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102
THE GREAT AMERICAN CANALS

the rights of each company should be precisely defined. It was with this view, we believe, that the injunction [of June 10] in the present stage was applied for; in order that the question how far the charter granted to the canal company, giving to them the privileges of condemning such land as may be necessary for the construction of that work, barred any other company from obtaining land along the same line, until the objects of the canal company should be accomplished. By the final settlement of this question, in the beginning, all ground for future collision would be removed. We should regret, therefore, if our Baltimore neighbors should regard as an act of hostility to them, that which is, in fact, simply an assertion of our own rights. There is no disposition to embarrass their work, to which we desire all success; there is no wish to delay it, as is evident from the offer which is said to have been made . . to refer the question to . . the court of appeals now sitting at Annapolis."[1]

Plans were already making by the rival

  1. Id., p. 267.