22 Doc. Ko. 10. 



iu the concluding part of the decree. That this v/as the exact residue 

 coming to nie, will be further seen by an explanatory letter from ttie 

 solicitors of the 5th of July, also enclosed, (marked C,) and more au- 

 thoritatively by a document (marked D) from the books of the account- 

 ant general of the court, sent to me by the solicitors, with their letter of 

 the 11th of July. This document, besides verifying in its own forms the 

 amount of stock and money I have otherwise stated myself to have re- 

 ceived, also v^erifies the statements in my Nos. 26 and 2S, as to the 

 sums awarded to Madame de la Batut, the arrears to John Fitall,and the 

 money decreed as warehouse-rent for the boxes containing the personal 

 effects of Mr. Smithson, which I brought over and delivered into the cus- 

 tody of the collector at New York. It is a document founded on the de- 

 cree of the court itself, and shows in more detail iiow its judgments were 

 fulfilled. 



I received on the 12th of July £900 at the Bank of England, being the 

 dividend due on the consols I had sold, as mentioned in my No. 29 ; 

 and, lastly, I received from tlie solicitors £116 2s. 2d., being money re- 

 turned by them out of what I liad paid tiiem for costs on the Sth day of 

 April, 1837, viz : £200 4*., as reported in my No. 14. The following 

 is the explanation of this item : When I paid them this sum, I fully ex- 

 pected to pay all further costs out of the same fund, then in my hands, 

 that Congress had appropriated for that purpose ; but it appears that, on 

 the termination of the suit in favor of the United States, the costs of all 

 parties were paid out of the corpus of the fund ; nor would the court 

 award the fund to the United Stales, as may be seen by the decree, until 

 all costs were accordingly first taken out of it, which the court judged it 

 proper the fund itself should bear. I knew not of such a rule which the 

 solicitors advert to. in their letter of July the Sth, until a short tune before 

 the decree was pronounced. The total amount of their costs, as made 

 known to me in tlie same letter, and set out in detail in a volumhious bill, 

 which I enclose, (marked E,) and to which I caused their affidavits to be 

 annexed, was £490 4^. \0d. The court adjudged £406 3s. of this sum 

 to be paid to them out of the fund, as their taxed costs, which, added to 

 what I had previously paid them, made £606 7^. The difference be- 

 tween this and £490 As, lOd. being £116 2s. 2d., they refunded the 

 latter sum to me. Their total bill, (considering that it included all fees paid 

 by them under my direction to the counsel, and all costs and charges of 

 every description from the beginning to the end of the suit, with some 

 small extra charges, to which their letter refers, which I also authorized, 

 to ensure a speedy and successful termination of the suit,) and considering 

 the magnitude of the suit, was, in my judgment, and in that of others 

 better informed, to whom I submitted its amount, extremely moderate. 

 I hope it will be thought to show care on my part to keep all those charges 

 low, that often are run up to amounts so enormous in English chancery 

 proceedings ; and, let me add, as in justice I am bound to do, to show more 

 strongly that the solicitors I had to deal with were honorable and just 

 men. 



I did not consider these refunded costs as belonging to the legacy fund 

 recovered, l-ut I threw them into it when the general gold was obtained, 

 that all might be safely kept together, and come under one insurance. 



The gross amount yielded by all the stock I sold, including the £900 I 

 received as the dividend on the consols, was £105,649 6s. 



