My invention was new and distinct from every other: it stood alone. It was not interwoven with anything before known; and it can seldom happen that an invention or improvement is so strongly marked, and can be so clearly and specifically identified; and I have always believed, that I should have had no difficulty in causing my rights to be respected, if it had been less valuable, and been used only by a small portion of the community. But the use of this machine being immensely profitable to almost every planter in the cotton districts, all were interested in trespassing upon the patent-right, and each kept the other in countenance. Demagogs made themselves popular by misrepresentation and unfounded clamors, both against the right and against the law made for its protection. Hence there arose associations and combinations to oppose both. At one time, but few men in Georgia dared to come into court and testify to the most simple facts within their knowledge, relative to the use of the machine. In one instance, I had great difficulty in proving that the machine _had been used in Georgia_, although, at the same moment, there were three separate sets of this machinery in motion, within fifty yards of the building in which the court sat, and all _so near that the rattling of the wheels was distinctly heard on the steps of the court-house_.[173] [173] Olmstead, p. 58. (Italics are ours.) It should in justice be said that at first there was no widespread disposition on the part of the Georgia planters to avail themselves of the invention unlawfully, but later nearly all, deluded by the general attitude, joined in the attack upon the inventor’s rights. The unfortunate policy adopted by Miller & Whitney worked to their disadvantage in two ways. First, they could not themselves produce machines fast enough to gin the rapidly increasing crops; and second, their policy of buying the seed and ginning it themselves meant financing the entire crop and called for a vastly greater capital than they had at their command. Infringing machines sprang up on every side, their most formidable rival being the saw gin of Hodgin Holmes, in which circular saws were used instead of a drum with inserted wires as in Whitney’s original gin. The idea of such teeth had occurred to Whitney, as he afterward proved; but not until 1807 did he completely establish his right over this machine. [Illustration: FIGURE 30. ELI WHITNEY]