however, to be mistaken in this opinion, and entertaining a
belief that the failure of such negotiation, after it commenced,
would have a tendency to diminish the prospect, already doubtful,
of enforcing the Patent Law, it was concluded to be best under
existing circumstances to accept the very inadequate sum of fifty
thousand dollars offered by the Legislature and thereby
relinquish and entirely abandon three-fourths of the actual value
of the property."

But even the fifty thousand dollars was not collected without
difficulty. South Carolina suspended the contract, after paying
twenty thousand dollars, and sued Miller and Whitney for recovery
of the sum paid, on the ground that the partners had not complied
with the conditions. Whitney succeeded, in 1805, in getting the
Legislature to reinstate the contract and pay him the remainder
of the money. Miller, discouraged and broken by the long
struggle, had died in the meantime.

The following passage from a letter written by Whitney in
February, 1805, to Josiah Stebbins, gives Whitney's views as to
the treatment he had received at the hands of the authorities. He
is writing from the residence of a friend near Orangeburg, South
Carolina.

"The principal object of my present excursion to this Country was
to get this business set right; which I have so far effected as
to induce the Legislature of this State to recind all their
former SUSPENDING LAWS and RESOLUTIONS, to agree once more to pay
the sum of 30,000 Dollars which was due and make the necessary
appropriations for that purpose. I have as yet however obtained