r any kind of
State notes, or Connecticut reservation land certificates, sufficient,
at the going prices, fully to secure the debt and premium." In a more
embarrassed state of Mr. Miller's private affairs, several years
afterward, he paid the enormous interest of 5, 6, and even 7 per cent.
_per month_.

We have said that the loan contracted by Mr. Whitney, in 1794, at a
premium of 5 per cent. in addition to the lawful interest, was regarded
as peculiarly favorable; this is evident from the fact that, during the
same year, Mr. Miller urges him to contract a new loan, if possible, for
$3000, at 12 or 14 per cent. provided it could be extended over a year.

In July, 1794, Mr. Whitney was confined by a severe illness, from which
he recovered slowly; but his business received a still further
interruption from a very fatal sickness, the scarlet fever, which
prevailed in New Haven during this year, and which attacked a number of
his workmen.

Under all these discouragements Mr. Miller was constantly writing the
most urgent letters from Georgia, to press forward the manufacture of
machines. "Do not let a deficiency of money, do not let anything," says
Mr. Miller, "hinder the speedy construction of the gins. The people of
the country are almost 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 $50,000, yes, of $100,000, lying
useless, unless we can enable the holders to bring it to market. Pray
remember that we must have from fifty to one hundred gins between this
and another fall, if there are any workmen in New England or in the
Middle States to make them. In two years we will begin to take long
steps up-hill, in the business of patent ginning, fortune favoring."

The general resort of the planters to the cultivation of cotton, and its
consequent production in vast quantities, the value of which depended
entirely upon the chance of getting it cleaned by the gin, created great
uneasiness, which first displayed itself in this pressure upon Miller &
Whitney, and afterward afforded great encouragement to the marauders
upon the patent-right, who were now becoming numerous and audacious.

The _roller-gin_ was at first the most formidable competitor with
Whitney's machine. It extricated the seeds by means of rollers, crushing
them between revolving cylinders, instead of disengaging them by means
of teeth. The fragments of seeds w