SMITHSONIAN BEQUEST. 39 



which the United States might have got possession of the 

 fund. 



I have the honor to remain, with great respect, your 

 obedient servant, 



RICHARD RUSH. 



Hon. JOHN FORSYTE, Secretary of State. 



Richard Rush to John Forsyth. 



LONDON, August 1, 1837. 



SIR : I transmit, herewith, a copy of my account for the 

 year ending yesterday. I also send a list of my drafts upon 

 the bankers of the United States within the same period, 

 as authorized by your letter to the late N. M. de Rothschild 

 of July the llth, 1836. 



The only bill I have yet paid, because the only one I have 

 been able to get in, for legal expenses actually incurred, was 

 one of two hundred pounds four shillings, on the 8th of 

 April, as shown by my draft upon the bankers of that date. 

 For this a voucher is enclosed, with a full statement of the 

 account. More expense, considerably, has been incurred 

 under this head, but no second account has hitherto been 

 rendered to rne, although I have asked for and been desir- 

 ous of obtaining it, the solicitors saying that the items 

 going to make it up are, many of them, still dependent 

 upon services outstanding and incomplete. The heaviest 

 legal expenses will, I apprehend, come in at the final close 

 of the suit. When this will be I dare not promise, since 

 none of our professional advisers will undertake to inform 

 me precisely, although none, I believe, can exceed them in 

 diligence and fidelity, and although they are urged by my 

 reiterated instructions to use all the expedition practicable. 

 The necessity of a reform in the court of chancery was the 

 subject of a special recommendation from the Throne to 

 Parliament, at the session before the last. Its business is 

 very much in arrears. Mr. Pemberton, the leading counsel 

 of the United States, who is also a member of the House of 

 Commons, stated in his place in that body, in February last, 

 that the arrears amounted to between three and four hun- 

 dred cases two years before, but that they had grown to up- 

 wards of eight hundred at the time he was speaking. ^ The 

 cases, in a large proportion, are also of great magnitude. 



