60 SMITHSONIAN BEQUEST. 



take care even that it moved on during its pendency with 

 no more of publicity to its peculiar circumstances than 

 could he avoided. I trust that both these feelings have 

 been discernible in the general current of my letters to 

 you, reporting all the steps I have taken in it from my first 

 arrival. 



Need I add, as a further incentive to despatch, had further 

 been wanting, that events bearing unfavorably upon the 

 public afiairs of this country, above all upon the harmony 

 or stability of its foreign relations, would not have failed to 

 operate inauspiciously upon the suit, if in nothing else, by 

 causing stocks to fall. They did begin to fall on the first 

 news of the rebellion in Canada, not recovering until the 

 accounts of its suppression arrived. The case is now be- 

 yond the reach of accident, whether from political causes, 

 or others inherent in its nature ; and that its final decision 

 thus early has been brought about by the course adopted 

 in February, I am no longer permitted to doubt. Earhf 

 may at first seem a word little applicable, after one entire 

 year and the best part of a second have been devoted to 

 getting the decision ; but when the proverbial delays of 

 chancery are considered, (and they could hardly have be- 

 come a proverb w'ithout some foundation,) it may not, 

 perhaps, be thought wholly out of place. Although neither 

 the counsel nor solicitors gave their previous advice to the 

 course, it being a point of conduct for my decision rather 

 than of law for theirs, it is yet satisfactory to be able to 

 state that they approved it afterwards. They regarded it 

 as best consulting the interests of the United States, on every 

 broad view of a case where a great moral object, higher 

 than the pecuniary one, was at stake, enhancing the motives 

 for rescuing it, at the earliest fit moment, from all the un- 

 avoidable risks and uncertainties of the future. A fortnight 

 has not elapsed since it was said in the House of Commons 

 by an able member that " a chancery suit was a thing that 

 might begin with a man's life and its termination be his 

 epitaph." 



On the whole, I ask leave to congratulate the President 

 and yourself on the result. A suit of higher interest and 

 dignity has rarely, perhaps, been before the tribunals of a 

 nation. If the trust created by the testator's will be suc- 

 cessfully carried into efi*ect by the enlightened legislation of 

 Congress, benefits may flow to the United States and to the 

 human family not easy to be estimated, because operating 



