The two men did everything in their power to hasten the building of their gins. They knew their rivals were unscrupulous, and were in fact already trying their best to prejudice the minds of the more conservative Georgia cotton-growers against them. But money was very scarce, and the manufacture of the machines proved so costly that Whitney found it impossible to furnish as many gins as his partner wanted. Whitney applied for his patent in 1793. The following April he went back to Georgia, where he found unusually large crops of cotton had been planted, in expectation of using the gin. As there were not enough of his gins ready rivals were pushing their inferior machines. One of these, called the roller-gin, destroyed the seeds by crushing them between two revolving cylinders, instead of separating them by teeth. A large part of the crushed seed was, however, apt to stay in the cotton after it had passed through the machine, and this form of gin did not therefore produce as satisfactory results as did Whitney’s. Another rival was the saw-gin, which was almost identical with Whitney’s gin, except that the saw-teeth were cut in circular rings of iron instead of being made of wire. This machine infringed the partners’ patents, and caused them an almost endless series of expensive lawsuits. Two years of conflict in the South proved the superiority of Whitney’s invention over all other machines, but resulted in little actual profit. In March, 1795, he went north to New York, where he was kept for several weeks by illness. When he got back to his factory in New Haven he found that fire had wiped out his workshop, together with all his gins and papers. He was $4,000 in debt, and virtually bankrupt. Yet he had great courage, and fortunately his partner Miller had the same faith. When Whitney sent him the news from New Haven, Miller replied, “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.