28 SMITHSONIAN BEQUEST. 



bill on Paris for their amount; and, in the mean time, I 

 .have the honor to be, sir, your obedient humble servant, 



DANIEL BRENT. 

 KICHARD RUSH, &c., London. 



Richard Rush to Daniel Brent. 



LONDON, PORTLAND HOTEL, 

 Great Portland Street, May 10, 1837. 



SIR : I received your letter of the 3d instant, transmitting 

 receipts for sums expended by you in Paris, amounting to 

 fr. 272 25, for precautionary steps taken on your part to 

 secure possession of property then supposed to constitute a 

 portion of the property bequeathed to the United States by 

 Mr. Smithson. You state that you transmit these receipts 

 to me in consequence of a letter recently received from the 

 Department of State, and request I will provide for your 

 reimbursement by a bill on Paris for the amount. 



I received from the Secretaiy of State, in December last, 

 copies of the same account, with a request tbat I would ex- 

 amine it, and if I deemed it just, and the amount reason- 

 able, transmit to you the sum necessary to discharge it ; his 

 letter remarking that the account, if correct, was properly 

 chargeable on the Smithsonian fund in my hands, created 

 by the act of Congress of July 1, 1836, for defraying ex- 

 penses incidental to the prosecution of the claim of the 

 United States to the bequest of Mr. Smithson. 



In reply, I had the honor to inform the Secretary, by 

 letter, dated the 9th of January, that it was still a point un- 

 settled whether the property which, with a commendable 

 zeal, you had aimed at securing for the United States, now 

 constituted any part of the Smithsonian fund in the English 

 court of chancery, awaiting its decision; that nothing had 

 yet been adjudged to the United States; that perhaps it 

 might be doubtful, under these and other circumstances I 

 stated, all of which could not have been known when the 

 Secretary's letter to me was written, how far the act of July 

 the 1st would sustain the charge in question ; and that at 

 all events I had come to the conclusion not to pay the 

 account until the issue of the proceedings in chancery on 

 the whole case here \vas known, unless I should receive the 

 Secretary's instructions to pay it, after what I thus wrote. 



I have received none; and unless the letter from the 



