Henry Mill and the Typewriter

Typewriter patented by Englishman Henry Mill in 1714.

Most historians credit Henry Mill as the first to conceptualize the typewriter. Yet the first actual device similar to a modern typewriter did not come out until almost a century later. Mill received a patent for “an artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another.” While this line sounds possibly like a typewriter no one has found a picture of his idea.

Instead, some historians disagree that Mill had the first patent for the typewriter. They do not know what Mill patented as nothing came from this patent. With no picture or prototype, these historians do not think Mill should receive accolades as the first person to think up a typewriter. Therefore I ask, did Mill think up the typewriter almost a hundred years before the first prototype?