JAMES SMITHSON AND HIS BEQUEST. 29 



be his epitaph." Still later it will be remembered that Mr. Dickens 

 stated in 1853 that there was then " a suit before the court of chancery 

 which had been commenced twenty years before in which from thirty to 

 forty counsel had been known to appear at one time, in which costs had 

 been incurred to the amount of £70,000, which was a friendly suit, and 

 which was no nearer its termination than when it was begun." 



Mr. Eush refers in terms of high comj)liment to the solicitors he had 

 employed on behalf of the United States. He says : 



"That more attention, diligence, discretion, and integrity could not 

 have been exerted by any persons than they have shown throughout the 

 whole suit from first to last. Could they ever have forgotten what was 

 duo to the United States and to themselves, iu the desire to eke out a 

 job, nothing is plainer to me, from what has been passing under my 

 observation of the entanglements and delays natural to a heavy suit in 

 the English court of chancery, than that they might have found oppor- 

 tunities iu abundance of making the suit last for years yet to come." 



It is therefore to be regarded as one of the most remarkable events 

 in the history of the bequest that the suit of the United States, com- 

 menced in November, 183G, should have been brought to a successful 

 issue, in less than two years, on the 12th of May, 1838, which, it may be 

 interesting to note, was the first year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen 

 Yictoria. 



Mr. Eush was therefore placed in possession of the legacy with the 

 exceptioruof the part reserved as the principal of an annuity to Madame 

 De la Batut. Mr. Eush thus expresses his satisfaction at the result : 



"A suit of higher interest and dignity has rarely perhaps been before 

 the tribunals of a nation. If the trust created by the testator's will be 

 Buccessfidly carried into effect by the enlightened legislation of Con- 

 gress benefits may flow to the United States and to the human family 

 not easy to be estimated, because operating silently and radually 

 throughout time, yet operating not the less effectually." 



Scarcely had the decision of the court been made and the amount of 

 the award published in the newspapers, when two claimants for the 

 estate of Smithson appeared, neither having any connection with the 

 other; and they desired, rather importunately, to know if the case could 

 not be reopened. They were much chagrined to find that they were a 

 little too late in their application, and nothing more was heard of them. 



The American minister to England, Mr. Stevenson, and our consul at 

 London, Mr. Aspinwall, united in testifying to the great tact and abil- 

 ity of Mr. Eush, and in afiirming — 



" That no litigant ever displayed a more ardent zeal or a more saga- 

 cious, devoted, and unremitting diligence in the prosecution of his pri- 

 vate suit than he did in urging on this public one to a prompt and suc- 

 cessful conclusion. The dispatch with which in consequence this purpose 

 was finally accomplished is almost without example in the annals of 

 chancery. His solicitors will long remember his adroit and unsparing 



