26 



and diffusion of knowledge among men ; with a statement of what payments of interest 

 have been received, and what, if any, have been refused or withheld on the State stocks 

 in which the said funds were invested ; the amounts of interest so withheld or refused to 

 be paid, and what measures have been taken by the Secretary to recover the same. Also, 

 by whose agency the said investments were made ; with copies of any correspondence of 

 the Treasury Department with such agents relating thereto." 



This looks very much like action ; and no person is better fitted to 

 conduct the matter than the distinguished Ex-President, the fast friend 

 to the objects of the Smithsonian Fund. 



I shall, in my next, gentlemen, devote some space to the recent sug- 

 gestions in relation to the employment of the Smithsonian Fund, of 

 Messrs. Rush, and Duponceau, and Preston, and their proposals to 

 place it under the management of the National Institute, and to the 

 development of some of my own private views on the same subject. 

 Yours, respectfully, J. C. B. 



NATIONAL INSTITUTE. 



LETTER No. VI. 



WASHINGTON, January 13, 1844. 



MESSRS. EDITORS : Having in my last made divers brief quotations 

 from the report of the select committee to which the subject of the 

 Smithsonian Bequest was referred, proposing a plan for carrying it into 

 execution, and urging a prompt attention to the same on the part of 

 Congress and the nati6n, I now proceed to show that Messrs. Rush, 

 Duponceau, Preston, and Maxcy were of opinion that the said bequest 

 might be judiciously entrusted to the management of the National In- 

 stitute in this city. 



The first named gentleman, whose acquaintance with the subject 

 and deep interest in the matter every one must admire and concede, in 

 his letter of March 4, 1842, to Francis Markoe, Esq., Corresponding 

 Secretary of the National Institute, among other reflections and argu- 

 ments, observes : 



" Let, then, this precious fund (the Smithsonian) no longer be idle. 

 1 Let it be made to yield, without more delay, those moral blessings for 

 { which it was sent to this hemisphere. Let Congress take your Insti- 

 1 tution as a foundation. In the contrariety of opinion as to any other 

 { plan, the much longer postponement, if not entire frustration of the 

 c benign intentions of the donor, is too much to be feared. 



