Doc. IN'o. 10. ' 7 



No. 23. / 



London, .dpril 24, 1S38. 

 Sir : The court reassembled last week, since which I have been doing 

 all that is practicable, by personal calls upon the solicitors and otherwise, 

 to urge on the case ; and shall continue this course. 



Judging by all they say to me, and my own knowledge of the pres- 

 ent situation of the case, I have a confident and, I trust, well-founded be- 

 lief that May will not elapse without its being brought to a hearing. 



Referring to my No. 22, I now beg leave to state that the 22d of Sep- 

 tember, 1S34, is the date from which the annuity allowed by the master's 

 report to Madame la Batut was to commence ; and tliat the arrears to be 

 paid to her, in the event of a decision in favor of the United States, were 

 to be computed from that time to the 22d of March last. This makes 

 three years and six months, so that the sum due on an annuity of ^61 50 9^. 

 would be £526 11^. 6d. 



I have the honor to be, with great respect, your obedient servant, 



RICHARD RUSH. 

 Hon. John Forsyth, 



Secretary of State. 



No. 24. 



London, May 3, 1S38. 



Sir: I am glad to say that the confidence expressed in my last that a 

 hearing of the case was near at hand has been justified, even sooner thaa 

 I expected, for it was heard on the 1st of this month, and I am now to 

 have the honor of reporting to you the nature of the hearing. 



Mr. Pemberton, our leading counsel, rose, and after recapitulating the 

 general nature of the case, as formerly heard by the court, proceeded to 

 state that the reference to the master, as ordered by the decree in Febru- 

 ary, 1S37, had duly taken place, and that all the requisite evidence had 

 been obtained in England and from Italy and France, as to the facts on 

 the happening of which the United States were to become entitled to the 

 fund bequeathed by Mr. Smithson for the purpose mentioned in his will. 

 These facts I need not here repeat, being already set forth specially in my 

 No. 9, of the 25th of March, 1S37. 



Overlooking a volume of matter merely technical in the evidence and 

 report, or now become immaterial to the mahi points, it will be suificient 

 to say that it was satisfactorily established by the former that Henry James 

 Hungerford, named in the pleadings, was dead; that he died at Pisa, in 

 the summer of 1835; that he was not married at the time of his death, nor 

 at any time ; and that he died childless. It was not found how old he 

 was at the time of his death ; nor is that material to any of the issues. 

 As to John Fitall, it was found that he died in London, in June, 1834 ; and 

 as to Madame de la Batut, the mother of Henry James Hungerford, the 

 master, on the evidence before him, found her to have a claim on the estate 

 of Mr. Smithson to the amount of one hundred and fifty pounds and nine 

 shillings a year, payable as long as she lives, and for the arrears of this 

 annual allowance from the 22d of September, 1834, to the 22d of last 

 March. 



The establishment of all the foregoing facts will be found to meet the 



