But the Government does all it can:—
“In the mean time the Government have ordered the harness to be sent here immediately.”
Then at the close the witness says:—
“I forgot to say the Government have no Spencer rifles, having never had but a small number, and all of those you have bought.”
And he adds—
that “they have from three to four thousand transformed Springfields,” which he “may think best to take after examination,”—
showing again his intimate dealings with the Government.
Such is the testimony of Mr. Remington, the acknowledged agent of France. It is impossible to read these repeated allusions to “the Government” and “the Chief of Ordnance” without feeling that the witness was dealing directly in this quarter. If there was any middleman, he was of straw only; but a man-of-straw is nobody. If Mr. Remington’s character were not vouched so completely, if he did not appear on authentic testimony so entirely above any misrepresentation, if he were not elevated to be the model arms-dealer, this letter, with its numerous averments of relations with the Government, would be of less significance. But how can these be denied or explained without impeaching this witness?
But Mr. Remington is not without important support in his allegations. His French correspondent, M. Le Cesne, Chairman of the Armament Committee, has testified in open court that the French dealt directly with the Government. He may have been mistaken; but his testimony shows what he understood to be the case. The Senator from Missouri [Mr. Schurz] has already called attention to this testimony, which he cited from a journal enjoying great circulation on the European continent, “L’Indépendance Belge.” The Senator from Vermont, [Mr. Edmunds,] not recognizing the character of this important journal, distrusted the report. But this testimony does not depend upon that journal alone. I have it in another journal, “Le Courrier des États-Unis,” of October 27, 1871, evidently copied from a Parisian journal, probably one of the law journals, where it is given according to the formal report of a trial, with question and answer:—