that the little dust which we may stir up about cotton may after
all not make much difference with our successors one hundred,
much less one thousand years hence." Miller, however, finally
concluded that, "the prospect of making anything by ginning in
this State [Georgia] is at an end. Surreptitious gins are being
erected in every part of the country; and the jurymen at Augusta
have come to an understanding among themselves, that they will
never give a verdict in our favor, let the merits of the case be
as they may."*

* Cited in Roe, "English and American Tool Builders", p. 153.


Miller and Whitney were somewhat more fortunate in other States
than in Georgia though they nowhere received from the cotton gin
enough to compensate them for their time and trouble nor more
than a pitiable fraction of the great value of their invention.
South Carolina, in 1801, voted them fifty thousand dollars for
their patent rights, twenty thousand dollars to be paid down and
the remainder in three annual payments of ten thousand dollars
each. "We get but a song for it," wrote Whitney, "in comparison
with the worth of the thing, but it is securing something." Why
the partners were willing to take so small a sum was later
explained by Miller. They valued the rights for South Carolina at
two hundred thousand dollars, but, since the patent law was being
infringed with impunity, they were willing to take half that
amount; "and had flattered themselves," wrote Miller, "that a
sense of dignity and justice on the part of that honorable body
[the Legislature] would not have countenanced an offer of a less
sum than one hundred thousand dollars. Finding themselves,