“Now there are less than ten thousand breech-loading muskets in the arsenals for issue. This number of muskets is not half sufficient to supply the States with the muskets they are now entitled to receive under their apportionment of the permanent appropriation for arming and equipping the militia.” Why, then, were breech-loading muskets exchanged for French gold? The Chief of Ordnance then proceeds:-- “This Department should, as soon as possible, be placed in a condition to fill all proper requisitions by the States upon it, and should also have on hand in store a large number of breech-loading muskets and carbines to meet any emergency that may arise.” But these very breech-loading muskets have gone to France. The Chief of Ordnance adds:-- “Ten years ago the country felt that not less than a million of muskets should be kept in store in the arsenals.”[23] Why was not this remembered, when the arsenals were stripped to supply France? This important testimony speaks for itself. It is not sufficient to recount against it the arms actually in the national arsenals. The Chief of Ordnance answers the allegation by his own statements. He regrets the small number of breech-loading muskets on hand, and refers as an example to the standard ten years ago, when it was felt that a million of muskets should be kept in store. It is not I who say this; it is the Chief of Ordnance. * * * * * But these several considerations, while making inquiry imperative, do not touch the money question involved. If in the asserted dealings with a belligerent power, in violation of our neutral duties, there is reason to believe corrupt practices of any kind, if there are large sums of money that seem to be unaccounted for, then is there additional ground for inquiry. Two questions are presented: first, as to the violation of neutral duties; and, secondly, as to misfeasance of subordinates involving money. In both cases the question, I repeat, is of inquiry. I do not dwell now on the sums lost by France in this business. They are supposed to count by the million; but here I make no allegation. I allude only to what appears elsewhere. Unquestionably there are enormous discrepancies between the sums paid by France for arms actually identified as coming from our arsenals and the sums received by our Ordnance Bureau. In different reports these discrepancies assume different forms. Not to repeat what has been said on other occasions, I introduce the report of the acting French Consul at New York, dated August 25, 1871, where, after showing that France received only 368,000 muskets and 53,000,000 cartridges, while the accounts with Mr. Remington enumerate a sum-total of 425,000 arms and 54,000,000 cartridges, it is said:--