The Lost World of James Smithson

by Heather Ewing

  The recollection is a charming one, conjuring up from an earlier century the picture of a festive salon where elegantly dressed ladies together with gentlemen in starched stocks and silk coats peruse fine faceted gems and competitively vaunt their Romantic affectations. There in the middle is Smithson, leaping forward theatrically with an outstretched crystal to catch the tear as it rolls down a powdered cheek, to take this little symbol of sensibility and submit it to Science. Smithson's clever party favor, the scientist in service to society—gay, bon ton society this time—belongs to another era. Even that which Smithson analyzed was known then, as Gilbert reminded his listeners, by another name. Time has moved on, science moved forward, and the bit players standing at the margins have begun to recede. Although they commanded the respect and admiration of their colleagues in their day, history has no room for them. Smithson stands for many of them.

  "Distinguished Men of Science Living in 1807-08, featuring Cavendish, Davy, Herschel, Dalton, and many others (including Joseph Bramah, inventor of the unpickable lock, at far right, pictured facing backwards because there was no known portrait of him). When this image was created in the 1860s, Smithson, it seems, had already been forgotten.

  THIRTEEN

  America:

  The Finger of Providence

  A stranger to this country, knowing it only by its history, bearing in his person the blood of the Percys and the Seymours, brother to a nobleman of the highest rank in British heraldry, who fought against the revolution of our independence at Bunker's Hill—that he should be the man to found, at the city of Washington for the United States of America, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men, is an event in which I see the finger of Providence, compassing great results by incomprehensible means. May the Congress of the Union be deeply impressed with the solemn duties devolving upon them by this trust, and carry it into effect in the fulness of its spirit, and to the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men!

  —John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, January 10, 1836

  HENRY JAMES HUNGERFORD was in Paris when he learned of Smithson's death, and he wasted no time getting his traveling papers in order. By July 6, 1829, he and his servant were headed to Genoa. A month later they were at Calais, on their way to London so that Hungerford could begin the process of sorting through his uncle's affairs and gaining access to his inheritance.1

  Smithson's nephew was just reaching his majority in 1829. Free from Monsieur Aubouin's boarding school in the leafy environs of Paris, where he had been sent for cultivation, the world expanded around him. The suit for his inheritance was successfully concluded by 1831, netting him some £4,000 of annual income—he was entitled only to the interest off Smithson's estate, as the principal was destined for his as yet unborn heirs. He gave a generous annuity to his mother, who now had two small children by her second husband, Théodore de la Batut, and he apparently set immediately to spending the rest of it. He took a suite at the Hôtel Britannique, rue Louis le Grand, in a fashionable quarter of Paris convenient to the city's numerous theatres. He also changed his name, brazenly abandoning the Hungerford name that his benefactor uncle had requested he adopt. He took instead the lyrical name of his stepfather, de la Batut; and then, even more ostentatiously, he began calling himself a baron, despite not having any claim to the title. In this way, as Baron Henry de la Batut, the illegitimate Henry James Dickenson made his entrance in towns throughout Europe. It was, in a sense, fitting; he had affected only a more grandiose version of his uncle's own pretensions as Monsieur de Smithson, Seigneur Anglais.2

  The nephew was like his uncle in another way as well. He was plagued with poor health, and he traveled to Italy, just, it seems, as Smithson had, with only a servant as company, in search of curative air. He left Paris in June 1834, headed for Marseilles, intending to travel on to Naples. He does not seem to have ever arrived there. In late May 1835 he presented himself to the English consul at Livorno and installed himself in a hotel overlooking the Arno in Pisa. A few days later, the high-flying, self-styled Baron de la Batut, aged twenty-six or twenty-seven, unmarried and without children, was dead. It had been only six years since Smithson's death. There was not even money enough left in his account to pay his debtors or his funeral expenses.3

  The death of this obscure young man set in motion an extraordinary sequence of events, which led ultimately to the birth of the Smithsonian Institution. In London a group of solicitors appeared on the doorstep of the American chargé d'affaires, bearing with them the startling news that an Englishman named James Smithson had left a "very considerable" estate to the United States of America, "to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."4 This information, when delivered to Washington, elicited mostly bewilderment. President Andrew Jackson was not even sure that he possessed the authority to accept such a bequest. No one had ever left this kind of gift to the United States government before. Especially puzzling was the news that the donor had no connection to the country or any ostensible reason for such largesse. There was simply no precedent for such a sweeping gesture. After some deliberation, Jackson turned the matter over to Congress, leaving it up to them to decide whether or not Smithson's donation could be received.5

  Smithson's mandate was entirely contained in one brief, single-sentence directive. The location and name of the proposed foundation were clear. Its purpose was much less apparent. What exactly was an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge? Was it a national university? A library? A laboratory? A museum? These questions would later preoccupy Congress for nearly a decade.

  More immediately, however, people questioned the motivation behind such unprecedented philanthropy. Few could believe that the bequest was really an act of enlightened generosity. The whole story exuded an air of megalomania. A man had given a huge gift to a country he had never even seen, all—it appeared—in order to have his name on a building in the nation's capital. The charge d'affaires in London suggested, privately, in his report on the matter, that there was some question as to whether "the Testator labored under some degree of mental aberration at the time it [the will] was made."6

  John Quincy Adams, now serving as a congressman after having been president, thought he understood better than anyone the aspirations behind James Smithson's gift. A near exact contemporary of Smithson, Adams had been raised in the courts of Europe, enjoying a cosmopolitan, well-traveled childhood with his diplomat-president father; he nursed a keen interest in scientific research, and he believed that the government could be a force for improvement and scientific advance. As president he had campaigned in his very first address to Congress for the establishment of a national university, the sponsorship of scientific expeditions, and the creation of an astronomical observatory—this last a cause he renewed when presented with the opportunity of the Smithson bequest. He was appointed chairman of the congressional committee convened to consider the bequest, and he argued eloquently for its acceptance. For Adams, Smithson's bequest "signalized the spirit of the age," and he hoped that Congress might show its appreciation of Smithson's "comprehensive beneficence" by unanimously approving a bill to accept the bequest.7

  The promise, however, of a national institution to be located in the capital posed a significant threat to those in the South who championed the issue of states' rights. In the Senate the news of this eccentric legacy ran headlong into the brewing storm of a north-south divide. Both senators from South Carolina vehemently opposed accepting the Smithson bequest. John C. Calhoun railed that it was "beneath the dignity of the United States to receive presents of this kind from anyone." William Preston believed that Congress should not "pander to the paltry vanity of an individual," and the city should not be used "as a fulcrum to raise foreigners to immortality." Otherwise, he ranted, "every Whippersnapper vagabond that had been traducing our country might think proper to have his name distinguished in the same way."8 Ultimately
, at the beginning of July 1836, Congress agreed to condone the appointment of an agent to go to England to secure the money. Beyond that nothing was assured.

  Immediately, the appeal of a prominent sinecure, representing the government abroad, lured prospective suitors to the door of the White House. "It would be gratifying to my pride and conducive to my political fortunes here," gushed one hopeful, "to receive some appointment from the President as he is going out of office. I know of none that I would accept but the agency under the Resolution of the Senate in relation to the Smithson bequest. I should like that appointment, because it would introduce me to the men of business, and give me as much of an official character as I could wish, without chaining me down to a particular spot. The salary is nothing—my own fortune is ample …"9 Wealth was, in fact, an important criterion for the job. The agent would have to be circumspect, a gifted diplomat, skilled in legal matters, and rich. To ensure that he would not abscond with the Smithson monies, he would have to post a bond of half a million dollars.10 Jackson's choice, in the end, was excellent.

  Richard Rush was a lawyer, a seasoned diplomat, and the son of the noted Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence. He had extensive contacts in London, where he had lived for nearly eight years as the United States' ambassador to the Court of St. James's.11 It took Rush little more than a few weeks to put his affairs in order and raise the money for the bond. He sailed in early August to Liverpool, arriving in London in the first days of September 1836.

  Rush quickly learned the particulars of the case from the solicitors—and the problems that faced him. Smithson had indicated, in quite an unusual clause in his will, that the money was to be left to legitimate or illegitimate children, and it would take some doing to prove that there was no secret love child somewhere. Discreet inquiries would have to be made in Italy, France, and England, without drawing attention to the vast sum involved—which Rush was sure would invite fraudulent claimants.

  There was also the matter of the nephew's mother, Madame de la Batut, who was pressing for her share of the money. Rush quickly dismissed such talk, but it was not at all clear that she did not have a right to at least some compensation. A portion of Smithson's fortune had come from his brother, and Dickenson in his will, when leaving his estate to Smithson in trust for his son, had wished for her to enjoy half the income during her lifetime. Smithson had in fact, following the death of his brother, made payments to his brother's widow from time to time, and the nephew had continued the tradition.12

  "A Chancery Suit!" A caricature from 1828 highlighting the endless delays in Chancery; the plaintiff goes from dandy to pauper, while the solicitor does the opposite.

  And lastly, there was the question of whether or not Smithson's servant, John Fitall—the only other person with a claim to the money, as he had been left an annuity in the will—was still alive. This last point, at least, would not be difficult to figure out.

  Rush hoped that the case could be concluded without it having to appear before the infamous Court of Chancery. In the mid-1830s the court was some eight hundred cases in arrears, a backlog that had already reached legendary proportions. "A suit in this Court is become proverbial for something interminable," one visitor to London observed.13 Charles Dickens immortalized the process in Bleak House, set in a lurid and murky 1830s London. Tom Jarndyce, one of the players in the epic suitjarndyce v. Jarndyce, who eventually kills himself in a coffeehouse on Chancery Lane, likens the experience to a slow, drawn-out torture. "It's being ground to bits in a slow mill," he says; "it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains."14

  Rush was understandably daunted by the prospect of the Smithson bequest being smothered by red tape, a term in fact inspired by the red ribbons wrapped around the voluminous case records at Chancery. Unfortunately, the lawyers, when Rush was finally able to sit down with them, promptly ruled out the possibility of avoiding the labyrinthine court system. True to Rush's fears, the fabled delays set in. It was February 1, 1837, five months after Rush's arrival in England, before the first hearing on the case was held.

  During what he called "the first interval in my little Smithsonian steps," while he waited for the opening hearing, Rush filled his time with weekend parties at the great country houses and sightseeing in London.15 These intervening months, however, were hardly free of trouble for the Smithson case. The President of the United States v. Drummonds & Co., the executors of Smithson's will, represented the first instance of the U.S. ever launching a suit in a court of law in England. In January 1837, as the case drew towards the first hearing, the Attorney General for His Majesty—who had been made a party to the case—moved to have the bequest declared void and the Smithson money passed to the Crown. "A complication of illegitimacy" had arisen, Rush reported back to the State Department. Keen to keep the Smithson money from leaving the country, the Crown argued for the will to be set aside on the grounds that Smithson's provision for any illegitimate children of his nephew to inherit under his will was invalid. And on the grounds of the ancient doctrine of escheats, which governed estates left ownerless or in limbo, the Crown stated that Smithson's estate should pass to it in the absence of a valid will. Although this line of argument was quickly dropped, the circumstances of Smithson's birth, amazingly, haunted his estate even beyond the grave.16

  The de la Batut family proved another serious challenge for Rush. Madame de la Batut's husband came to London to press the family's "moral claim" to some portion of the estate. Since the Smithson bequest was intended to promote knowledge, he argued, his children should be entided to an allowance for their education. Rush grew increasingly exasperated with the demands of the family, telling the U.S. government later that "To no one can I give the remotest encouragement … and least of all to one so unreasonable, so exacting, and apparently so bent upon thwarting the rights of the U.S. as Monsieur la Batut."17

  The de la Batut family was, however, in many ways the only source who could supply the information critical to bringing the case to a quick close: proof that Smithson's nephew had died without heirs. Congress had allocated $10,000 for the total costs of securing the Smithson bequest, and Rush found the money slipping away at an alarming rate. "It seems that something is to be paid for every step taken," he lamented, "every line written, and almost every word spoken by counsel, senior and junior, solicitors, clerks, and everybody connected with the courts, and officers attached to them, under the extremely complicated and artificial judiciary systems that exist here."18 In an effort to hasten the proceedings, he soon concluded that it was best to compromise in regard to the family and allow their claim to go forward.

  Rush's decisions were on the whole outstanding—and in the sea of unending, generation-breaking lawsuits that was Chancery, the Smithson case sailed sturdily through in less than two years. "I assure you it was considered a thing next to impossible that you should succeed," one of Rush's English friends finally told him, once it was all over.19 In May 1838, the court awarded the bequest to the United States. They also determined that Mary Ann de la Batut was entitled to an annuity—her portion of the interest due her during her lifetime, as per Dickenson's will. She was granted a payment of £150 a year, backdated to September 1834—the time when Smithson's nephew dropped off making regular payments to his mother. A sum of £5,015 was left in stock in England to generate income enough to cover this annual payment.20

  Rush decided to bring the money, which was mostly in the form of annuities (the equivalent of government bonds), back to the United States as gold coin. It totaled a little over £105,000. Using the common retail price index, which measures purchasing power, this would be the equivalent of a little under £7,000,000 today; using other indicators, however, such as one reflecting the per capita share in the GDP, it could be valued at as much as £97,000,000. Over the course of the next few weeks, with the help of the savvy U.S. consul, he carefu
lly monitored the markets in England, looking for the most opportune time to cash in Smithson's holdings. The country was in a dizzied state of excitement over Queen Victoria's coronation, and Rush worried that if the young Queen took sick, "only think how the stocks would come down." The sheer volume of trading that Rush was contemplating held its own dangers; he was warned that unloading all the bank stock at once might well depress the market. He decided to sell off Smithson's holdings in several smaller pieces. Rush in the end was triumphant at his successful playing of the market, telling the U.S. government that what he had brought in for the 3 percent consols was, he believed, the highest price that had been seen in nearly eight years.21

  Finally, at the end of July 1838, he prepared to set sail. Smithson's belongings had been stored in a warehouse in London, and Rush had the boxes opened to make a fresh inventory of the contents. Packed haphazardly years earlier, they were already suffering the effects of mold and dirt. It quickly became clear that a number of things from the original inventory were now missing, including Smithson's gun, an assortment of china, a pair of glass candlesticks, a "Derby spar vase" (made of the dark violet fluor-spar, or "Blue John," found near Castleton), and two small oval portraits—probably those of the two Percy girls, Smithson's half-sisters Dorothy and Philadelphia, willed to him by Margaret Marriott.22 These objects, the solicitors concluded, had most likely been taken by the nephew and were now gone. The Americans carefully repacked the trunks and secured them with the consular seal, and Smithson's possessions joined the 104,960 gold sovereign coins that comprised the Smithson bequest—packed in leather bags, and sealed in eleven boxes—on the transport ship that was to carry Rush home. In the first days of September 1838, after a turbulent, month-long crossing filled with "squalls, gales, and headwinds," the aptly named Mediator sailed into view of the friendly, steeple-topped harbor of New York. More than two years had passed since Rush had set out to claim the Smithson bequest.