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210 - Memoir of the Life of Eli Whitney. 
labor of a single hand, than could be done in the usual manner in 
the space of many months. is 
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 unusual 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 in- 
trodu@tion of his machines, he coolly replied, that on accoun of the 
great expenses and trouble which always attend the intro luctio 
new invention, and the difficulty of enforcing a law in favor 0 
entees, 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 grati- 
tude of his countrymen, even should the invention answer the most 
sanguine aniicipations of his friends. 
The individual who contributed most to incite him to persevere in 
the undertaking, was Phineas Miller, Esq. Mr. Miller was 4 native 
of Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale College. Like Mr. Whit- 
ney, soon after he had completed his education at college, he came to 
Georgia as a private teacher, in the family of General 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 gentleman 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 1 hin. 
He had also considerable funds at command, and proposed to Mr. 
Whitney to become his joint adventurer, and to be at the whole ¢x 
pense of maturing the invention until it should be patented. If the 
machine should succeed in its intended operation, the parties agrees 
under legal formalities, * that the profits and advantages arising there 
from, as well as all privileges and emoluments to be derived from 
patenting, making, vending, and working the same, should be mutt 
and equally shared between them.” This instrument bears dat? 
May 27, 1793, and immediately afterwards they commenced bus 
ness under the firm of Miller § Whitney. 
An invention so important to the agricultural interest 
has proved, to every department of human industry,) €0U 
remain a secret. The knowledge of it soon spread throug 
(and, as it 
jd not long 
he 
