TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS, 1841-1843. 227 



bequeathed by the testator, and of applying the income derived there- 

 from faithfully to the purposes prescribed by him. 



Accordingly, on the 1st of July, 1836, a bill which had previously 

 been passed by both Houses of Congress received the sanction of the 

 President, authorizing him to appoint an agent or agents to recover 

 the funds bequeathed by the will of the testator, and then being in 

 charge of the Court of Chancery of Great Britain, and to deposit the 

 same in the Treasury of the United States; and the faith of the United 

 States was, by the same act, expressly pledged for the faithful per- 

 formance of the trust assumed by the acceptance of the bequest. 



An agent was appointed by virtue of this act, who recovered, by a 

 decree of the Court of Chancery, a sum which, on the 1st of Septem- 

 ber, 1838, was deposited in gold at the mint of the United States at 

 Philadelphia, amounting to $508,318.46. 



By the sixth section of the act of Congress for the support of the 

 Military Academy of the United States and for other purposes, 

 approved on the 7th of July, 1838, it was provided that all the money 

 arising from the bequest of the late James Smithson, of London, for 

 the purpose of founding at Washington, in this District, an institution 

 to be denominated the Smithsonian Institution, which might be paid 

 into the Treasury, was appropriated, and should be invested by the 

 Secretary of the Treasury, with the approbation of the President of 

 the United States, in stocks of States, bearing interest at the rate of 

 not less than 5 per centum per annum; which said stocks should be 

 held by the said Secretary in trust for the uses specified in the last 

 will and testament of said Smithson, until provision should be made 

 by law for carrying the purpose of said bequest into effect; and that 

 the annual interest accruing on the stock aforesaid shall be in like 

 manner invested for the benefit of said institution. 



Under the authority and the requisition of this act, immediately 

 after the deposit at the mint of the United States at Philadelphia of 

 the moneys recovered by the decree of the court of chancery in Eng- 

 land, the Secretary of the Treasury invested in stocks of the State of 

 Arkansas $500,000, and $8.000 in stocks of the State of Michigan, all 

 at the interest of 6 per cent; since which time, by the same authority, 

 $3,800 of the stocks of the State of Arkansas, $3,600 of the State >f 

 Illinois, $18,000 of the State of Ohio, have been invested in like man- 

 ner, until the llth of September last, when the provision of the law 

 which authorized and required the Secretary of the Treasury to invest 

 the accruing interest on the principal fund in the stock of the States 

 was repealed, and he was directed, until Congress shall appropriate 

 said accruing interest to the purposes described by the testator, for the 

 increase and diffusion of knowledge among men, to invest said accru- 

 ing interest in any stock of the United States bearing a rate of interest 

 not less than 5 per centum per annum. Under this authority the 



