They agreed. The problem was Whitney knew no more than anyone else about muskets, but, once he thought again, he realized he didn't know much about cotton when he made the cotton gin until he researched about it.
Muskets were especially needed during the Revolutionary War. During the Revolutionary War, the United States got all its muskets from France, but now, there was a probability of war between France and America. The only country that gave muskets to America was probably going to war against America. The French certainly wouldn't give America weapons to fight against their own country.
         America was slow in making muskets and they needed them fast, really fast. So when Whitney offered to make a machine that made muskets, the government immediately sent a contract for Whitney to sign. Since the government needed muskets quickly and Whitney needed to establish himself, Whitney signed the contract without hesitation. Not many people believed he could do it. The contract was for 10,000 stands of arms. They had to be made within two years. In the September of 1799, the first 400 had to be delivered.
Whitney was supposed to make a machine that would turn out each part of a musket. Whitney wanted to face the challenge of designing a better machine that would beat the work of many very skilled craftsmen that had once made a simple machine that would make a very complicated product------a musket for instance.
        Making the machine was not exactly as hard as Whitney thought it would be because the making of the cotton gin had helped.
                First, Whitney needed water to power his machine. So he chose a place where water was stored at all times. Whitney chose to build his workshop (to make the machine) at Mill Rock, near New Haven, in Connecticut. However, his work was delayed just like when the fire had stuck his workshop during the time when he was making the cotton gin. His workshop couldn't get constructed right away because an early snowstorm and bitter weather had hit the spot where Whitney's new workshop should have been built.
       Panic started to grow. It had been two years since the contract for 10,000 muskets was signed and Whitney still had not made a single musket even though parts to make muskets were stacked neatly in Whitney's workshop. There were only three months to go and he had to turn in the 10,000 muskets. The government decided to give him more time. Many of the people in the government thought Whitney was a bragger and a failure. The government judged manufactures by how much they produced and how good it is, but, Eli Whitney had not made a single musket, so, he was not thought of as very capable. However, Whitney did have many stacks of musket parts piled here and there in his workshop.
       In 1801, John Adams was no longer president. Thomas Jefferson took place in the White House. Jefferson knew much about the muskets made in France and he also supported Eli and Miller when they were making the cotton gin.
       Whitney decided to go visit the new government in Washington D.C. so that he could tell the new government the importance of his work. He showed them that his muskets would work well by giving to them some parts of a musket. The government agreed to give him more money and more time to make the 10,000 muskets.
            During the spring of that same year, Whitney's workshop was running very smoothly. Whitney had already delivered 500 muskets so he was then thought of as an expert on arms. Soon the government figured out that they weren't going to go to war with the French so the need of the muskets wasn't so great. Whitney's contract stretched from twenty-eight months to over 10 years.
In 1808, Whitney had another problem. The secretary of war had said that he found problems in Whitney's muskets. At first, Whitney said that his workmen would never be careless and make a mistake in the muskets, but later, Whitney admitted that no machine had been made to detect the weaknesses in metal and that the problems had to do with the metal. This problem had put Whitney's life at stake. His whole life was dedicated to work and now he had made a mistake in his work, also meaning he had made a mistake in life. This was a big problem, but owing to the fact that he was smart, he had found a way out.
             Whitney was well liked by many people because he used his own money to build houses for his workmen. That is why they were sad when they figured out that he was suffering of stress and a incurable disease that came with paralyzing pain. Sadly, there was no cure for it. Then Whitney thought of an idea, he made a machine that would cure this sickness and it helped but it didn't cure the sickness.

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