shipped to Liverpool, THREE bales of cotton from New York. FOUR bales from 
 Virginia and Maryland, and THREE from North Carolina and though, in 1784, (the 
 year after the Treaty which closed the Revolutionary War and secured the recog- 
 nition of American Independence by Great Britain,) a vessel that carried EIGHT bales 
 of cotton from the United States to Liverpool was seized in that port, on the ground 
 that so large a quantity of COTTON in a single cargo could not be the produce of the 
 United States, yet there was no decisive improvement in the production or exporta- 
 tion of this article down to the era of Whitney's invention. And in 1792, (the year 
 preceding the invention,) the quantity exported was even less than in 1791, amount- 
 ing only to 138,328 Ibs. a decrease of 50,988 Ibs. in one year. There was no in- 
 dication, from 1770 to 1792, of any tendency to a large increase of the production 
 of cotton ; and- however great the adaptation of the soil and climate of the South to 
 its culture, and however strong the encouragements afforded by the extended de- 
 mand and high price in Britain and on the European continent, no one, at that 
 time, seems to have expected that this was ever to be one of the great staples and 
 exports of the United States. 
 
 In 1793, the year of the invention, the whole cotton crop of the United States 
 was 5,000,000 Ibs., and the total exportation 487,600 Ibs. In 1794, when the cot- 
 ton-gin was first extensively introduced into Georgia and South Carolina, (then the 
 principal region of that production,) the whole crop increased to 8,000,000 Ibs., and 
 the exportation to 1,601,760 Ibs. In 1800, when the machine had been thrown 
 open to the people, without limitation, from regard to the legal rights of the patentee, 
 the total production of cotton in the United States, during the year, amounted to 
 35,000,000 Ibs., of which 17,789,803 Ibs. were exported. In 1805, the whole produc- 
 tion was 70,000,000 Ibs., and the amount of upland cotton exported, 29,602,428 Ibs. 
 (value, $9,445,000.) In 1810, the crop was increased to 85,000,000 Ibs., and the 
 exportation of upland cotton to 84,657,384 Ibs. In 18,15, the whole of the United 
 States crop was 100,000,000 Ibs., and the exportation of upland cotton 74,548,796 
 Ibs. In 1820, the whole United States crop was 160,000,000 Ibs. the exportation 
 of upland 116,291,137 Ibs., valued at $22,308,667. In 1825, crop 255,000,000 Ibs. 
 exportation of upland, 166,784,629 Ibs. In 1830, crop 350,000,000, exportation, 
 290,311,937. In 1835, crop 475,000,000 exportation, 379,000,000. In 1840, 
 crop 880,000,000 exportation valued at $63,870,307. In 1845, the United States 
 cotton crop was 1,029,850,000 pounds, and the exportation of cotton 862,580,000 
 pounds the domestic consumption being 167,270,000 pounds. 
 
 The recent annexation of the immense cotton-lands of Texas, the abolition of the 
 import duty on American cotton in Great Britain, and the vast and rapid increase of 
 the manufacture of cotton-fabrics in all parts of the United States, are evidences of 
 the certainty of a further increase in the production of cotton in this country. 
 Enormous as has been the progress of this staple, from 1791 to 1845, it is destined 
 to a yet greater extension in amount and value. 
 
 The exclusion of East India cotton from its previous monopoly of the markets of 
 the civilized world, from the beginning of the present century, was mainly due to 
 the introduction of the cotton-gin in the Southern States of the American Union, 
 which substituted the rapid operations of machinery for the tedious and costly labor 
 of human hands in the preparation of the crop for the. use of the manufacturer. 
 The recent attempts of the British Government and the East India Company to re- 
 
80 
 
 store the successful production of cotton in Hindostan, have consisted largely in tho 
 introduction of American improvements, especially of "TuE AMERICAN COTTON- 
 GIN," into those provinces which are adapted to the culture. The greater cheap- 
 ness of labor, and even the superior quality of the product (in the province of 
 Dharwar) were found to avail nothing, without the advantages of American ma- 
 chinery. 
 
 The pecuniary advantage of this invention to the United States is by no means 
 fully presented by an exhibition of the value of the exports of cotton, (amounting to 
 more than $1,400,000,000 m the last forty-three years,) nor by the immense pro- 
 portion of the means which it has furnished this country to meet the enormous debts 
 continually incurred for imports from Britain and the European continent COTTON 
 having for many years constituted ^, j, or JQ of the value of the exports of the 
 Union. But it was the introduction of the cotton-gin which first gave a high value 
 and permanent market to the Public Lands in the southwest. The rapid settle- 
 ment and improvement of almost the entire States of Alabama, Mississippi, Lou- 
 isiana, Florida, and Texas, is mainly due to the enlarged production of cotton con- 
 sequent upon the invention of Whitney. The States of Georgia and Tennessee 
 have also been largely benefited by the same means, in the disposal of their domain, 
 a vast portion of which must have remained unoccupied and valueless but for the 
 immense increase of facilities for the preparation of cotton for the market. In the 
 three States of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the sales of the public lands of 
 the General Government amounted to 18,099,505 acres, during the eleven years 
 ending on the thirtieth of June, 1844, yielding to the National Treasury more than 
 $30,000,000. The sales of upland cotton lands by the United States land-offices, 
 have amounted to many tens of millions of acres ; and none have been sold at a 
 lower rate than $1.25 an acre a large proportion at a higher rate. 
 
 It is to be remarked, finally,- that the cotton-gins now in use throughout the whole 
 South are truly the origina^invention of Whitney, that no improvement or suc- 
 cessful variation of the essential parts has yet been effected. The actual character- 
 istics of the machine, (the cylinder and brush,) the sole real instruments by which 
 the seed is removed and the cotton cleaned, REMAIN, in cotton-gins of even the most 
 recent manufacture, PRECISELY AS WHITNEY LEFT THEM. The principle has not 
 been altered since the first cotton-gin was put in motion by the inventor, though 
 great improvements have been made in the application and direction of the moving 
 forces, in the employment of steam-power, in the running-gear, and other incidentals. 
 Every one of the various cotton-gins in use, under the names of different makers, 
 contains the essentials of Whitney's patent, without material change or addition. 
 The brush and the cylinder remain, like Fulton's padd'e- wheel, unchanged in form and 
 necessity, however vast the improvements in the machinery that causes the motion. 
 
 A more imposing result of mechanical ingenuity directed to the benefit of a whole 
 nation, and, through it, of mankind, has not been recorded in the history of the hu- 
 man mind. Certainly there is no patriotic American that will not rejoice to accord to 
 this eminently useful, though basely-wronged inventor, the judgment so well express- 
 ed by Mr. Lanman, (Merchant's Magazine, Vol. IV, pp. 208, 209,) that " Whitney 
 earned the credit of giving a spring to the agriculture of the South, which has been 
 continued, unimpaired, to this day, a credit that will endure while the cotton- 
 plant whitens the plantations of the South with its snowy harvests, or the machinery 
 of the cotton-factory clatters upon the waterfall!" 
 
"V