ven to establish
a gin factory, and Miller wrote him in 1794 urging prompt shipments and
saying: "The people of the country are running mad for them, and much can
be said to justify their importunity. When the present crop is harvested
there will be a real property of at least fifty thousand dollars lying
useless unless we can enable the holders to bring it to market," But an
epidemic prostrated Whitney's workmen that year, and a fire destroyed his
factory in 1795. Meanwhile rival machines were appearing in the market, and
Whitney and Miller were beginning their long involvement in lawsuits. Their
overreaching policy of monopolizing the operation of their gins turned
public sentiment against them and inclined the juries, particularly in
Georgia, to decide in favor of their opponents. Not until 1807, when their
patent was on the point of expiring did they procure a vindication in the
Georgia courts. Meanwhile a grant of $50,000 from the legislature of South
Carolina to extinguish the patent right in that state, and smaller grants
from North Carolina and Tennessee did little more than counterbalance
expenses.[17] A petition which Whitney presented to Congress in 1812 for a
renewal of his expired patent was denied, and Whitney turned his talents to
the manufacture of muskets.

[Footnote 15: _American Historical Review_. Ill, 104.]

[Footnote 16: J.A. Turner, ed., _Cotton Planter's Manual_, pp. 289, 290,
293-295.]

[Footnote 17: M.B. Hammond, "Correspondence of Eli Whitney relating to the
Invention of the Cotton Gin," in the _American Historical Review_, III,
90-127.]

In Georgia the contest of lawyers in the courts was paralleled by a battle
of advertisers in the newspapers. Thomas Spaulding offered to supply Joseph
Eve's gins from the Bahama Islands at fifty guineas each;[18] and Eve
himself shortly immigrated to Augusta to contend for his patent rights on
roller-gins, for some of his workmen had changed his model in such a way as
to increase the speed, and had put their rival gins upon the market.[19]
Among these may have been John Currie, who offered exclusive county rights
at $100 each for the making, using and vending of his type of gins,[20]
also William Longstreet of Augusta who offered to sell gins of his own
devising at $150 each,[21] and Robert Watkins of the short-lived town of
Petersburg, Georgia, who denounced Longstreet as an infringer of his patent
and advertised local non-exclusive rights for making and