It thus happened at Baltimore.
The first man who invented a new cannon took into partnership the first man who cast it and the first man that bored it.

Such was the nucleus of the Gun Club.

One month after its formation it numbered eighteen hundred and thirty-three effective members, and thirty thousand five hundred and seventy-five corresponding members.
One condition was imposed as a _sine qua non_ upon every one who wished to become a member--that of having invented, or at least perfected, a cannon; or, in default of a cannon, a firearm of some sort.

But, to tell the truth, mere inventors of fifteen-barrelled rifles, revolvers, or sword-pistols did not enjoy much consideration.

Artillerymen were always preferred to them in every circumstance.
"The estimation in which they are held," said one day a learned orator of the Gun Club, "is in proportion to the size of their cannon, and in direct ratio to the square of distance attained by their projectiles!" A little more and it would have been Newton's law of gravitation applied to moral order.
Once the Gun Club founded, it can be easily imagined its effect upon the inventive genius of the Americans.