This lot contains a copy of "Report: Small Arms. Ordered by the House of Commons, to be Printed, 12 May 1854." The top of the cover is signed "Hon Charles Chapman with the Compliments of S Colt." "S Colt" is signed with the S linking straight into the C. The signature is in keeping with other Samuel Colt signatures which are somewhat varied, and he abbreviated he first name and then linked it to the C in Colt. Pages 84-89 covers "Lieutenant-Colonel Sam Colt, State of Connecticut, U.S. America, called in; and Examined" and discusses Colt's factories in Hartford and in London, the types and quantities of arms his factories were producing, and his opinions on English martial arms and firearms production. Further discussion of Colt's firearms continues elsewhere, in testimonies of other witnesses. Charles Chapman (1799-1869) was originally a Whig, but, in 1854, he ran unsuccessfully for the governorship of Connecticut as the Temperance candidate and had previously served in the state House of Representatives and as U.S. District Attorney in the 1840s and then as the representative for Connecticut's 1st District in the U.S. House in 1851-1853. He was again elected to serve in the state House of Representatives in 1862 and 1864 as a Democrat. His son, Charles R. Chapman (1827-1897) was also a lawyer and politician and was a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives and Senate in the 1850s, mayor of Hartford in 1866-1872, and then Hartford's city attorney and postmaster in 1885-1890. In 1854, the Hartford Daily Courant printed reports of the use of "Colt's Pistols" by the English cavalry during the Crimean War, including the Battle of Alma. Some of the claims are far fetched, such as that "Colt's holster pistols are effective at 400 yards, it may be imagined how much the fact of nearly every officer, both commissioned and non-commissioned in our regiments in the Crimea, being armed with these pistols, must have contributed to the defeat of the Russians, whatever advantage they held, both from position and entrenchments."

The volume itself is fair with the pages separated and flaking, but the inscription on the cover is very nice and distinct and has a crisp "S Colt" signature.