450 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



property itself to the nephew's children should he leave any. In 

 case of the death of the nephew without leaving a child or 'chil- 

 dren, the whole property was bequeathed "to the United States of 

 America) to found at Washington, under the name of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of 

 knowledge among men." 



Probably few men have ever written a clause so well fitted as 

 this to excite a curiosity which can never be gratified. The views 

 and motives of the writer in making this provision are involved in 

 impenetrable obscurity. The first idea to strike a reader would be 

 that Smithson had some especially kindly feelings toward either 

 the United States or its form of government. But no evidence of 

 this has ever been discovered. He is not known to have had the 

 personal acquaintance of an American, and his tastes were supposed 

 to have been aristocratic rather than democratic. 



It would also have been supposed that the organization of an 

 institution which was to carry his name down to posterity would 

 have been a subject of long and careful thought, and of conversa- 

 tion with friends, and would have been prescribed in more definite 

 language than that used in the will. Some note, some appended 

 paper would certainly be found communicating his views. But 

 nothing of the sort has ever come to light. 



The next explanation to suggest itself would be that the death of 

 his nephew without children was a contingency so remote that very 

 little thought was given to what might happen in that event. But 

 it is said that on the contrary Hungerford, the nephew, was un- 

 married and in infirm health, and that his death without children 

 might naturally have been expected. 



We thus have the curious spectacle of a retired English gentle- 

 man, probably unacquainted with a single American citizen, 

 bequeathing the whole of his large fortune to our Government to 

 found an establishment which was described in ten words, without 

 a memorandum of any kind by which his intentions could be divined 

 or the recipient of the gift guided in applying it. 



Hungerford died in 1835. An amicable suit in chancery was 

 instituted by our Government, through the Honorable Richard 

 Rush as its agent, the defendant being the Messrs. Drummond, 



