28 SMITHSONIAN BEQUEST. 



bill on Paris for their amount; and, in the mean time, I 

 have the honor to be, sir, your obedient humble servant, 



Daniel Brent. 

 Richard Rush, &c., London. 



Richard Bush to Daniel Brent. 



London, Portland Hotel, 

 Great Portland Street, 31aij 10, 1837. 



Sir : I received your letter of the 3d instant, transmitting- 

 receipts for sums expended by you in Paris, amounting to 

 fr. 272 25, for precautionary steps taken on your part to 

 secure possession of property then supposed to constitute a 

 portion of the property bequeathed to the United States by 

 Mr. Smithson. You state that you transmit these receipts 

 to me in consequence of a letter recently received from the 

 Department of State, and request I will provide for your 

 reimbursement by a bill on Paris for the amount. 



I received from the Secretar}'^ of State, in December last, 

 copies of the same account, with a request that I would ex- 

 amine it, and if I deemed it just, and the amount reason- 

 able, transmit to you the sum necessary to discharge it ; his 

 letter remarking that the account, if correct, was properly 

 chargeable on the Smithsonian fund in my hands, created 

 b}^ the act of Congress of July 1, 1836, for defraying ex- 

 penses incidental to the prosecution of the claim of the 

 United States to the bequest of Mr. Smithson. 



In reply, I had the honor to inform the Secretary, by 

 letter, dated the 9th of January, that it was still a point un- 

 settled whether the property which, with a commendable 

 zeal, you had aimed at securing for the United States, now 

 constituted any part of the Smithsonian fund in the English 

 court of chancery, awaiting its decision ; that nothing had 

 yet been adjudged to the United States; that perhaps it 

 might be doubtful, under these and other circumstances I 

 stated, all of which could not have been known when the 

 Secretary's letter to me was written, how far the act of July 

 the 1st would sustain the charge in question ; and that at 

 all events I had come to the conclusion not to pay the 

 account until the issue of the proceedings in chancery on 

 the whole case here was known, unless I should receive the 

 Secretary's instructions to pay it, after what I thus wrote. 



I have received none; and unless the letter from the 



