Mr. Whitney went to New York.
There he became ill.
His illness lasted three weeks.
Then he was able to go on to New Haven.
[Illustration: SAW-GIN, 1794.]
There he found that his shop had been destroyed by fire.
All his machines and papers were burned.
He was four thousand dollars in debt.
But neither Mr. Miller nor Mr. Whitney were the kind of men who give
up easily.
Mr. Miller wrote that he would give all his time, thought, labor,
and all the money he could borrow to help.
"It shall never be said that we gave up when a little perseverance
would have carried us through," he said.
About this time bad news came from England.
The cotton, you remember, was then all sent there for manufacture.
English manufacturers now claimed that the cotton was injured by the
gin.
This was in 1796.
Miller and Whitney had thirty gins working in different places in
Georgia.
Some were worked by cattle and horses.
Others were run by water.
Soon, however, the manufacturers found that the Whitney cotton gin
did not injure the cotton.
The first lawsuit was decided against Miller and Whitney.
They asked for another trial.
But this was refused them.
Everywhere through the South they were cheated and robbed.
Yet all the time the South was growing richer because of the cotton
gin.
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