The committee penetrated the veneer that disguised Brown's hypocrisy, and refused to put any money whatever into his hands. After the adjournment, he made up a list of the articles that he thought he would need, which he handed to Mr. Horace White, assistant secretary. It reads as follows:
Memorandum of articles wanted as an Outfit for Fifty Volunteers to serve under my direction during the Kansas war: or for such specified time as they may each enlist for: together with estimated cost of same delivered in Lawrence or Topeka.[224]
| 2 substantial (but not heavy) baggage waggons with good covers | $200.00 |
| 4 good serviceable waggon Horses | 400.00 |
| 2 sets strong plain Harness | 50.00 |
| 100 good heavy Blankets say at 2. or 2.50 | 200.00 |
| 8 Substantial large sized Tents | 100.00 |
| 8 Large Camp Kettles | 12.00 |
| 50 Tin basins | 5.00 |
| 4 Plain strong Saddles & Bridles | 80.00 |
| 4 picket ropes and pins | 3.00 |
| 8 Wooden Pails | 4.00 |
| 8 axes and Helves | 12.00 |
| 8 Frying pans (large Size) | 8.00 |
| 8 Large sized Coffee Pots | 10.00 |
| 8 do do Spiders or Bake Ovens | 10.00 |
| 8 do do Tin Pans | 6.00 |
| 12 Spades & Shovels | 18.00 |
| 6 Mattocks | 6.00 |
| 2 Weeks provisions for Men & Horses | 150.00 |
| Fund for Horse hire & feed, loss & damage of same | 500.00 |
| ———— | |
| $1,774.00 |
There was a very handsome margin for profits between $30,000, his original estimate of what he would require to "arm and equip a company such as he thought he could raise this present winter" and his final estimate—$1,774. But that is not material; Brown was simply working the field for all the money he could get; as Mr. Sanborn truly said "he will take all he can raise and use it as far as it will go."
The National Committee voted $1,774 to fill this requisition, but it declined to give Brown the money wherewith to make the purchases. He had a right to expect that the committee would give him this money, and trust him to expend it honestly; but it ordered otherwise. February 18th Mr. White wrote that the articles Brown had requisitioned would be shipped the following week; and on March 21st he notified him that he would "shortly go to Kansas and work there to fit him out with all the supplies he was entitled to under the New York resolution."[225] Brown was keenly disappointed and deeply humiliated by the actions of the National Committee; and in a letter to Mr. William Barnes, of Albany, April 3d, gave expression to his resentment. He said:
I am prepared to expect nothing but bad faith from the Kansas National Committee at Chicago, as I will show you hereafter. This, for the present, is confidential.[226]
It was money and not supplies that Brown was eager for at this period in his operations. His plans did not contemplate any defense of Kansas. The "arming and equipping" of the fifty men was a deception. It was but his stock in trade—a pretext upon which he solicited funds. He, and the kind of men he would have enlisted, if he enlisted any, had all the arms they would need, and stealing requires but little ammunition. In his largest successful venture—the Pottawatomie—but one shot was fired, and that one, as stated by Salmon Brown, was "wholly unnecessary."
February 18, 1857, was an important day in Brown's calendar. Mr. Sanborn had prepared his bill to appropriate $100,000 to relieve the distress of Kansas settlers. It had been introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature, and referred to the Joint Committee on Federal Relations, before which it was to be taken up, on that day, for consideration. Mr. Sanborn stood sponsor for the measure; and Brown and Mr. Whitman appeared before the committee, as advocates, in support of it. Introducing these two distinguished persons Mr. Sanborn said in part:[227]