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566 TV. H. Isely that voted to send the first hundred Sharps rifles sent to the territory ; evidence is all but conclusive that these first hundred rifles were partially paid for from donated funds already in the hands of the company's treasurer ; it was through the company's agents that these and other arms were purchased, and on them the bills were drawn; and finally the arms were consigned to the company's agents in Kansas and distributed under their supervision. Moreover it was the officers and friends of the company that supplied more than half the arms sent to Kansas, and sent them out in such season as to afford the maximum of protection to those fighting for the free- state cause ; many of the arms sent out by other organizations either never reached the territory, or arrived too late to be of real service. Were the New England Emigrant Aid Company and other organizations justifiable in sending arms to Kansas? Rather, would any other course have been weak and cowardly? The New Eng- land company probably understood the exact conditions in Kansas better than did even the administration in Washington. Each week scores of letters from every important point in the territory came to the Boston office, and the most important were carefully read to the directors by Secretary Webb at the weekly executive meeting. The gentlemen that constituted this directorate were sober, honest, "patriotic men; they could hardly be called abolitionists. They had induced their friends and neighbors to go to Kansas ; when the crisis came, they stood by their compatriots with manly courage and openly informed the President at Washington that they had sent arms to Kansas.^ The policy adopted by the New England Emigrant Aid Company was indorsed and followed a year later by every Kansas aid committee in the North. The arming of the free-state settlers was not an act of aggression, but purely a measure for protection and defense. The winning of Kansas was a great and important victory for Freedom. Here the slave power received its first stun- ning defeat, a defeat in which Sharps rifles were decisive factors. W. H. Isely. ' Lawrence, Life of Lawrence, p. 95.