SMITHSONIAN BEQUEST. 63 



are watching the market with a view to the most favorable moment 

 for disposing of this part of the stock. 



The fortunate point of time was hit for selling out the consols. They 

 have now sunk a little and, with the exception of momentary intervals, 

 would not have brought as much since the 6th instant as I obtained. 



From the sales made it is now, I think, certain that the whole stock 

 will yield from 103,000 to 105,000, apart from the 5,015 to be 

 retained here during the life of Madame la Batut. 



From the successful manner in which they are proceeding, it seems 

 clear also at the present time that the fund, independent of the accu- 

 mulations of interest, will be richer in the state in which I shall deliver 

 it over to the United States than it was in the summer of 1835, when 

 their right to it first attached by the death of Henry James Hunger- 

 ford. 



Left to myself to make the most of the fund after recovering it from 

 chancery, which depended so much on the sale of the stock, it has 

 not been without full consideration that I did not call on the Messrs. 

 Rothschild to sell it all, for which their experience and situation here, 

 besides being the bankers of the United States, might have seemed to 

 point them out. But, first, they would, I take for granted, have 

 charged a commission of 1 per cent, to which I could not have objected, 

 as it is allowed here, apart from the broker's commission, and by the 

 chamber of commerce at New York on effecting sales of stock; whilst 

 Colonel Aspinwall charges me no such commission, and I much 

 desired to save the amount of it to the fund, if, with his efficient aid, 

 I could conduct the sales confidently and advantageously myself. But, 

 secondly, if the former, as the bankers of the United States, would 

 have performed the task without charge, I should not have been the 

 less disinclined to place it in their hands, having had no instructions 

 to do so, and, being without these, I could only exercise my best dis- 

 cretion. They are, as I in common with others here suppose, very 

 large dealers in stock on their own account, as occasion may serve; 

 and hence may naturally be supposed to desire sometimes a rise, some- 

 times a fall, in these everfluctuating things. With more than a hun- 

 dred thousand pounds to throw upon the market, I therefore thought it 

 best, acting on a general rule of prudence in all business, to keep the 

 operation of selling entirely clear of every quarter where any insen- 

 sible bias might, by possibility even, exist to a course other than that 

 which would regard alone the Smithsonian fund. 



I design to leave no sale outstanding after the 6th of July. The 

 subsequent steps, however, for obtaining the gold, and those neces- 

 sary in various ways for shipping it, will render it impracticable for 

 me to embark with it in the packet which sails from Portsmouth on 

 the 10th of July, that packet leaving London always on the 7th. But 



