224 Memoir of the Life of Eli Whitney. 



regarded by Mr. Whitney as more liberal, than that received from 

 any other source. 



While these encouraging prospects were rising in North Carolina, 

 Mr. Goodrich, the agent of the company, was entering into a similar 

 negociation with the State of Tennessee. The importance of the 

 machine began to be universally acknowledged in that State, and 

 various public meetings of the citizens were held, in which were 

 adopted resolutions strongly in favor of a public contract with 

 Miller h, Whitney.* Accordingly, the legislature of Tennessee 

 at their session in 1803, passed an act laying a tax of thirty seven 

 cents and a half per annum on every saw for the period of four years. 



But while a fairer day seemed dawning upon the company in this 

 quarter, an unexpected and threatening cloud was rising in another. 

 It was during Mr. Whitney's negociation with the legislature of North 

 Carolina, that he received intelligence that the legislature of South 

 Carolina had annulled the contract made with Miller &; Whitney the 

 preceding year, had suspended payment of the balance (thirty thou- 

 sand dollars) due them, and instituted a suit for the recovery of what 

 had already been paid to them. 



The ostensible causes of this extraordinary measure, adopted by 

 the legislature of South Carolina, were a distrust of the validity of the 

 patent right, and failure on the part of the patentees to perform cer- ' 

 tain conditions agreed on in the contract. Great exertions had con- 

 stantly been made in Georgia to impress the public with the notion, 

 that Mr. Whitney was not the original inventor of the cotton gin, some- 

 body in Switzerland having conceived the idea of it before him, and, 

 especially, that he was not entitled to the credit of the invention in its 

 improved form, in vi^hich saws were used instead of wire teeth, inas- 

 much ashispartticular form of the machine was introduced by one Hod- 

 gin Holmes. It was on these grounds, that the Governor of Georgia, 

 In his message to the legislature of that State in 1803, urged the inex- 

 pediency of granting any thing to Miller Si Whitney. We have be- 

 fore us a copy of the report of the committee appointed on that part 

 of the Governor's message, and since it will serve to show both the 

 grounds and the character of the opposition, we will subjoin a few 

 extracts from it.f 



* Of one of these meetings. General Jackson, now President of the United States, 

 was chairman. 



f In adverting to these transactions of former times, it is no part of our purpose 

 to revive unpleasant recollections, or to throw discredit on the history of the very 

 respectable States above named ; hut without the recital of these facts the life of 

 Whitnev could rtot have been written. 



