254 Memoir of the Life 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 hberal minds could 

 have furnished to their counsel, the arguments by which they 

 gained their first triumph over their legal adversaries. It 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 ilhterate visionary projector, a gentleman of el- 

 evated mind and cultivated manners, and of a person elegant and 

 dignified. 



In presenting to the public the foregoing sketch of the life of this 

 extraordinary man, the writer has had it constandy in view to render 

 the narrative useful to the enterprising mechanic and the man of bu- 

 siness, to whom Whitney may be confidently proposed as a model. 

 To such, it is believed, the details given respecting his various strug- 

 gles and embarrassments, may afford a useful lesson, a fresh incen- 

 tive to perseverance, and stronger impressions of the value of a char- 

 acter improved by intellectual cultivation, and adorned with all the 

 moral virtues. 



