memoirs of john quincy adams. 781 



April 19, 1840. 



I took my letter and pamphlets relatinor to the Smithso- 

 nian Fund to the Secretary of the Treasury, and left them 

 with him, with an earnest request that he would lay the 

 subject before the President. 



June 4, 1841. 



I paid a visit to the Acting President, John Tyler, and 

 had a conversation with him upon the condition and pros- 

 pects of the Smithsonian Fund. The Secretary of the 

 Treasury, Ewing, has not communicated to him my letter 

 of the 19th April last, nor the report, nor any of the docu- 

 ments which I sent him with it. 



September 10, 1841. 



The committee took up the amendments of the Senate 

 to the Smithsonian fund bill, with which the House, at my 

 motion, agreed; and so the bill has gone through both 

 Houses. 



September 16, 1841. 



I called twice this day at the Department of State. The 

 first time the Secretary, Webster, was not at the office ; so 

 I passed over to the Treasury Department, and saw Mr. 

 Walter Forward, the new Secretary. I spoke to him upon 

 two subjects. 1. The Smithsonian fund, of the history of 

 which he is ignorant, and, from the civil, courteous, and 

 wholly indifferent manner in which he received my com- 

 munications, I presume he will care just as little as did his 

 predecessors, Ewing and Woodbury. I told him what I 

 had done, and what I propose to do; and he promised to 

 send me a statement of the present condition of the fund, 

 and the amount of the stocks of the several States which 

 have been purchased under the authority of the sixth sec- 

 tion of the West Point Academy appropriation of 1838. 

 And, 2, I spoke on the resolution of the House, adopted at 

 my motion on the 23d of July last, calling on the Secretary 

 of the Treasury for a report upon the debts of the several 

 States. 



Mr. Forward appeared not to have heard or not to have 

 thought of that resolution ; but he said he would attend to 

 it, and that he would write to the Secretaries of the several 

 States, to collect the information. 



September 18, 1841. 

 My next call was at the Treasury Department, where I 



