ere practically the
same--there were only a few thousand in England, and none elsewhere
except in Austria, where all were owned by the Government. And,
according to Mr. Cushing, these would be available by the United States
but impossible of purchase by "the South." Yet even so high an authority
as Ex-Attorney General Cushing proved to be wrong in his assumption, as
will be shown below.

Any young, intelligent West Point graduate holding an army commission
and as fearless in assuming responsibility as the average "graduate,"
would not only have prevented my making this important contract, but
would have blocked my efforts in every direction; for in all Europe the
supply of arms ready for use or possible of manufacture was very
limited. Such an officer would have secured everything worth having--in
other words, all the best--and only inferior arms of antiquated model
would have been left for the Confederacy. The effect would have been not
only to give the United States good arms in profusion, but utterly to
discourage their opponents by the inferiority of their weapons.

Mr. Davis did not make the great mistake of sending a civil agent to
purchase supplies--a duty as thoroughly military as any that could be
named--nor the still greater blunder of setting several men to do what
one man, with uncontrolled authority, could do so much better. Doubtless
he could have found men who would have performed the duty as well as did
the young officer whom he selected, and some who would have done their
part better; but, during the whole war, no change was made, although not
to remove him often required that firmness--not to say obstinacy--which
was a prominent trait of Mr. Davis's character, and which, right or
wrong, but especially when he was right, he exercised to a remarkable
degree.

When I arrived in England, the Confederate States Government was already
represented by Hon. William L. Yancey, Commissioner to England; his
secretary, Mr. Walker Fearn, afterwards United States Minister to
Greece; Judge Rost, of New Orleans, Commissioner to France, with his son
as secretary; and Mr. Dudley Mann, commonly known as Col. Mann, who held
an appointment as Commissioner, but to what country I do not know.
Later, Hon. L. Q. C. Lamar, afterwards United States Secretary of the
Interior, and later still Justice of the United States Supreme Court,
was appointed Commissioner to Russia, but he went no further than Paris,
and returned to Richm