had said would be open to the United States
and closed to the South. Austria, however, had a considerable quantity
on hand, and these an intermediary proposed I should buy.

I knew something of the armament of Austria, having visited Vienna in
1859, with a letter from the United States War Department, which gave me
some facilities for observation. At first I considered the getting of
anything from an Imperial Austrian Arsenal as chimerical. But my
would-be intermediary was so persistent that, finally I accompanied him
to Vienna and, within a few days, closed a contract for 100,000 rifles
of the latest Austrian pattern, and ten batteries, of six pieces each,
of field artillery, with harness complete, ready for service, and a
quantity of ammunition, all to be delivered on ship at Hamburg. The
United States Minister, Mr. Motley, protested in vain. He was told that
the making of arms was an important industry of Austria; that the same
arms had been offered to the United States Government and declined, and
that, as belligerents, the Confederate States were, by the usage of
nations, lawful buyers. However unsatisfactory this answer may have
been to Washington, the arms were delivered, and in due time were
shipped to Bermuda from Hamburg. Mr. Motley offered to buy the whole
consignment, but was too late. The Austrian Government declined to break
faith with the purchasers.

I confess to a glow of pride when I saw those sixty pieces of rifled
artillery with caissons, field-forges, and battery-wagons,
complete--some two hundred carriages in all--drawn up in array in the
arsenal yard. It was pardonable for a moment to imagine myself in
command of a magnificent park of artillery. The explanation of Austria's
willingness to dispose of these batteries is that the authorities had
decided on the use of gun-cotton in the place of powder; and the change
involved new guns, although those sold to me were of the latest design
for gunpowder. I believe gun-cotton was given up not long after.

Again Mr. Cushing's "What possible chance can the South now have?" was
in part answered. At least _one_ of the greatest arsenals of Europe had
been opened to the South.

That the ports of the South were blockaded, as Mr. Cushing said they
would be, was true; but never before had steam vessels been employed by
a vigilant enemy to search out the weak intervals in the line and avail
himself of darkness and even storm, to enter and leave blockaded
harbo