ce, taken in due form, and certified to by the magistrates in
Augusta and Rockbridge Counties, Virginia, was _not_ ruled out as
informal, as we have seen it stated: but it was certainly laid before
the Board; and was doubtless satisfactory both as to priority of
invention, and in connection with Dr. Page's report, conclusive, "that
said patent ought not to be extended."

We have also seen it stated that Hussey appeared before the Board of
Extensions "to contest the extension of McCormick's patent."

[Sidenote: Mr. Hussey Acted in Self Defense]

We think injustice--and no doubt unintentionally--is here done to
Hussey. Until the order of the Board was passed to afford him the
opportunity to defend his rights, assailed without his knowledge, he was
not aware of C. H. McCormick's application. As a matter of course he
then attended, but stated in writing, and which is now on file, "I had
no intention, neither had I any desire to place any obstacle in the way
of the extension of C. H. McCormick's patent. But the course he has
taken before your Board and before Congress has compelled me to act in
self defense."

[Sidenote: McCormick Assailed the Hussey Extension]

Not so with C. H. McCormick; for when his claims were rejected by the
Board of Extensions,--and most justly, as we think, in accordance with
the evidence--_he petitioned Congress against Hussey's extension_:
and to this most ungenerous, illiberal and unfair course, and of which
Hussey was for years totally ignorant, C. H. McCormick may justly
attribute this enquiry;--but for this, it had never been written. Our
object is not to injure C. H. McCormick; but it is that justice may be
done to another, whose interests and rights he was the first to assail.

If the foregoing testimony is not conclusive, as regards priority of
invention in 1831 against C. H. McCormick, we think the evidence which
follows--and which no one will pretend to call in question, or
doubt--establishes the fact that the machine of 1831 was good for
nothing,--not even _half invented_; and that the machine of 1841
was not much more perfect.

On page 231 of the Reports of Juries for the Great London Exhibition,
and now in the Library of Congress, we find the following:

"It seems right," says Philip Pusey, Esq., M. P., "to put on record Mr.
McCormick's own account of his progress, or some extracts at least, from
a statement written by him, at my request."--[Pusey.]

"My father was a farmer in