“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:—
“Whence comes this difference of 57,000 between the arms said to be sent from here and those which were received in France, if in fact the report of M. Riant signifies that they have only received a total of 368,000? How explain that there were 425,000 put on the bills of lading, and that the price of these was paid in New York?”
Now this discrepancy may be traced exclusively to French agents, so that our subordinates shall not in any way be involved; but when we consider all the circumstances of this transaction, it affords grounds of inquiry.