[156] S. N. D. and R. H. North: “Memoir of Simeon North,” p. 64. 1913. He also says in the same letter: I have some seventeen thousand screws & other parts of pistols now forg^{d}. & many parts nearly finished & the business is going on brisk and lively. Here is clearly the principle of subdivision of labor and the beginning of the standardizing of parts. In 1813 North contracted to furnish 20,000 pistols. This agreement contained the following significant clause: The component parts of the pistols are to correspond so exactly that any limb or part of one Pistol may be fitted to any other Pistol of the Twenty thousand.[157] [157] _Ibid._, p. 81. It is stated in the valuable memoir of Simeon North, by his great-grandsons, that this is the first government contract in which the contractor agreed to produce arms having interchangeable parts, and it is consequently claimed for Colonel North that he originated this process. We have not had an opportunity to examine the official records in Washington in regard to Mr. Whitney’s dealings, but it is quite clear from his letter of 1812 that he had been operating on this basis for nearly ten years, although it may not have been formally recognized in his contracts with the Government. Capt. Decius Wadsworth, then inspector of muskets, wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury in 1800 as follows: But where the different parts of the lock are each formed and fashioned successively by a proper machine, and by the same hand, they will be found to differ so insensibly that the similar parts of different locks may be mutually substituted. The extending of this principle to all parts of a musket has been a favorite idea with Mr. Whitney from the beginning. It has been treated and ridiculed as a vain and impracticable attempt by almost all those who pretended to superior knowledge and experience in the business. He has the satisfaction, however, now of shewing the practicability of the attempt. Although I am of the opinion that there is more to please the imagination than of real utility in the plan, yet as it affords an incalculable proof of his superior skill as a workman, and is what I believe has never been attempted with success before, it is deserving of much consideration.[158] [158] Blake, p. 296. Furthermore, Jefferson, in the letter to Monroe written in 1801, says in speaking of Whitney: He has invented molds and machines for making all the pieces of his locks so exactly equal, that take 100 locks to pieces and mingle their parts and the 100 locks may be put together by taking the pieces which come to hand.[159] [159] See note 150, page 130. In a letter to the Secretary of War in June, 1801, Whitney writes: “... my system and plan of operations are, I believe, entirely new and different from those heretofore pursued in this or any other country.