Schedule of the personal effects of James Smithson referred to in A large trunk; the bill of costs. A box containing sundry specimens of minerals, marked E; A brass instrument; A box of minerals, marked F; A box of chemical glasses, marked G; A packet of minerals, marked H; A glass vinegar cruet; A stone mortar; A pair of silver-plated candlesticks and branches; A pair of silver-plated candlesticks, no branches; A plated wire flower-basket; A plated coffee-pot; A plated small one; A pair of wine-coolers; A pair small candlesticks; Two pair of saltcellars; A bread-basket; Sundry pamphlets on philosophical subjects, in packet marked A; The like, marked B; Struggles Through Life; Bibliotheca Parisiana; La Platina l'Or Blanc; Contorides des Indiens; Sundry pamphlets on philosophical subjects, marked C; Weld's Travels in North America, 2 vols; Bray's Derbyshire; Twenty-three numbers of Nicholson's Journal of Natural Philosophy, in a case, (D;) Memoire d'un Voyageur qui le répose ; Hamilton in Antrim; Londres et de ses Environs; Stew on Solids; Essais de Jean Key; Mon Bonnet de Nuit; Domestic Cookery; Catalogue de Fossils des Roches; The Monthly Review, 78 Nos. ; The Monthly Review, 26 volumes; Philosophical Transactions for the year 1826; Anthologies et Fragments Philosophiques, 4 volumes; Two large boxes filled with specimens of minerals and manuscript treatises, apparently in the testator's handwriting, on various philosophical subjects, particularly chemistry and mineralogy; Eight cases and one trunk filled with the like. Those articles to which this mark (a) is prefixed were not in the trunk No. 13 when it was first opened in the consulate of the United States in our presence. All the linen in trunk No. 13 was transferred from case 7, and sundry articles of plated ware and philosophical instruments, &c., were transferred from case 12. Sundry books, which were tied together, were also put in this case. Richard Rush to John Forsyth. HARBOR OF NEW YORK, August 28, 1838. SIR: I have the honor to report to you my arrival here in the ship Mediator, with the amount in gold of the Smithsonian bequest recovered for the United States. The expenses, of every kind, incurred by closing the business in London and shipping the gold, were paid there; but I have still to pay freight here and primage, and also some other small charges incurred on bringing over the Smithsonian boxes and trunks heretofore mentioned. When everything is fully paid, there will be left in my hands, as well as I can now compute the amount, upwards of £104,500; the whole is in sovereigns packed in boxes. The money being consigned to no one here, I must continue to hold it in my custody until I can receive your instructions to whom to deliver it, as provided for by the act of Congress of the 1st of July, 1836. I have the honor to remain, in the meantime, your most faithful and obedient servant, Hon. JOHN FORSYTH, Secretary of State. RICHARD RUSH. Richard Rush to John Forsyth. NEW YORK, August 29, 1838. SIR: On landing from the ship yesterday morning, I received the official letter of the Secretary of the Treasury, dated the 20th of July, which had been waiting my arrival here, instructing me to transfer the Smithsonian fund to Philadelphia, to be deposited with the Treasurer of the Mint, to the credit of the Treasurer of the United States, taking duplicate receipts from the former, one of which to be transmitted to the latter. The ship has not yet got into the dock, but the gold shall be sent on to Philadelphia, as soon as practicable, in the eleven boxes in which it was packed at the Bank of England, according to the instructions I have thus received from the Secretary of the Treasury. I have the honor to remain, with great respect, your obedient servant, Hon. JOHN FORSYTH, Secretary of State. RICHARD RUSH. John Forsyth to Richard Rush. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, August 30, 1838. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 30, of the 28th instant, announcing your ar rival in the harbor of New York, with the Smithsonian bequest in gold. With regard to the disposition to be made by you of these funds, you no doubt will have learned, upon landing, that your request had been anticipated by instructions to you from the Treasury Department, intrusted to the care of Mr. George Newbold, president of the Bank of America. Tendering to you my congratulations on the success of your mission, and on your safe return to your country, I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, JOHN FORSYTH. RICHARD RUSH, Esq., New York. Richard Rush to John Forsyth. PHILADELPHIA, September 4, 1838. SIR: I was yesterday honored with your letter of the 30th of August, acknowledging my No. 30 from the harbor of New York, and tender my thanks for your kind congratulations on my return to my own country, and on the success of the public business confided to me. Your letter went on to New York, as directed, but was returned; and I received it at my home, near the city. My No. 31, written after I had landed, will have informed you that I had then received the instructions of the Secretary of the Treasury to which your letter refers, and I have since been in correspondence with him. Owing to the delay in getting the ship into the dock, I was not able to leave New York with the gold until the first of this month, when I arrived with it, accompanied by two agents from the Bank of America, that institution having, at the request of the Secretary of the Treasury, obligingly afforded me every facility in its power towards the business I had in hand. I did not, however, feel at liberty to withdraw my own personal superintendence from the operation of transferring the gold, until I saw it deposited at the Mint. Thither I immediately had it conveyed on reaching this city on the 1st instant, the director and Treasurer of the Mint having been in readiness to receive it under the previous information of its intended transfer, which I had requested the bank to transmit. The entire sum contained in the eleven boxes which I delivered to those two officers of the Mint on Saturday, was £104,960 8s. 6d.-the whole in English sovereigns, except the change; and I have now the satisfaction of informing you that official receipts of this amount from my hands have been forwarded to the Treasury Department. The excess of this sum over that which I had computed in my No. 30 as the probable amount to be left in my hands, arises from the president of the bank having undertaken, at my suggestion, to pay the freight and other shippingcharges due at New York; the bank to be repaid by the Treasury. The freight was three-eighths of one per cent.this being the usual charge in the packet-ships-and came to £393 12s. Primage was £19 13s. 8d.; and the charges on bringing over the Smithsonian boxes (left in the custody of the collector, from whom I had every facility on landing) were to have been £3 8s. 5d., or thereabouts.* It seemed to me that it would be best for the bank to pay all these charges, as the most convenient mode of settling without delay with the ship-owners, to whom I had become responsible by my engagements with the captain in Lon * There proved to be fourteen of these boxes, the additional one containing a picture, of which I had not heard at the date of my No. 28. don; and I have the hope that this course will meet the approbation of the Secretary of the Treasury and yourself. It left the gold, as secured in boxes at the Bank of England, untouched at New York; and I had caused the seal of our consul at London to be affixed to each of them. Somewhat worn down by fatigue since coming on shore, after an uncomfortable voyage of squalls, gales, and head winds, I venture to ask a little repose at my home before proceeding to Washington, for the purpose of making out and rendering to you an account of all expenses that have attended the final recovery of this fund, of which the United States, by the information I give you in this letter, are now in possession. In the course of the next week I shall hope to proceed to Washington, with the view stated; and in order that, my account of the expenses being found satisfacfactory, which I presume to hope will be the case, I may ask to be discharged from all further responsibility under the trust I have been performing. The net amount, in dollars, of the fund as I delivered it over to the United States at the Mint, was found to be five hundred and eight thousand three hundred and eighteen dollars forty-six cents, ($508,318,46,) as specified in the receipt given to me for it by the treasurer of the Mint. I have the honor to remain, with great respect, your obedient servant, RICHARD RUSH. The Hon. JOHN FORSYTH, Secretary of State. Richard Rush to John Forsyth. PHILADELPHIA, September 11, 1838. SIR: I yesterday received a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, dated the 7th instant, stating it to be desirable that the expenses attending the transfer of the Smithsonian fund to this country, and its deposit at the Mint, should be ascertained as carly as practicable, that the accounts in relation to it may be adjusted with a view to the investment of the balance, and asking my attention to the subject at my earliest convenience. In reply, I had the honor to inform the Secretary that 1 could not make out a statement of the expenses, as far as then incurred, before embarking at London with the gold, the documents relating to them not being obtainable until the last moments of my stay; besides that, the whole opera |