HISTORY OF THE COTTON GIN. 309 



were assembled from various and distant parts of the State, 

 and at great expense ; but the judge did not appear, and the 

 trial wa's deferred. About a year after, Mr. Miller seems to 

 have given up all hopes of defending the patent in the State 

 of Georgia; and it may easily be imagined how, in a new 

 State, under the new federal government, with this delay of 

 an enforcement of the right for years, the right might be 

 worthless, especially as the payment of claims which were al- 

 lowed might be put off for four years, when they would expire 

 by the then existing statute of limitations. In South Carolina 

 a different plan was adopted, at the suggestion of influential 

 planters. The proprietors of the cotton gin proposed to the 

 legislature, to relinquish their patent-right for the use of the 

 citizens of the State, in consideration of $100,000. This 

 proposal was made in December, 1801. The legislature of- 

 fered $50,000 ; $20,000 to be paid in hand, and the remainder 

 in three annual instalments of $10,OCO each. This offer was 

 accepted, though Mr. Whitney writes in respect to it : " 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 

 is beyond calculation. It may, without exaggeration, be said 

 to have raised the value of seven eighths of all the three 

 Southern States from fifty to a hundred per cent. We get 

 but a song for it in comparison with the worth of the thing ; 

 but it is securing something." 



Thus, after more than seven years after the patent was 

 issued, and when its time to run had more than half expired, 

 it returned to its owners twenty thousand dollars in hand, with 

 the promise of thirty thousand more. It would be an insult 

 to the common sense of our readers, to suppose it necessary to 

 argue in detail the proposition that far more than this might 



