From no less an authority than Thomas Jefferson we
learn that a French mechanic had previously conceived the same
idea.* But, as no general result whatever came from the idea in
either France or England, the honors go to Whitney and North,
since they carried it to such complete success that it spread to
other branches of manufacturing. And in the face of opposition.
When Whitney wrote that his leading object was "to substitute
correct and effective operations of machinery for that skill of
the artist which is acquired only by long practice and
experience," in order to make the same parts of different guns
"as much like each other as the successive impressions of a
copper-plate engraving," he was laughed to scorn by the ordnance
officers of France and England. "Even the Washington officials,"
says Roe, "were sceptical and became uneasy at advancing so much
money without a single gun having been completed, and Whitney
went to Washington, taking with him ten pieces of each part of a
musket. He exhibited these to the Secretary of War and the army
officers interested, as a succession of piles of different parts.
Selecting indiscriminately from each of the piles, he put
together ten muskets, an achievement which was looked on with
amazement."**
* See the letter from Jefferson to John Jay, of April 30, 1785,
cited in Roe, "English and American Tool Builders", p.
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