312 COTTON PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



single decision was obtained which vindicated these rights. 

 He had made six journeys from New-Haven to Georgia sev- 

 eral by land some of which involved the severest exposure 

 to his health and the hazard of his life. It is the testimony 

 of a gentleman who was intimately acquainted with Mr. Whit- 

 ney's affairs at the South, and whom he consulted as a legal 

 adviser, that, " in all his experience in the thorny profession of 

 the law, he had never seen such a case of perseverance under 

 such persecutions ; nor," he adds, " do I believe that I ever 

 knew any other man who could 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 me-et the mischievous contrivances of men who 

 seem inexhaustible in their resources of evil. Even now, after 

 thirty years, my head aches to recollect his narrations of new 

 trials, fresh disappointments, and accumulated wrongs." 



In 1812, Mr. Whitney applied to Congress for the renewal 

 of his patent. His memorial is long and able, stating the pain- 

 ful story of his struggles, and the little profit that he had 

 received. He says, that " from no State had he received the 

 amount of half a cent per pound on the cotton cleaned with 

 his machine 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." " The invention has already 

 trebled the value of the land through a great extent of terri- 

 tory, and the degree to which the cultivation of cotton may 

 still be augmented, is altogether incalculable." " In short," to 

 quote the language of Judge Johnson, of South Carolina, " if 

 we should assert that the benefits of this invention exceed one 

 hundred millions of dollars, we can prove the assertion by 



