108 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the Increase 

 and Diffusion of Knowledge among Men. 



I think it proper here to state, that all the money which will be stand- 

 ing in the French five per cents, at ni}'' death, in the name of the father 

 of my above mentioned nephew, Henry James Hungerfbrd, and all that 

 in my name, is the property of my said nephew, being what he inherit- 

 ed from his father, or what I have laid up for him from the savings 

 upon his income. 



JAMES SMITHSON. [l. s.] 



Extract from a letter from Hon. Richard Rush to Hon. John Forsyth, 



Secretary of State. 



London, May 12, 1838. 



"I have made inquiries, from time to time, in the hope of finding out 

 something of the man, personally a stranger to our people, who has 

 sought to benefit distant ages by founchng, in the capital of the American 

 Union, an institution (to describe it in his own simple and comprehensive 

 language) for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men. I have 

 not heard a great deal. What I have heard, and may confide in, amounts 

 to this : That he was, in fact, the natural son of the Duke of Northum- 

 berland ; that his mother was a Mrs. Macie, of an ancient family in Wilt- 

 shire, of the name of Hungerftjrd ; that he was educated at Oxford, where 

 he took an honorary degree in 178G ; that he went under the name of 

 James Lewis Macie until after a few years after he had left the univer- 

 sity, when he took that ofSmithson, ever after signing only James Smith- 

 son, as in his \\ill ; that he does not appear to have had any fixed home, 

 living in lodgings when in London, and occasional!}^ staying a year or two 

 at a time in cities on the continent, as Paris, Berlin, Florence, Genoa, at 

 which last he died ; and, that the ample provision made for him by the 

 Duke of Northumberland, with retired and simple habits, enabled him 

 to accumulate tlie ti:)rtune which now passes to the United States. 1 

 have inquired it" his political opinions or bias were supposed to be of a 

 nature that led him to select the United States as tlie great trustee of 

 his enlarged and philanthropic views. Tlie reply has been, that his 

 opinions, as far as knovi^n or inferred, were thought to favor monarchical 

 rather than popular institutions; but that he interested himself little in 

 questions of government, being devoted to science, and chicfiy chemis- 

 try ; that this had introduced him to the society of Cavendish, WoUas- 

 ton, and others advantageously known to the Royal Society in London, 

 of which body he was a member, and to the archives of which he made 

 contributions ; and that he also became acquainted, through his visits 

 to the continent, with eminent chemists in France, Italy, and Germany. 

 Finally, that he was a gentleman of feeble health, but always of cour- 

 teous though reserved manners and conversation. 



" Such I learn to have been some of the characteristics of the man 

 whom generations to come may see cause to bless, and whose will may 

 enrol his name with the benefactors of mankind." 



