cation for an extension had been referred, and
from his letter I quote:

"In view of all these facts, I feel justified in asking your Honorable
Board a decision, which, while it adjudges McCormick's machine according
to its merits, will not be prejudicial to my interests, seeing that Mr.
McCormick makes no claims to the grand principle in my machine, which
makes it valuable, and so much better than his, which principle I claim
as my invention.

[Sidenote: Mr. Hussey's Attitude]

"I had no intention, neither had I any desire, to place any obstacle in
the way of the extension of McCormick's patent, but the course he has
taken, before your Board and before Congress, has compelled me to act in
self defense, by which I have given your Honorable Board much trouble,
which I would have gladly avoided."

Mr. McCormick also said to the Board: "If my claim be made out as so far
appears from the evidence presented, it will be observed (as I think)
that nothing will be left of Mr. Hussey's claim to which he is entitled,
and all the improvements he has added since his patent have, I believe,
been taken from mine." Reference is no doubt had to the effect that
Hussey, in some of his machines, used only a single drive wheel and
balanced his machine thereon. He confessed that he never received
profits from his first patent until after twelve years of study, and
never should have realized anything from the invention but for later
improvements, and he continues as follows: "If then it shall appear that
I am the original inventor of all the leading and important principles
of the invention, is it wrong that I should ask for reciprocal benefits
for myself, who alone have brought them into being? Mr. Hussey's prior
patent stood in Mr. McCormick's way, but its inventor raised no voice
against the extension of McCormick's rights unless his prior rights
became endangered. The honors due Mr. Hussey were not lessened by the
Commissioner of Patents when treating of a competitive claimant to have
invented the reaper.

[Sidenote: Not McCormick's Inventions]

Mr. McCormick took out a third patent in 1847 covering inventions shown
by the statement of Leander and others to have been the invention of the
_father_ or _some one else_. An application was made for the
extension of this patent. It then became necessary that the applicant
show that he had not reaped the benefits he believed himself entitled to
through his monopoly for the term of the pa