That was the beginning of Whitney's trials. He had not enough money to produce machines rapidly enough to meet the tremendous demand for them, and various rivals sprang up, some of them even claiming the honor of the invention. Other gins were put on the market, differing from Whitney's only in some unimportant detail, and plainly an infringement of his patent; but he had not the means to prosecute their manufacturers. The result was, that after two years of disheartening struggle, Whitney was reduced to bankruptcy.
The attitude of the South toward him caused him especial distress. "I have invented a machine," he wrote, "from which the citizens of the South have already realized immense profits, which is worth to them millions, and from which they must continue to derive the most important profits, and in return to be treated as a felon, a swindler, and a villain, has stung me to the very soul. And when I consider that this cruel persecution is inflicted by the very persons who are enjoying these great benefits, and expressly for the purpose of preventing my ever deriving the least advantage from my labors, the acuteness of my feelings is altogether inexpressible."
Finally, the states of North and South Carolina voted him a royalty upon all the machines in use, and this enabled him to pay his debts; but Whitney at last abandoned hope of ever receiving from his invention the returns he had hoped for, and, turning his attention to other business, received, in 1798, a contract from the United States government for 10,000 stand of arms. Eight years were consumed in filling this contract. A contract for 30,000 stand followed, and so many improvements in design and process of manufacture were made by Whitney that no other manufacturer could compete with him.
The result of all this was that Whitney was enabled to end his life in comparative independence. His last days were his happiest, and he found in the care and affection of a loving family some consolation for the injustice and ingratitude which he had suffered.
MORSE
Sixteen years after the battle of Bunker Hill, a boy was born in a great frame house at the foot of Breed's Hill, upon which that famous and misnamed battle was really fought. The boy's father was a preacher named Jedediah Morse, and the boy was named Samuel Finley, after his maternal great grandfather, the renowned president of Princeton College, and Breese, after his mother's maiden name, so that he comes down through history as S. F. B. Morse. He received a thorough schooling, graduating from Yale in 1807, and at once turned his attention to art. We have already spoken of his achievements in that respect, which were really of the first importance. He was an artist, heart and soul, but the whole course of his life was to be changed in a remarkable fashion.
In the autumn of 1832, Morse, being at that time forty-one years of age, sailed from Havre for New York in the ship Sully. It happened that there were on board some scientists who had been interested in electrical development, and the talk one evening turned on electricity. Morse knew little about it, except what he had learned in a few lectures heard at Yale; but when somebody asked how long it took a current of electricity to pass through a wire, and when the answer was that the passage was instantaneous, his interest was aroused.