Georgia, but upon the mother-land, upon the avarice of the throne, the
cupidity of English merchants and the power of English guns and cannon.

By the year 1790, therefore, slavery in the North had either died of
inanition, or had been rendered illegal by the action of State
legislatures, and the chapter was closed. There are the best of reasons
also for believing that in the South slavery was waning, while the
influence of planters who believed free labour more economical was
waxing. Suddenly an unexpected event changed the whole situation. The
commerce of the world rests upon food and clothing. The food of the
world is in wheat and corn, the clothing in cotton and wool. But wool
was so expensive that for the millions in Europe cotton garments were a
necessity. England had the looms and the spindles, but she could not
secure the cotton, and the Southern planters could not grow it. The
cotton pod, as large as a hen's egg, bursts when ripe and the cotton
gushes out in a white mass. Unfortunately, each pod holds eight or ten
seeds, each as large as an orange seed. To clean a single pound of
cotton required a long day's work by a slave. The production of cotton
was slow and costly, the acreage therefore small, and the profits
slender. The South was burdened with debt, the plantations were
mortgaged, and in 1792 the outlook for the cotton planters was very
dark, and all hearts were filled with foreboding and fear. One winter's
night Mrs. General Greene, wife of the Revolutionary soldier, was
entertaining at dinner a company of planters. In those days the planters
had but one thought--how to rid their plantations of their mortgages. It
happened that the conversation turned upon some possible mechanism for
cleaning the cotton. Mrs. Greene turned to her guests, and, reminding
Eli Whitney, a young New Englander who was in her home teaching her
children, that he had invented two or three playthings for her children,
suggested that he turn his attention to the problem.