19^ 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
thing better and more trustworthy. It is proposed to replace the former 
doubtful or erroneous conclusions by the results of exact experiments made 
with the guns and projectiles actually in the service, and so to connect them 
by comparison and interpolation, that all doubt or uncertainty of the smallest 
degree shall be utterly excluded. When these facts have been arrived at, all 
that is necessary for practical purposes will have been obtained, and a theory 
must be based on these facts. Afterwards the application of the results to 
supply the wants of the army and navy must pass into the hands of military 
and naval officers, assisted by chemists and mechanical engineers. And I 
shall feel that my time has been well employed if my results can be turned 
to account in providing for the defence of our rights and our home. 
Although I am convinced that a sincere desire for peace pervades all classes 
of this nation, yet that is no security for the continued enjoyment of the 
blessings of peace. It is possible that, like Denmark, we may have war 
forced upon us. The most likely way to keep the peace is to let it be clearly 
understood, by all whom it may concern, that we know perfectly well how to 
use the immense power which we, as a nation, possess. And if as a last 
resource, and the one which, on the whole, offers the least of evils, we are 
obliged to send forth brave men to fight in a just cause, we shall have the 
satisfaction of knowing that we have supplied them with every help which 
the nation can provide for them in the discharge of their trying duty. 
July <3, 1866. 
