In March, 1795, after two years of struggle, during which no progress seems to have been made, although the value of the gin was proved, Whitney went to New York, where he was detained three weeks by fever. Upon reaching New Haven he discovered that his shop, with all his machines and papers, had been consumed by fire. Thus he was suddenly reduced to bankruptcy and was in debt $4,000 without any means of payment. He was not, however, one to sink under such trials; Miller showed the same buoyant spirit, and the following extract of a letter of his to Whitney may be a useful lesson to young men in trouble:
"I think we ought to meet such events with equanimity. We have been pursuing a valuable object by honorable means, and I trust that all our measures have been such as reason and virtue must justify. It has pleased Providence to postpone the attainment of this object. In the midst of the reflections which your story has suggested, and with feelings keenly awake to the heavy, the extensive injury we have sustained, I feel a secret joy and satisfaction that you possess a mind in this respect similar to my own—that you are not disheartened, that you do not relinquish the pursuit, and that you will persevere, and endeavor, at all events, to attain the main object. This is exactly consonant to my own determinations. I will devote all my time, all my thoughts, all my exertions, and all the money I can earn or borrow to encompass and complete the business we have undertaken; and if fortune should, by any future disaster, deny us the boon we ask, we will at least deserve it. It shall never be said that we have lost an object which a little perseverance could have attained. I think, indeed, it will be very extraordinary if two young men in the prime of life, with some share of ingenuity, and with a little knowledge of the world, a great deal of industry, and a considerable command of property, should not be able to sustain such a stroke of misfortune as this, heavy as it is."
Miller winds up by suggesting to Whitney that perhaps he can get help in New Haven by offering twelve per cent. a year for money with which to build a new shop, and the inventor seems to have had some success in reorganizing his affairs, even under such desperate conditions. Word came at the same time from England that manufacturers had condemned the cotton cleaned by their machines on the ground that the staple was greatly injured. This threatened a deathblow to their hopes. At the time, 1796, they already had thirty gins at different places in Georgia, some worked by horses and oxen and some by water. Some of these were still standing a few years ago. The following extract of a letter by Whitney will show the state of his mind and affairs:
"The extreme embarrassments which have been for a long time accumulating upon me are now become so great that it will be impossible for me to struggle against them many days longer. It has required my utmost exertions to exist without making the least progress in our business. I have labored hard against the strong current of disappointment which has been threatening to carry us down the cataract, but I have labored with a shattered oar and struggled in vain, unless some speedy relief is obtained.... Life is but short at best, and six or seven years out of the midst of it is to him who makes it an immense sacrifice. My most unremitted attention has been devoted to our business. I have sacrificed to it other objects from which, before this time, I might certainly have gained $20,000 or $30,000. My whole prospects have been embarked in it, with the expectation that I should before this time have realized something from it."
The cotton of Whitney's gin was, however, sought by merchants in preference to other kinds, and respectable manufacturers testified in his favor. Had it not been for the extensive and shameful violations of their patent-right, the partners might yet have succeeded; but these encroachments had become so extensive as almost to destroy its value. The issue of the first important trial that they were able to obtain on the merits of the gin is announced in the following letter from Miller to Whitney, dated May 11, 1797:
"The event of the first patent suit, after all our exertions made in such a variety of ways, has gone against us. The preposterous custom of trying civil causes of this intricacy and magnitude by a common jury, together with the imperfection of the patent law, frustrated all our views, and disappointed expectations which had become very sanguine. The tide of popular opinion was running in our favor, the judge was well disposed toward us, and many decided friends were with us, who adhered firmly to our cause and interests. The judge gave a charge to the jury pointedly in our favor; after which the defendant himself told an acquaintance of his that he would give two thousand dollars to be free from the verdict, and yet the jury gave it against us, after a consultation of about an hour. And having made the verdict general, no appeal would lie.
"On Monday morning, when the verdict was rendered, we applied for a new trial, but the judge refused it to us on the ground that the jury might have made up their opinion on the defect of the law, which makes an aggression consist of making, devising, and using or selling; whereas we could only charge the defendant with using.
"Thus, after four years of assiduous labor, fatigue, and difficulty, are we again set afloat by a new and most unexpected obstacle. Our hopes of success are now removed to a period still more distant than before, while our expenses are realized beyond all controversy."
Great efforts were made to obtain trial in a second suit in Savannah the following May, and a number of witnesses were collected from various parts of the country, all to no purpose, for the judge failed to appear, and in the meantime, owing to the failure of the first suit, encroachments on the patent-right had multiplied prodigiously.
In April, 1799, nearly a year later, and two years after their first legal rebuff, Miller writes as follows:
"The prospect of making anything by ginning in this State is at an end. Surreptitious gins are erected in every part of the country, and the jurymen at Augusta have come to an understanding among themselves that they will never give a cause in our favor, let the merits of the case be as they may."