SMITHSONIAN BEQUEST. 5<) 



the court to meet the annual charge in favor of Madame la 

 Batut during her life ; the sum producing it to revert to the 

 United States when she dies. 



As soon as the decree is formally made up, the account- 

 ant general of the court will transfer all the stock to me, 

 under its sanction, except the small sum to be reserved as 

 above. 



Having no special instructions as to what I arnto do with 

 it, my present intention is to sell the whole, at the best time 

 and for the best prices to be commanded, and bring it over 

 in gold for delivery to the Treasurer of the United States, 

 in fulfilment of the trust with which I am charged. But I 

 will reflect further upon the mode of bringing it home,, 

 and adopt that which, under all circumstances, may seem, 

 best. 



The result I announce will, I trust, justify, in the Presi- 

 dent's eyes, the determination I took to let the allowance 

 made to Madame la Batut by the master's report stand 

 without attempting to overset it, whatever might have been 

 the prospect or assurance of ultimate success. The longer 

 the suit lasted, the greater were the risks to which it was 

 exposed. A large sum of money, the whole mentioned 

 above, was to go out of the kingdom, unless an heir could 

 be found to a wandering young Englishman, who had died 

 in Italy at eight or nine and twenty,* and whose mother, 

 never lawfully married, still lives in France. Here was 

 basis enough for the artful and dishonest to fabricate stories 

 of heirship, on allegations of this young Englishman hav- 

 ing been married. That fact assumed, the main stumbling- 

 block to their devices would have disappeared. Fabrica- 

 tions to this effect might have been made to wear the 

 semblance of truth by offers in the market of perjury of 

 Italy, France, and England incidents like these being 

 familiar to history, whether we take public annals, or those 

 of families; and although the combinations, however craft- 

 ily set on foot, might have been defeated in llie end, it is 

 easy to perceive that time and expense would have been 

 required to defeat them. The possibility of their being 

 formed (never to be regarded as very remote while the suit 

 remained open) made it my first anxiety, as it was always 

 my first duty, to have it decided as soon as possible, and to 



* Believed to be the age of Henry James Hungerford, though not found 

 in the master's report. 



