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12 INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. review of the history of military firearms in this country can be attempted. The manufacture of military arms was carried on in the United States only to a very limited extent previous to the year 1795, gun- making, like all contemporaneous industries, being then in its infancy. Small-arms for the service of the troops were in those times prin cipally of foreign manufacture. During the troublous period succeed ing the Revolution, great anxiety was felt on the subject of properly maintaining the country in a condition of defense, and in 1794 Con gress laid an embargo upon the exportation of any “ cannon, muskets, pistols, bayonets, swords, cutlasses, musket-balls, lead, bombs, gre nades, gunpowder, sulphur, or saltpetre,” and encouraged the importa tion of all such materials by admitting them free of duty. These provisions were continued for several years, and in the mean time the initial steps were taken by the Government for the establishment of national armories at Springfield, Massachusetts, and Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. In 1795 the Secretary of War reported to Congress that the armorers engaged at the Government establishment at Springfield, Massachu setts, in repairing arms and preparing to manufacture the most essen tial parts of the musket, had made some specimens equal in quality to the manufactures of any country in the world. In order to foster the art, in the interest of national security, contracts with private arms manufacturers to the extent of seven thousand muskets were given out by the Government in that year. The muskets so manu factured were after the model of the French arms, which composed by far the greatest part of those in the national store-houses at the close of the Revolutionary War. The oldest pattern of the French musket then known was the one of 1746. Successive alterations and improvements were made to this model in 1754 and 1763 ; and, finally, in 1776 or 1777, the French Government decided on a model which stood its ground for a period of nearly forty years, saving only some trifling modifications introduced during the period of the French Revolution. This model of 1777, embodying the gradual improve ments suggested by the experience of abova a hundred years in the martial nation of France, was in those times considered to be exempt from every essential defect, and, doubtless, not to be susceptible of any decided improvement. The muskets made at the national armories have, from the founda tion of those institutions to the adoption of the present breech-loading rifle, been essentially of French model, with only such minor modifi cations as the progress of the arts and the experience of the service