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THE GREAT AMERICAN CANALS

may their marriage be speedily consummated." A toast which tells of Clay's presidential ambitions was proposed by B. S. Forrest of Maryland after the speaker's withdrawal from the board in the following technical phrase: "Henry Clay, qualified to pass the summit level; neither giddy in ascending, nor dismayed in descending!" The members of the important Central Committee were Charles F. Mercer, John Mason, Walter Jones, Thomas Swann, John McLean, William H. Fitzhugh, H. L. Opie, Alfred H. Powell, P. C. Pendleton, A. Fenwick, John Lee, Frisby Tilghman, and Robert W. Bowie. The committee to memorialize Congress was as follows: Walter Jones, John Mason, George Washington Park Custis, Robert I. Taylor, S. H. Smith.[1]

That George Washington's original plan of connecting the Potomac with the Great Lakes was still dominant, a resolution of this convention proves; the Virginians and Marylanders were bound to control the commerce of the Lakes even with the Erie

  1. National Intelligencer; Niles Register, vol. xxv, p. 175.