Falls Village Connecticut September 28, 1863.
If you will, on or before the first day of March 1864, within the state of Connecticut, or at any point nearer this city, produce fifteen guns, each of capacity to carry a missile of at least one hundred pounds weight, and notify me thereof, I will cause some person or persons to examine and test said guns; and if, upon such examination and test, it shall be the opinion of such person or persons, that said guns, or any of them, are, on the whole better guns, than any of like calibre heretofore, or now, in use in the