52 SMITHSONIAN BEQUEST. 



calculations as to the duration of suits iu chauceiy, they 

 leave me to judge how far this opinion of theirs is to be 

 relied upon ; and they conclude with an intimation that the 

 case might, in the end, be taken before the House of Lords 

 on appeal ; in which event the delay, they add, w^ould be 

 " very great." 



I have determined, under these circumstances, not to 

 seek further evidence by a commission to France or other- 

 wise for defeating the claim, and accordingly wrote to 

 them, on the 9th instant, to proceed with all expedition in 

 bringing the suit to a close without it. A copy of tliis note 

 is also enclosed. As to bringing interrogatories into the 

 master's office for the personal examination of Madame de 

 la Batut and her husband, as adverted to in the answer 

 fi'om the solicitors, I say nothing of the objections to that 

 mode of getting at more evidence, the solicitors themselves 

 forestalling me by an admission that they could not be cer- 

 tain of its success. 



I hope that the determination to which I have come will 

 be approved as judicious. This claim has been already, by 

 full scrutiny and resistance, greatly cut down from its origi- 

 nal injustice and extravagance, as a reference to my No. 12, 

 of the 24th of last June, will show. That it might be 

 wholly defeated by going on to pursue measures within our 

 power, I incline to believe. The solicitors tell me that 

 the}' think so decidedly, and their letter is to the same 

 effect. But it is now necessarj'^ to balance the advantage to 

 be gained by doing so against the time and money it would 

 cost. The report in favor of the claimant, as the master 

 has determined to make itiu the state of the evidence as now 

 before him, will not, by the information I have received and 

 heretofore communicated, be likely to exceed one hundred 

 and fifty pounds a year, payable during her life ; to which 

 will have to be added a few j^ears of arrears, calculated on 

 the basis of whatever may be the precise amount of the annu- 

 ity allowed. The claimant, as far as I can learn, is about sixty 

 years old. Hence, supposing that measures necessary for 

 the total defeat of her claim occupied only another twelve- 

 month, it seems probable that the very cost of the agency 

 for going on with them, added to all unforeseen legal fees 

 and expenses, might prove more than the annuity is worth. 

 That the suit would be lengthened out another twelvemonth 

 by going into the measures in question, can scarcely, I think 

 be deemed a strained inference, from all that the solicitors 



