Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 14).djvu/183

Rh it seemed, would be most benefited by the canal, Vermont on one side and Ohio and Kentucky (!) on the other, and to the United States. "But if no extraneous aid should be afforded," the commissioners concluded with threatening menace, "it will at all times be in the power of this state to levy high transit on the articles transported to and from those states and the territory of the United States, and thereby secure eventually, a greater fund than can possibly arise from any present contribution from those quarters." In order to facilitate gifts in lands or money, the commissioners scattered blank forms of cession and bequest throughout the country; "one form relates to gratuitous grants of land for the ground through which the canal is to pass, and the other is a contribution to the fund for making it. Agents have also been appointed in Vermont and Ohio for the same purpose." It was reported that nearly all the land necessary for the canal throughout its entire length would be ceded by the owners to the state for the purpose. In concluding their report for the year ending February 15, 1817, the commission-