SMITHSONIAN BEQUEST. 9 



much at a pause in London, and those who conduct it dis- 

 persed. It was not until the 20th that I was enabled to com- 

 mand an interview with these gentlemen, when two of 

 them, Mr. Clarke and Mr. Fladgate, waited upon me ; the 

 latter having previously called, after receiving my note, to- 

 mention the absence of his associates from town. With 

 these two I had the preliminary conversation suited to a 

 first interview. They chiefly went over the grounds stated 

 in their note of the 21st of July, to our charge d'alfaires^ 

 Mr. Vail ; in some points enlarging them and giving new 

 particulars. They said that James Smithson, the testator,, 

 died in June, 1829; that his will was proved in the prerog- 

 ative court of Canterbury by Mr. Charles Drummond, oner 

 of the executors, and one of the banking-house of that 

 name in London ; that Henry James Hungerford, the testa- 

 tor's nephew, to whom was bequeathed the whole of his 

 property for life, subject to a small annuity to another per- 

 son, brought an amicable suit in chancery against Messrs. 

 Drummond, the executors, for the purpose of having the 

 testator's assets administered under the direction of th& 

 Lord Chancellor ; in the course of which suit the usual 

 orders and decrees were made, and by its issue assets ascer- 

 tained and realized to the value of about one hundred 

 thousand pounds sterling ; that Mr. Hungerford, who resi- 

 ded out of England, received, up to the time of his deaths 

 the dividends arising from the property, which consisted of 

 stock in the public funds; and that he died at Pisa, on the 

 5th of June, 1835, of full age, though still young, without 

 having been married, and, as far as is yet known, without 

 illegitimate child or children ; that the assets of the estate 

 are now invested in the name of the accountant general of 

 the court of chancery, subject to the further disposition of 

 the court; that the will of Mr. Smithson having made the 

 United States the final legatee on Mr. Ilungerford's death 

 without child or children, legitimate or illegitimate, the 

 facts seem to have happened under which their right will 

 attach ; but the solicitors continue to think that a suit, or 

 legal proceedings of some nature, to which the United 

 States must be a party, will have to be instituted in the 

 court of chancery, in order to make valid their right, and 

 enable them to get possession of the fund, now in the hands 

 of the court, and subject to its judgment. 



The foregoing formed the main purport of their commu- 

 nication. They added, that the mother of Henry James 



