254 Memoir of the Lafe of Eli Whitney. 
To a number of respectable gentlemen of New Haven, parti- 
cularly the Hon. James Hillhouse, the Hon. Elizur Goodrich, and 
the late Isaac Beers, Esq., Mr. W. was under similar obliga- 
tions for lending him the credit of their names, and standing sureties 
for him in the heavy loans which his first great enterprize required, 
without which aid it could never have been carried forward. 
The advantages of a liberal education to a man of mechanical in- 
vention, as well as to the man of business, were very conspicuous in 
the case of Mr. Whitney. By this means his powers of thought, 
and his materials for combination, were greatly augmented. 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. Tt no doubt 
also contributed not a little to conciliate the respect of those States 
which purchased the patent right, to find in the person of the paten- 
tee, instead of some illiterate visionary projector, 2 gentleman of el- 
evated mind and cultivated manners, and of a person, elegatit an 
dignified. 
In presenting to the public the foregoing sketch of the life of this 
extraordinary man, the writer has had it constantly in view to rendet 
the narrative useful to the enterprising mechanic and the man of bu- 
siness, to whom Whitney may be confidently proposed as 4 model. 
To such, it is believed, the details given respecting his various strug: 
gles and embarrassments, may afford a useful lesson, a fresh inet 
tive to perseverance, and stronger impressions of the value of a char- 
acter improved by intellectual cultivation, and adorned with all the 
moral virtues. 
