210 Memoir of the Life of Eli Whitney > 



labor of a single hand, than could be done in the usual manner in 

 ibe space of many 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 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- 

 troduction of his machines, he coolly replied, that on account of the 

 great expenses and trouble which always attend the introduction of a 

 new invention, and the difficulty of enforcing a law in favor of pat- 

 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 raost 

 sanguine anticipations of his friends. 



The individual who contributed most to incite him to persevere in 

 the undertaking, was Phineas Miller, Esq. Mr. Miller was a 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 inind 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 ex- 

 pense of matui;ing the invention until 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 there- 

 from, as well as all privileges and emoluments to be derived from 

 patenting, making, vending, and working the same, should be mutually 

 and equally shaj'ed between them." This instrument bears date 

 May 27, 1793, and immediately afterwards they commenced busi- 

 ness under the firm of Miller &f Whitney. 



An invention so important to the agricultural interest (and, as it 

 has proved,, to every department of human industry,) could not long 

 remain a secret. The knowledge of it soon spread through the 



