220 Memoir of the Life of Eli Whitney. 



come very sanguine. The tide of popular opinion was running in 

 our favor, the Judge was well disposed towards us, and many deci- 

 ded friends were with us, who adhered firmly to our cause and inter- 

 ests. The Judge gave a charge to the jury pointedly in our favor ; 

 after which the defendant himself told an acquaintance of his, that 

 he would give two thousand dollars to be free from the verdict ; and 

 yet the jury gave it agaicist us after a consultation of about an hour. 

 And having made the verdict general, no appeal would lie. 



" On Monday morning, when the verdict was rendered, we appli- 

 ed for a new trial ; but the Judge refused it to us on the ground that 

 the Jury might have made up their opinion on the defect of the law, 

 which makes an aggression, consist of making, devising and using, 

 or selling ; whereas we could only charge the defendant with using. 



" Thus after four years of assiduous labor, fatigue, and difficulty, 

 are we again set afloat by a new and most unexpected obstacle. Our 

 hopes of success are now removed to a period still more distant than 

 before, while our expenses are realized beyond all controversy." 



Great efforts were made to obtain trial in a second suit, at the ses- 

 sion of the Court in Savannah, in May 1798. A great number, of 

 witnesses were collected from various parts of the country,, to the 

 distance of a hundred miles from Savannah, when, behold, no Judge 

 appeared, and of course no court was held. In consequence of the 

 failure of the first suit, and so great a procrastination of the second, 

 the encroachments on the patent right had been prodigiously multi- 

 plied, so as almost entirely to destroy the business of the patentees. 



In April 1799, Mr. Miller writes as follows. " The prospect of 

 making any thing by ginning in this State, is at an end. Surrepti- 

 tious Gins, are erected in every part of the country ; and the jury- 

 men at Augusta, have come to an understanding among themselves, 

 that they will never give a cause in our favor, let the merits of the 

 case be as they may." 



The company would now have gladly relinquished the plan of 

 working their own machines, and confined their operations to the sale of 

 patent rights ; but few would buy a patent right which they could 

 use with impunity without purchasing, and those few, hardly in a sin- 

 gle instance, paid cash, but gave their notes, which they afterwards 

 to a great extent avoided paying, either by obtaining a verdict from 

 the juries declaring them void, or by contriving to postpone the col- 

 lection until they were barred by the statute of hmitations, a period 

 of only four years. When thus barred, the agent of Miller k. Whit- 



