under the impression that full connection with the West by canal was possible, and that Baltimore was to become, virtually, the eastern terminus. The report of the national board as to the enormous expense of the canal precluded the thought of the building of the Middle and Western Sections, and, consequently, deprived it of its genuinely national character. The discouragements discovered by the Maryland Canal Company in their attempt to find a satisfactory location for a canal route from the Potomac to Baltimore,[1] also had its effect in strengthening the opinion of Baltimore capitalists that Baltimore could never hold the trade of the West by water routes as for half a century she had held it by land routes. New York and Philadelphia were fast surpassing her, and, by means of the Pennsylvania and Erie Canals, seemed in a fair way to secure the trade of the West which once had been hers. In the editorial already quoted the discouraging state of trade in Baltimore is hinted at.
Philip E. Thomas, president of the Mechanic's Bank of Baltimore and a commis-
- ↑ Scharf's History of Maryland, vol. iii, p. 164.
