In order that we may submit a proposition conforming as nearly as possible to the ideas of your board, it is desirable that we be informed what conditions you would wish to lay down as to the performance of the machine in the official trials, prior to the acceptance of the machine. We cannot well fix a price, nor a time for delivery, till we have your idea of the qualifications necessary to such a machine. We ought also to know whether you would wish to reserve a monopoly on the use of the invention, or whether you would permit us to accept orders for similar machines from other governments, and give public exhibitions, etc. Proof of our ability to execute an undertaking of the nature proposed will be furnished whenever desired. Here is what Captain T. C. Dickson, Recorder of the Board, wrote in reply: The Board of Ordnance and Fortification at its meeting October 24, 1905, took the following action: The Board then considered a letter, dated October 19, 1905, from Wilbur and Orville Wright requesting the requirements prescribed by the Board that a flying-machine would have to fulfill before it would be accepted. It is recommended the Messrs. Wright be informed that the Board does not care to formulate any requirements for the performance of a flying-machine or take any further action on the subject _until a machine is produced which by actual operation is shown to be able to produce horizontal flight and to carry an operator_. Such letters did not encourage the Wrights to press their offer further. As Wilbur expressed it, they had taken pains to see that “opportunity gave a good clear knock on the War Department door.” It had always been their business practice, he said, to sell to those who wished to buy instead of trying to force goods upon people who did not want them. And now if the American Government had decided to spend no more money on flying-machines until their practical use should be demonstrated abroad, the Wrights felt that there wasn’t much they could do about it. Chanute, too, was now convinced that the seeming stupidity of War Department officials was not accidental. His comment was: “Those fellows are a bunch of asses.” On that same day, October 19, when they wrote to the Ordnance Board, the Wrights had sent a letter also to the British War Office amending their earlier proposal. They said that recent events justified them in making the acceptance of their machine dependent upon a trial flight of at least fifty miles, instead of only ten miles as in the original offer.