THE MOUNT VERNON COMPACT OF 1785

Affidavit Submitted by Professor Ronald Hoffman

February 5, 2001

IN THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
VIRGINIA v. MARYLAND, ORIGINAL No. 129
AFFIDAVIT OF RONALD HOFFMAN, Ph.D.

I, RONALD HOFFMAN, state that the following is true to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief: 

February 6, 2001.

Qualifications
	After completing my undergraduate degree at George Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1964, I entered the graduate program in history at the University of Wisconsin, earning an MA in 1965 and a PhD in 1969. My area of concentration at the University of Wisconsin was in early American history, and I studied with one of the field’s legendary scholars, Professor Merrill Jensen. From 1969 until 1992, I taught at the University of Maryland, where I offered a variety of undergraduate courses. My graduate teaching focused exclusively on seminars dealing with the era of the American Revolution. I left the University of Maryland with the rank of Professor of History. Since July 1992, I have been Director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and Professor of History at the College of William and Mary.
	The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, the only organization in the United States exclusively dedicated to the advancement of study, research, and publications bearing on the history and culture of early America until approximately 1815, marked its fiftieth anniversary in 1993. Founded as the Institute of Early American History and Culture in 1943 by The College of William and Mary and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Institute, which is still jointly sponsored by those institutions, was renamed in 1996 in recognition of a generous endowment pledged by Mr. and Mrs. Malvern H. Omohundro, Jr. As specifically directed by its constitution, the Institute stimulates interest in the earliest period of American history, disseminates historical knowledge through the publication of books and a journal, assists writers and scholars in their work, maintains the highest standards of historical accuracy and integrity, and furthers an understanding of the early Republic. The Institute's scope also encompasses the Caribbean, Latin America, the British Isles, Europe, and Africa, insofar as the study of the histories and cultures of these places is relevant to the mainland of North America from 1500 to 1815.
	The Institute's permanent, full‑time staff consists of twelve persons, five of whom hold doctorates in either history, American Studies, or English. Collectively, these individuals support a variety of research and publication programs. Among these, none is more visible than the William and Mary Quarterly, considered by many scholars to be one of the finest, if not the finest, historical journal published in the United States. More than 3,500 people and institutions currently subscribe to the Quarterly, and of this number, nearly 400 are located outside the United States. In 1994 the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation defined the Quarterly as one of the five core historical journals published in the English language and invited the Institute to participate in JSTOR, an ambitious information storage project involving in its initial stages a total of ten journals, five in the field of history and five in economics. A similarly high standard of excellence has made the Institute's book publishing program equally renowned. Many of the 165 studies it has brought into print since 1943 are regarded as classics and have been adopted for classroom use at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. In the last three decades, Institute books, released at an average rate of three a year, have received sixty major commendations, including a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, five Bancroft Prizes, a Jacques Barzun Prize, an Albert J. Beveridge Award, six Dunning prizes, eight Outstanding Academic Book citations from Choice, and thirty‑seven other awards given by prominent professional organizations, among them the American Historical Association, the American Society for Eighteenth‑Century Studies, the Economic History Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Southern Association of Women Historians, and the Southern Historical Association.
	Designated by the National Endowment for the Humanities as one of just eleven Advanced Research Institutions in the United States, the Institute awards annually, in conjunction with the NEH, a two‑year postdoctoral fellowship designed to give the most accomplished and promising beginning scholars in the nation an opportunity to revise their dissertations into books that will make major contributions to the field of early American studies. Each year the Institute also offers a one‑year Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to a scholar whose first‑book manuscript has significant potential for enriching the early American field.
	I am a specialist in the era of the American Revolution. My writings include two scholarly monographs: A Spirit of Dissension: Economics, Politics and the Revolution in Maryland and Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland: A Carroll Saga, 1500‑1782. I also served as a co‑author for a college level textbook, The Pursuit of Liberty: A History of the American People. My articles and essays have appeared in the most intellectually demanding historical publications, including the William and Mary Quarterly, the American Historical Review, Perspectives in American History, and other collections of scholarly work. From 1977 to 1993, I served as Symposia Director of the United States Capitol Historical Society and in that capacity organized and chaired a series of annual conferences devoted to various aspects of the American Revolution and Early National Eras. I also co‑edited, with Peter J. Albert, the proceedings of those meetings that comprise the series Perspectives on the American Revolution, published by the University Press of Virginia. The release in 1999 of the sixteenth volume of collected essays  completed that publication program.
	I am now editing the family papers of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and in September 2001 a three‑volume set, Dear Papa, Dear Charley: The Charles Carroll of Carrollton Family Papers, 1748‑1782, will appear. Throughout my career I have delivered papers at numerous professional meetings both within the United States and abroad. I serve on the Advisory Committee of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, the Academic Advisory Board of the Center for the Study of Modern Constitutionalism at the University of London, the Maryland Historical Society Advisory Board, the Advisory Council of the Society for the History of the Early American Republic, and the Advisory Board of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello.

Introduction
	The Mount Vernon Compact of 1785 culminated a nine‑year attempt to settle the jurisdiction and navigation of the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac and Pocomoke Rivers.  Both Maryland and Virginia sought to achieve an agreement on these matters after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, because their transformation from colonies to sovereign states created new conditions and uncertainties about what rights and privileges each would enjoy on the other’s waterways.  Primarily concerned with access to the upper Chesapeake and its rivers and harbors, Maryland insisted that Virginia forswear the possibility of charging tolls at the bay’s entrance at Cape Charles and Cape Henry.  Under British rule the bay had been a common highway of the empire, but once independence became a reality, the mouth of the Chesapeake came under Virginia’s control.  Conversely, Virginia eagerly sought to secure concurrent jurisdiction over the Potomac River, which Maryland claimed under the provisions of its original charter.  As stipulated by Charles I in his 1632 grant to Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore and first proprietor of Maryland, Maryland owned the Potomac River, a reality that Virginia subsequently acknowledged in the constitution it adopted in 1776.
	The Mount Vernon Compact of March 1785 should not be confused with the legislation adopted by Maryland in December 1784 and Virginia in January 1785 to create the Potomac Company, an enterprise designed to open and extend navigation above tidewater by means of removing obstructions and building canals in the non‑tidal portion of the river.  The Compact’s language applied only to coastal commerce and foreign trade and the regulations requisite to the conduct of such activities.  The correspondence of the persons most intimately involved in the Compact’s adoption, the sequence of events, and the text of the agreement are unambiguous in demonstrating that the Compact applied to the tidal stretch of the river.  On two separate occasions prior to the Mount Vernon meeting, James Madison, one of the four commissioners appointed by Virginia to negotiate with Maryland, stated that their purpose was to resolve navigational issues in the tidewater portion of the river.  Moreover, Madison categorically stated after the conference that Maryland and Virginia had held “a meeting on the proposition of Virga. for settling the navigation & jurisdiction of Potowmac below the falls, & have agreed to report to the two Assemblies, the establishment of a concurrent jurisdiction on that river & Chesapeak.”
	The centrality of Madison’s role in the events of 1785 must be emphasized.  He provided the initial push for the convening of the conference and was appointed a commissioner to negotiate with his Maryland counterparts.  However, he did not learn of the date and place of the meeting in time to attend.  Nonetheless, he assumed responsibility for explaining the Compact’s purposes and intentions to his fellow delegates in the Virginia general assembly and guided the agreement to its final passage by that body in December 1785.
	At the same time that Maryland and Virginia were discussing jurisdiction over the lower Potomac, they were also involved in plans for the river above Little Falls.  The possibility of making this area accessible for navigation and trade had intrigued ambitious men in Maryland and Virginia since the 1750s.  Initially disrupted by the American Revolution, action on such hopeful schemes was further delayed by the two states’ rancorous disagreement over the disposition of western lands, an issue that polarized political interests on both sides of the river until its resolution in 1781.  Three years later, in 1784, George Washington—long an advocate of plans to open the upper Potomac for navigation and trade—persuaded the Maryland and Virginia legislatures to charter a canal company for the purpose of clearing and improving the river above Little Falls.  Through concurrent acts passed in December 1784 and January 1785, the Maryland and Virginia assemblies chartered the Potomac Company, with jurisdiction above tidewater.  This legislation was enacted three months before the meeting at Mount Vernon convened and more than eleven months before the Maryland and Virginia legislatures officially adopted the Compact that conference produced.
	The presence of George Washington in both of these activities should be clarified.  He played a leading role in the negotiations that led to the chartering of the Potomac Company, and he visited Annapolis, Maryland, on two occasions in December 1784, as the final arrangements for creating the company were being made.  By contrast, he was not appointed a delegate to the Compact conference, and merely offered the use of his Mount Vernon home in March 1785 to the three Maryland and two Virginia commissioners.  Indeed, Washington had little interest in the subject of the meeting, because, as the historical record demonstrates, the commissioners at Mount Vernon had convened to discuss the tidal portion of the Potomac and stuck strictly to their script.

The Ownership of the Potomac
	The ownership of the Potomac River became a potential issue between the two colonies, in 1632, when King Charles granted Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, a charter establishing the colony of Maryland on land that King James had granted to Virginia a quarter of a century earlier. Maryland’s charter claimed the Potomac, not to the middle as one might expect, but all the way “unto the further Bank,” that is, to the Potomac’s southern shore.  Maryland, as far as its inhabitants were concerned, owned the entire river.  But in 1649, Charles II granted land between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers, the so-called “Northern Neck”of Virginia, to seven noblemen.  The bounds in that grant extended to the northern shore of the Potomac, in direct conflict with Maryland’s grant.
	This contradiction was not resolved until the summer of 1776, when Thomas Jefferson began to formulate a new constitution for his state.  In an effort to deflect criticism of Virginia’s ownership of the vast and valuable lands it claimed beyond the Appalachians, Jefferson was willing, in his second and third drafts, to cede all “the territories contained within the charters erecting the colonies of Maryland[,] Pennsylvania, North & South Carolina . . . which might at any time heretofore have been claimed by this colony.”  However, “the Western and Northern extent of this country shall in all other respects stand as fixed by the Charter of [1609].”  Before the new constitution appeared in final form, though, some person or persons believed that Jefferson was giving away too much, because Maryland’s charter gave it the entire Potomac River.  To ensure that Virginia still held some rights on the river, even if it no longer claimed ownership, the final version of the constitution specified that Virginia would cede all rights, “except the free Navigation and use of the Rivers Potowmack and Pohomoke, with the property of the Virginia Shores or strands bordering on either of the said Rivers, and all improvements which have been or shall be made thereon.”

Early Efforts to Open the Inland Navigation of the Potomac above Little Falls
	George Washington, who would become the foremost proponent of enterprises to improve and extend the navigation of the Potomac, explored and made observations on the river above Great Falls as early as 1754, with a view to improving the river and using it as a means of transportation for Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock’s forthcoming campaign against the French and their Indian allies.  Braddock’s “late coming in Spring 1755 & hurry of business . . . immediately upon his arrival allowed no time for . . . attempts of this sort,” however, “& afterwards our affairs . . . took . . . quite another turn.”
	In 1762, shortly before the French and Indian War ended, a private company using public subscriptions was organized to take up the work of opening the river from Great Falls to Fort Cumberland.  Washington does not seem to have been closely associated with this apparently short-lived effort, which may have been dropped when it became clear that Parliament’s passage of the Proclamation of  1763 would close the transmontane West to further settlement.  Interest in the project revived with the reopening of the frontier in 1768.  In 1769 John Semple, a Scot who owned land on the Maryland side of the river and operated an iron furnace on the Virginia banks above Harper’s Ferry, prepared a proposal for “Opening & making Convenient Passage for Vessells . . . through such particular parts of the River Potomac above the Great falls, as is now difficult, & render Tedious and Expensive Portages Necessary.”  Washington became actively involved in the effort to gain legislative support for Semple’s proposal and henceforth assumed a leading role in the Potomac enterprise, working closely during the early 1770s with Thomas Johnson, a member of the Maryland assembly and later the state’s first governor, who promoted the project on the north side of the Potomac.
	It is important to recognize that when Washington and other promoters spoke of the “opening” and “improving” of the navigation of the Potomac, they specifically meant inland navigation, something quite distinct from tidewater navigation.  To the modern observer there is, as James Madison’s biographer Irving Brant has pointed out, “a mystifying sound to this talk of rivers navigable to their mountain sources.”  The invention of the railroad during the nineteenth century, not to mention the automobile and airplane in the twentieth, has nearly obliterated our ability to conceive of a world in which all goods moved along inland routes at the speed of ox carts and river boats.  And yet, as Brant writes:
Washington lived when the whole commerce of the West was carried by canoe or flat batteau . . . Almost any creek that would float a tricorn hat was fit for commerce, or could be made so by pulling rocks out of its bed.  This scheme actually was to be applied to all falls and rapids of the Potomac above Great Falls.  As Madison described it, the plan was ‘to slope the fall by opening the bed of the river . . . and by means of ropes fastened to the rocks, to pull up and ease down the boats where the current is most rapid.’  These batteaux, sixty feet long and carrying up to ten tons, drew only eight to twelve inches of water.  The same principle was to be applied to canoe navigation in mountain creeks—a fact utterly lost sight of, a century later, in Supreme Court battles over the navigability of small streams.

	The concept of navigation above the falls becomes comprehensible only when we recognize that Washington and his contemporaries never contemplated or conceived of opening the Potomac above tidewater to the same type of vessels engaged in commerce on the tidal stretch of the river.  They did not envision one continuous navigation from the Chesapeake Bay up the Potomac beyond the tidewater ports to the upper reaches of the river, but rather two very distinct, disconnected types of navigation that would complement each other and together open a water passage—of one sort or another—from the backcountry to the tidewater.  John Semple’s 1769 description of proposed improvements to the river highlights this discontinuity.  His proposal envisioned clearing the river above—but not around—Great Falls, beginning at “the lowest landing place to which it is proposed opening a passage.”  Goods would still have to be portaged from “The Widow Brewster’s Two Miles above the great falls or Cataract and within ten miles of Tide water,” a mere “days Journey” by land.  Once the improvements above the falls were complete, Semple wrote, “Vessells might pass from one end of the River to the other without hindrance or Stoppage.”  Semple did not need to clarify that he meant from one end of the river to the other above tidewater; he and his contemporaries understood perfectly well the difference between the tidal and nontidal rivers, conceiving of them as two distinct bodies of water.
 	All contemporary descriptions of the Potomac River and the proposed improvements to render it navigable highlight the differences between the tidewater portion of the river accessible to oceangoing ships and the rocky, shallow, treacherous inland navigation.  Washington’s 1754 “observations” of the river offer a fascinating view of the difficulties inherent in the project, especially given the state of eighteenth-century technology, even as they highlight his unflagging optimism regarding the feasibility of the undertaking.  “From the Mouth of Paterson’s Creek to the beg[innin]g of Shannondoah Falls” he wrote
there is no other obstacle than the shallowness of the Water to prevent Craft from passing—the first of those Falls is also even and shallow but swift and continues so with interruptions of Rocks to what is known by the Spout wch is a Mile & half from this their  is Rocky swift and very uneven water for near 6 Miles in which distant there are 4 Falls; the first of which is tolerably clear of Rocks but shallow yet may be much amended by digging a Channel on the Maryland side. 

	Washington acknowledged that “what they call the Spout. which . . . has a considerable Fall the water being confined shoots with great Rapidity & what adds much to the difficulty is the bottom being exceeding Rocky occasions a Rippling so prodigious that none but boats or large Canoes Can pass” might pose some—but “ind[ee]d almost the only”—difficulty.  The canoe Washington was in “had near sunk having received much water,” but he nevertheless suggested that there “may be a passage also got round this also upon the Maryland shoar that Vessels may be hald up after removing some Rocks which a moderate expence may accomplish.”  But while he declared that the “Seneca Fall is easily pass’d in two places,” even his optimism did not extend to the Great Falls; “the advantage of passg this Fall,” he predicted, “will not be adiquate to the expense and trouble.”  
	Maryland governor Horatio Sharpe also made a survey of the Potomac about the same time in order to assess its suitability for transporting military supplies.  Sharpe, however, had a much more pessimistic view of the river’s navigability than Washington, reporting to Braddock on February 9, 1755, that the Potomac River “proved from the number of shoals & falls to be of no Service in transporting either Artillery or other Baggage.”   A month later Sharpe repeated this assessment in a letter to Lord Baltimore, writing that “in Order to examine the Channel of that River we came down Potowmack by water for the Distance of about 250 Miles, the many Falls & Shoals in that River will we find render the conveyance of Artillery & other Stores to the Camp by water impracticable.”
	Jefferson’s description of the “Patowmac” in his Notes on the State of Virginia (compiled in 1781-1782) draws a sharp distinction between the upper and lower part of the river.  Seven and one-half miles wide at the mouth, the river narrows to “4 ½ at Nomony bay; 3 at Aquia; 1 ½ at Hallowing point.”  It is still one-quarter mile wide at Alexandria, the furthest inland port, but its width above there Jefferson does not bother to mention.  The depth ranges from seven fathoms (42 feet) “at the mouth; 5 at St. George’s island; 4 ½ at Lower Mathodic; 3 at Swan’s point, and thence up to Alexandria; thence 10 feet water to the falls,” the depth above which Jefferson again does not specify.  These falls, “13 miles above Alexandria . . . are 15 miles in length, and of very great descent, and the navigation above them for batteaux and canoes, is so much interrupted as to be little used,” though “capable, at no great expense, of being rendered very practicable.”
	Although Washington and like thinkers recognized that navigation above tidewater—which they often referred to as “inland navigation”—was very different from tidal navigation and was fraught with difficulties, they nevertheless believed it was a desirable, possible, and even essential undertaking.  Washington assured fellow enthusiast Thomas Johnson in 1770 that there is no person who “wishes to see an undertaking of the sort go forward with more facility and ardour than I do.”  Water transportation was an essential lifeline of trade and communication in the world Washington inhabited, yet settlers had long since swarmed into the Maryland and Virginia backcountry, many miles beyond the reach of, or easy access to, the navigable tidewater portions of the colonies’ rivers. 
	These settlers, like their tidewater counterparts, sought to market their tobacco, wheat, and other produce at the commercial centers and shipping points in the east, but were burdened with difficult, slow, expensive land carriage or, alternatively, the many portages required to circumvent obstacles on the rivers above their falls.  Even without his proposed improvements Semple estimated that it cost more than twice as much to transport a ton of iron by land carriage from Keep Triste furnace, located on the banks of the Potomac above Harper’s Ferry, to tidewater, despite all the necessary portages that would be eliminated if his plan were implemented.  A ten-mile portage by land, he estimated, would require “a days Journey.”  Johnson similarly in 1770 calculated the cost of transporting 38 bushels of wheat 80 miles by “Land Carriage” at £4, more than double the cost of water carriage as it then existed, without any of the sought-after improvements.
	Although backcountry settlers would undoubtedly benefit from these improvements, Washington and his allies were at the same time motivated by a much grander vision of opening the transmontane West to trade and commerce.  Semple’s 1769 proposal pointed out that opening the Potomac had “been long considered as highly meriting the public attention” because “much the readiest & easiest communication with the waters of the Ohio & Consequently Fort du Quisnie must be by the river Potomac, as it woud reduce the whole of the land Carriage from Alexandria to the aforesd fort, (now fort Pitt) a distance of two hundred & Sixty Miles to no more than Seventy.”  While Johnson in 1770 noted the immediate advantages to be had in reducing the cost of shipping goods from western Maryland to tidewater, he also extolled the “future Advantages” to be had “in making Poto. the Channel of Conveyance and Connection between the new Country westward and Britain,” a point appreciated by “some though not enough.”  Washington likewise agreed that “there is the strongest speculative Proof in the World of the immense advantages which Virginia & Maryland might derive (and at a very small comparitive Expence) by making Potomack the Channel of Commerce between Great Britain and that immense Tract of Country which is unfolding to our view the advantages of which are too great, & too obvious I should think to become the Subject of serious debate.”
	Inspired by “the vast bodies of land now Ceded to us by the Indians [which] must open a new and extensive field of Commerce, of which the River Potomac must Necessarily be the principall Channell,” Semple had sought to win public support for removing the obstacles on the river.  Using the observations of “some Gentlemen [who] have lately carefully viewed the river and Computed the Expence of removing the different Obstacles,” he described the impediments to navigation and optimistically predicted that “at the expence of £5000 the best Channell is opened for inland trade that can be possibly had in British America[.] The land Carriage between the bay of Chesapeak and the mouth of the Mississippi, the Ilenois, three hundred Miles up the Missuri and to the different lakes, by very small Portages is reduced to Seventy Miles, and in time may be reduced to a much Shorter distance.”  Semple’s recommendations attracted favorable attention on both sides of the Potomac, and on December 5, 1769, the Maryland lower house appointed a committee chaired by Thomas Johnson to draft a bill for the express purpose of implementing the proposals.  The same day the Virginia house directed Washington and Richard Henry Lee to bring in a bill “for clearing and making navigable the River Potowmack, from the great Falls of the said River, up to Fort Cumberland.”  Semple wrote Washington on January 8, 1770, that he was “greatly pleased to find you are so likely to Carry the point of Improveing Potowmack River,” but although the bills passed the lower houses of both colonies, they failed to gain the approval of either of the upper houses and neither became law.
	Frustrated by the failure to secure legislation and “too well acquainted with the Difficulties of carrying points of Consequence through the three Branches of one Legisl[ature] to entertain Expectations that both Legislatures will soon concur circumstantially in the same Scheme for clearing Potowmack,” Johnson reverted to the idea of a private company.  In the spring of 1770 he attempted to raise money to clear the Shenandoah Falls by subscription.  Having been assured of Washington’s “Friendship to the Inland Navigation on Potowmack,” Johnson initiated a correspondence with him, enclosing a copy of the subscription paper with the request that he communicate “your Thoughts on the Subject.”   Washington replied that he was “not without my doubts of your Schemes falling through” because only “those who are actuated by motives of Publick Spirit” or who would benefit from clearing the river would subscribe.  “The only method by which this desirable work will ever be accomplished” would be to vest the subscribers “with a kind of property in the Navigation, under certain restrictions & limitation’s, and to be reimbursd their first advances with a high Interest thereon by a certain easy Toll on all Craft proportionate to their respective Burthen’s, in the manner that I am told works of this sort are effected in the Inland parts of England.”
	What became of Johnson’s subscription effort is unknown, but thereafter the two men worked closely together to win legislative support.  The ideas Washington expressed in his 1770 letter to Johnson were subsequently incorporated into “An act for opening and extending the navigation of the river Potowmack from Fort Cumberland to tide water,” passed by the Virginia assembly in April 1772.  Washington later claimed to have been the “principal mover” behind this act, which authorized a subscription and lottery to raise money for “the extension of the navigation of Potowmack river from tide water to fort Cumberland.”  Subscribers were “impowered to receive reasonable tolls, or duties, to enable them to cut, support, and repair, such canals, locks and other works, which may be found necessary in carrying into execution this undertaking,” and the act provided for the condemnation of lands needed to complete the work.
	Johnson apparently tried to persuade the Maryland legislature to enact similar legislation but reported his failure to Washington on May 10, 1772, with the explanation that “our Governor is still under an Impression that a Concurrence by our Assembly in a Scheme with yours for clearing Potowmack may weaken the proprietary Claim of Jurisdiction over that River,” referring to the boundary delineated in the 1632 grant.  Despite the lack of official support, the Maryland governor and other “principal Gentlemen” of the colony joined with their counterparts in Virginia to contract with John Ballendine, asking him in 1772 to undertake the work of building canals and locks to open the Potomac.  Ballendine went to England to visit the works constructed by the Duke of Bridgewater (the “founder of British inland navigations”) and after he returned in the summer of 1774 began work on the project.  In the fall of that year Washington—who contributed £500 Virginia currency to the undertaking—became a trustee, along with 21 Marylanders and 15 other Virginians, of a company organized to carry out Ballendine’s plan for opening the Potomac to navigation above the falls.
	The company soon began to experience difficulties, however, and, after a visit from Ballendine in January 1775, Johnson wrote Washington that he despaired of ever seeing the Potomac made navigable unless the legislature passed a bill in support of the project.  He sent Washington his ideas on the subject but noted that “Time will not allow me to reduce them to the full Draft of a Bill.”  Washington then forwarded Johnson’s notes to George Mason, who drafted a “Bill for improving the Navigation of Potomack” to be introduced in both the Maryland and Virginia legislatures.  Mason asked Washington to send the bill to Johnson with the understanding that it “is intended only as a Ground-work, & that I desire every part of it may be submitted to his Correction.”  Mason’s efforts, which had taken him “five times as long” as expected, were, however, in vain.  The bill was never presented to the Maryland assembly, which had disbanded in April 1774 and did not reconvene in 1775.  The Virginia assembly did pass an act “for raising a Capital sum of forty thousand Pounds Sterling, by subscription, and establishing a Company for the opening and extending the navigation of the River Potowmack” in June 1775.  The Virginia act proved insufficient to save Ballendine’s company, and in the face of Maryland’s lack of official support and the growing Revolutionary conflict, he announced his abandonment of the project in October 1775.
	With the onset of the Revolutionary War these grand plans to improve inland navigation were put aside.  They had accomplished little, but they did lay the groundwork for fruitful postwar efforts.  George Washington, who had been the most influential backer of the project, took command of the American army in July 1775, and for the next several years gave little thought, if his correspondence is any indication, to the Potomac—other than its defense against the British.

Early Efforts to Settle the Jurisdiction and Navigation of the Chesapeake Bay and the Tidewater Rivers

	Defense of the Chesapeake and its tributaries was a great concern to citizens of both Maryland and Virginia, especially in August 1777, when Britain’s General William Howe sailed up the bay on his way to capturing Philadelphia.  It was a short step for Virginians and Marylanders to move beyond military collaboration to commercial and jurisdictional cooperation.  And by 1777 Virginia’s constitutional recognition of Maryland’s charter boundaries had removed a significant impediment to that end.
	At first Marylanders did not see Virginia’s cession in a positive light.  Maryland’s own constitutional convention, in session when a copy of Virginia’s constitution reached them on October 29, 1776, objected to Virginia’s territorial claims, resolving unanimously: “That it is the opinion of this convention, that the state of Virginia hath not any right or title to any of the territory, bays, rivers, or waters, included in the charter granted by his majesty Charles the first to Caecilius Calvert, baron of Baltimore.”  The addition to Jefferson’s draft of that clause excepting the free navigation of the Potomac and the Pocomoke rivers offended Maryland’s delegates:
Resolved unanimously, That it is the opinion of this convention, That the sole and exclusive jurisdiction over the territory, bays, rivers, and waters, included in the said charter, belongs to this state; and that the river Potowmack, and almost the whole of the river Pocomoke, being comprehended in the said charter, the sole and exclusive jurisdiction over the said river Potowmack, and also over such part of the river Pocomoke as is comprehended in the said charter, belongs to this state; and that the river Potowmack and that part of Chesapeake bay which lies between the capes and the south boundary of this state, and so much thereof as is necessary to the navigation of the rivers Potowmack and Pocomoke, ought to be considered as a common high‑way, free for the people of both states, without being subject to any duty, burthens or charge, as hath been heretofore accustomed.

	Encroachment on the Potomac and Pocomoke did not constitute Maryland’s entire objection to Virginia’s cession.  Maryland was a small state, lacking in any claims to western lands.  Its citizens were concerned that the larger states, especially neighboring Virginia, would derive so much profit from the western lands that the landlocked states would be forever disadvantaged and driven into poverty.  Accordingly, the delegates raised a third point:
Resolved unanimously, That it is the opinion of this convention, that the very extensive claim of the state of Virginia to the back lands hath no foundation in justice, and that if the same or any like claim is admitted, the freedom of the smaller states and the liberties of America may be thereby greatly endangered; this convention being firmly persuaded, that if the dominion over those lands should be established by the blood and treasure of the United States, such lands ought to be considered as a common stock, to be parcelled out at proper times into convenient, free and independent governments.

	Virginia, an independent, sovereign state whose constitution required no confirmation or approval from other states, did not respond to Maryland’s concerns.  The matter continued to fester among Marylanders, however, and the following year their house of delegates, on November 8, 1777, adopted a resolution reiterating the resolves passed by  the 1776 Convention.  The resolution directed that a letter be sent to the Virginia assembly enclosing a copy of the resolves and requesting “their sentiments on the subject matter therein contained.”  The Maryland senate replied on November 25, 1777, that they were “inclined to think a more eligible course may be pursued of coming to a right understanding of the several matters comprehended in those resolves, so as to prevent, by removing present suspicions, future dissentions between the two states.  With this view, we propose, that a joint letter be written . . . to the assembly of Virginia, informing that honourable body, that . . . the free navigation and use of the rivers Patowmack and Pocomoke, and of that part of the bay of Chesapeake within the limits of Virginia, together with the jurisdiction, as heretofore respectively exercised by each state . . . ought to be confirmed by the legislature of each, to the people of both states.”
	In other words, Maryland was willing to give up its exclusive navigation, use, and jurisdiction over the Potomac in exchange for Virginia’s analogous powers over the lower Chesapeake.  The senate further recommended that commissioners be appointed by both states to manage “this business.”  Maryland’s legislature sent its letter to Virginia on December 1, 1777.  Eight days later the Virginia assembly appointed George Mason, Thomas Ludwell Lee, and James Henry as its commissioners, advising them “to consider of the most proper means to adjust and confirm the rights of each [state] . . . in order to prevent any difference on those subjects, which may interrupt that desirable harmony between the two countries, which it is equally the interest of both to cultivate.”
	On December 22, 1777, having received notice of Virginia’s action, the Maryland legislature appointed Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Thomas Stone, and Samuel Chase commissioners, and suggested the meeting take place on February 2, 1778, in Alexandria, Virginia.  Maryland’s instructions to its commissioners left no doubt as to its primary objective in the proposed conference:
1. You are to insist, that the commonwealth of Virginia shall expressly relinquish every claim of right to impose tolls on any vessels whatever sailing through the capes of Chesapeake bay to the state of Maryland, or returning from this state through the said capes outward bound; this you are to insist on as a condition sine qua non, and if not acquiesced in by the commissioners from the commonwealth of Virginia, you are to break off the conference, and not enter into the discussion of any of the matters herein after mentioned.

	If Virginia agreed to this essential point the commissioners could proceed to discuss the remaining issues outlined in their instructions:
2. You are to endeavour to settle the point of jurisdiction over that part of the bay lying within the limits of Virginia in the following manner: That all piracies, crimes, or offences, committed on the said part of the bay by the subjects of this state, or by any other persons not subjects of the commonwealth of Virginia, against the subjects of this state, shall be tried in the court of this state which has, according to the laws of this state, cognizance of the offence; and that all piracies, crimes, and offences, committed as aforesaid by the subjects of Virginia, or by any other persons, not subjects of this state, against any subject of Virginia, shall be tried in the court of the commonwealth of Virginia, which, by the laws thereof, has cognizance of the offence.  And if any person shall fly from justice from either of the said states, such person may be taken upon the said water by process from the state from which such person shall fly as aforesaid.  That piracies, crimes, and offences, committed as aforesaid by persons not subjects of either state, against persons not subjects of either state, shall be tried in the court of the state in which the offenders shall be first seized in order to be brought to justice.

3. You are to endeavour to obtain, that the use and navigation of the rivers Patowmack and Pocomoke shall be free to the subjects of both states, and to all other persons trading to either state, and that the said rivers be considered as a common highway, free to all persons navigating the same; provided nevertheless, that each state shall have a right of imposing tolls, duties, or customs, on vessels coming into its respective ports on the said rivers, and unloading therein their cargoes or part thereof.

	In short, the lower bay (wholly owned by Virginia), the Pocomoke (jointly owned), and the Potomac (wholly owned by Maryland) were to be treated in the same way, as common highways.  “The jurisdiction to be exercised by each state over the rivers aforesaid, cannot, in the opinion of this assembly,” the instructions concluded, “be put on a better and more equitable footing, than that in which you are instructed to settle the jurisdiction over that part of the bay within the limits of the commonwealth of Virginia.”  Neither state, in Maryland’s view, should give up its ownership, only its rights to the exclusive navigation and use of its waters.  The arrangement was to be a quid pro quo, the Potomac in exchange for the Chesapeake.  And because full equivalence was intended, it follows that both states had the same kind of navigation in mind for the rivers as for the bay, namely, seagoing or “tidewater” navigation, as opposed to the very different riverine or “inland” form.
	Eventually the Mount Vernon Compact of 1785 would incorporate, almost verbatim, these 1777 instructions.  The proposed conference did not, however, take place in 1778.  Three weeks before appointing their commissioners, Maryland’s legislators received word that the Continental Congress had accepted the Articles of Confederation and was now passing them on to the thirteen states for ratification.  The timing could not have been worse for the upcoming conference, because Maryland had serious reservations about the Articles.  The main problem, Maryland claimed, was that they made no provision for the land west of the Appalachians to be set aside for the common good of all thirteen states.  States like Virginia, whose western boundary theoretically ran to the Pacific Ocean, retained their ownership of the West, while states like Maryland, whose western boundary was fixed by its charter, continued to have no rights to what everyone believed would be immensely valuable real estate. Maryland’s legislature therefore steadfastly refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation.  Annoyed by Maryland’s intransigence, Virginia decided to pull out of the conference, believing, as George Mason would later write, it would not be “prudent to enter into any Engagement with that State [Maryland], while it refused confederating.”
	Maryland kept the nation in limbo for the next two years by refusing to ratify the Articles of Confederation, which could not take effect without the unanimous approval of all thirteen states.  Gradually, though, support for the cession of western lands grew, even in the states that owned them.  Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee asked Patrick Henry on November 15, 1778, “What do you think Sir of our proposing the Ohio as a boundary to the Westward, and agreeing that the Country beyond sh[oul]d b[e] settled for common good[?]” Joseph Jones wrote to Thomas Jefferson on the last day of June 1780: “Could Virginia but think herself . . . already full large for vigorous Government she too would moderate her desires, and cede to the united States . . . her Territory beyond the Ohio.”  In October 1780, the Continental Congress issued a resolution encouraging all states to cede their western lands to the common good of the United States.  Virginia finally did so on January 2, 1781, and Maryland signed the Articles of Confederation exactly a month later.
	After Maryland ratified the articles in 1781, the spirit of cooperation between the states reemerged.  In May 1782, a conference of Maryland’s house and senate, meeting to consider “the measures to be adopted for the protection of our bay trade, and to defend our inhabitants exposed to plunder by the enemy’s barges,” recommended that “a co-operation with the state of Virginia is highly desirable.”  The assembly then appointed a commissioner to confer with the legislature or executive of Virginia, with instructions “to impress the members of the legislature and executive of Virginia, with the earnest desire of this state to preserve and improve a strict union between the two governments, founded on mutual interests and affection” and to suggest “that a frequent communication of sentiments and a reciprocation of good offices would greatly tend to cement the friendship.”  Virginia responded favorably, resolving that, in addition to matters of defense, “the Governor be desired to correspond with the State of Maryland upon the Propriety and Benefit to both States of harmonizing as much as possible, in the Duties, Imports or Customs that are, or may be laid on Commerce.”  Nothing apparently came of these overtures, but the proposed cooperation foreshadowed more commercial efforts to come between the two states.

The Simultaneous Development of the Mount Vernon Compact and the Potomac Company
	After the signing of preliminary articles of peace in December 1782, Congress began to consider the location of a permanent capital, thereby refocusing attention on the Potomac.  On April 10, 1783, the Virginia delegates in Congress communicated news of the peace agreement to Virginia governor Benjamin Harrison, informing him “that the State of New York has made an offer to Congress of a tract of land . . . accompanied by a provisional act of Incorporation, granting certain Privilidges of Jurisdiction in civil matters . . . to Induce Congress to fix their residence in that State.”  The Maryland and Virginia delegates, “conceiving that a more Central Situation for Congress . . . might possibly be more agreeable, and that an Offer of a Small tract of Territory by Virginia & Maryland in the Neighbourhood of George Town on Potowmack might meet with the Acceptance of Congress in Preference to that offerd by New York . . . have Conceived it their Duty to inform their states respectively of the steps taken by new York.”
	One of the strongest proponents of Georgetown as the permanent seat of government was Thomas Jefferson, who felt the location would be important for Virginia’s commercial development.  Noting that Annapolis might be preferred “were the convenience of the Delegates alone to be considered,” Jefferson pointed out that “every position on the bay of Chesapeak or any of it’s waters is to be dreaded by Virginia as it may attract the trade of that bay and make us with respect to Maryland what Delaware state is to Pennsylvania.  Considering the residence of Congress therefore as it may influence trade, if we cannot obtain it on the Patowmac it seems to be our interest to bring it past all the waters of the Chesapeak bay” and up to the Falls of the Delaware.
	While the desire to seat the new federal capital on the Potomac was of ongoing concern to Jefferson, he was equally alarmed by reports that Pennsylvania intended to improve the navigation of the Susquehanna River and thus open a competitive channel of trade and communication to the West.  Improving the inland navigation of the Potomac offered a way of combating that threat and insuring that commerce flowed past Georgetown.  Although Jefferson had not been involved with the earlier efforts, he now took the lead in reviving the project.  “I think,” he wrote James Madison on February 20, 1784, with evident consternation,
 	the opening this navigation [from the Potomac to the Ohio River] is an object on which no time is to be lost.  Pennsylva. is attending to the Western commerce.  She has had surveys made of the river Susquehanna and of the grounds thro’ which a canal must pass to go directly to Philadelphia.  It is reported practicable at an expence of £200,000 and they have determined to open it.  What an example this is! If we do not push this matter immediately they will be beforehand with us and get possession of the commerce.  And it is difficult to turn it from a channel in which it is once established.  Could not our assembly be induced to lay a particular tax which should bring in 5. or 10,000£ a year to be applied till the navigation of the Ohio and Patowmac is opened, then James river and so on through the whole successively[?]

	Madison showed little interest in Jefferson’s proposal.  Although both men wished to create a stronger national government, Jefferson was a Virginian first, and he consistently worked to advance the state.  By contrast, Madison was concerned primarily with uniting the new nation, and it did not trouble him that Pennsylvania might outstrip Virginia and monopolize the western trade.  Opening a river route to the West would benefit the whole nation, and so he replied to Jefferson, with an evident lack of concern, “The effort of Pena. for the Western commerce does credit to her public Councils.”  In any case, such a project was not feasible in Virginia, for “The commercial genius of this State is too much in its infancy I fear to rival the example.  Were this less the case, the confusion of its affairs must stifle all enterprise.”
	Although uninspired by Jefferson’s vision of extending the inland navigation of the Potomac, Madison’s discovery that the Virginia Constitution of 1776, in acknowledging Maryland’s charter rights, had relinquished any claim to ownership of the river surprised and alarmed him.  “The Charter granted in 1732 [sic; 1632] to Lord Baltimore makes, if I mistake not,” he continued in the same letter to Jefferson,
the Southern Shore of the Potowmac, the boundary of Maryland on that side.  The constitution of Virginia cedes to that State ‘all the territories contained within its charter with all the rights of property, jurisdiction and Government and all other rights whatsoever, which might at any time have been claimed by Virginia, excepting only the free navigation & use of the Rivers Potowmac & Pokomoque &c.’  Is it not to be apprehended that this language will be construed into an entire relinquishment of the Jurisdiction of these rivers, and will not such a construction be fatal to our own port regulations on that side & otherwise highly inconvenient?

	Madison’s references to ports, all located below the falls of the river, reveal his preoccupation with the tidewater Potomac and not with opening navigation to small craft on the river’s upper reaches.  As Madison wrote to Jefferson: “I was told on my journey along the Potowmac of several flagrant evasions which had been practised with impunity & success, by foreign vessels which had loaded at Alexandria.” These crimes could have been avoided had the 1776 Virginia constitution not given away the river: “The jurisdiction of half of the rivers ought to have been expressly reserved.  The terms of the surrender,” continued Madison “are the more extraordinary, as the patents of the N[orthern] neck place the whole river potowmac within the Government of Virginia, so that we were armed with a title both of prior & posterior date, to that of Maryland.”
	Madison considered several possible ways to fix the jurisdictional problems in the tidewater stretch of the Potomac. 
What will be the best course to repair the error?—to extend our laws upon the River, making Maryland the plaintiff if she chooses to contest their authority—to state the case to her at once and propose a settlement by negociation—or to propose a mutual appointment of Commissioners for the general purpose of preserving a harmony, and efficacy in the regulations on both sides.  The last mode squares best with my present ideas.  It can give no irritation to Maryld.; it can weaken no plea of Virga., it will give Maryland an opportunity of stirring the question if she chooses, and will not be fruitless if Maryland should admit our jurisdiction.  If I see the subject in its true light no time should be lost in fixing the interest of Virginia.  The good humour into which the Cession of the back lands must have put Maryland, forms an apt crisis for any negociations which may be necessary.  You will be able probably to look into her charter & other laws, and to collect the leading sentiments relative to the matter.  

In his next letter to Jefferson on April 25, 1784, Madison clarified which portion of the river he had been thinking about: “On the 16 of March I wrote you fully on sundry points.  Among others I suggested to your attention the case of the Potowmac, having in my eye the river below the head of navigation.”
	Jefferson, perhaps chastened (as the author of Virginia’s constitution) by Madison’s criticism, wrote back on April 25, 1784, supporting Madison’s suggestion for a joint commission between the two states: “I like the method you propose of settling at once with Maryland all matters relative to Patowmac.  To introduce this the more easily I have conversed with Mr. Stone (one of their delegates) on the subject and finding him of the same opinion have told him I would by letters bring the subject forward on our part.  They will consider it therefore as originated by this conversation.”  Thomas Stone, named one of Maryland’s three commissioners in 1777, perhaps felt a particular eagerness about having the chance to revive the conference.  In Virginia, Madison lost no time advancing his scheme and authored and introduced resolutions adopted by the assembly on June 28, 1784:
Whereas great inconveniences are found to result from the want of some concerted regulations, between this State, and the State of Maryland touching the jurisdiction & navigation of the River Potowmack:

Resolved that George Mason, Edmund Randolph, James Madison jr & Alexander Henderson Esqrs. Be appointed Commissioners & that they or any three of them do meet such Commissioners, as may be appointed on the part of Maryland, and in concert with them, frame such liberal & equitable regulations concerning the said River as may be mutually advantageous to the two States, and that they make report thereof to the General Assembly.

Resolved, that the Executive be requested to notify the above appointment with the object of it to the State of Maryland, and desire it’s concurrence in the proposition.

	The Maryland legislature was not currently in session, however, and Stone was thus unable to start the wheels in motion in his state.  Maryland did not appoint commissioners to meet with those from Virginia until January 1785, after legislation for improving and extending the navigation of the upper Potomac had passed both Maryland houses.
	Failing to persuade Madison of the urgent necessity of promoting the improvement of the inland navigation of the Potomac, Jefferson sought to engage the interest and support of another ally who certainly shared his views.  “Genl. Washington has that of the Patowmac much at heart,” Jefferson noted in his February 20, 1784, letter to Madison.  “The superintendance of it [the project to open navigation] would be a noble amusement in his retirement and leave a monument of him as long as the waters should flow.  I am of opinion he would accept of the direction as long as the money should be to be emploied on the Patowmac, and the popularity of his name would carry it thro’ the assembly.”
	On March 15, 1784, Jefferson broached the subject to Washington.  After informing him that Virginia’s cession of western lands had been accepted by Congress, Jefferson discussed the need to unite the navigation of the Youghiogheny and Cheat rivers, “the true doors to the Western commerce,” with that of the Potomac, noting that “it’s value and practicability are both well known to you  . . . All the world is becoming commercial” and “we [Virginia] must then in our own defence endeavor to share as large a portion as we can of this modern source of wealth and power.”  Competition for the western trade, he reasoned, lay between the Mississippi, the Hudson, and the Potomac.  Down the Mississippi would “pass all heavy commodities.”  But navigation up the river was so difficult “that it is not probable that European merchandize will return through that channel,” thus opening a rivalry between the Potomac and the Hudson for the residue of the trade.  As the distance to Alexandria was much shorter, “Nature then has declared in favour of the Patowmac, and through that channel offers to pour into our lap the whole commerce of the Western world.  But unfortunately the channel by the Hudson is already open.”  Jefferson had already tried to persuade the assembly to lay a tax to be employed “in opening the upper waters of the Ohio and Patowmac,” but “a most powerful objection always arises to propositions of this kind.  It is that public undertakings are car[e]lessly managed and much money spent to little purpose.”  Jefferson was convinced, however, that if Washington would “be willing to direct this business, it would remove the only objection.”  He concluded his appeal by noting that as he (Jefferson) did not own “nor ever having a prospect of owning one inch of land on any water either of the Patowmac or Ohio,” his “zeal in this business is public and pure.”
	Washington agreed with Jefferson “respecting the practicability of an easy, & short communication between the waters of the Ohio & Potomack,” but confessed that he had “no expectation that the public will adopt the measure.”  He himself had been struck by the importance of the scheme many years ago, but “dispairing of any aid from the public,” became the “principal mover of a Bill to empower a number of subscribers to undertake, at their own expence . . . the extension of the Navigation from tide water to Wills’s Creek (abo[u]t 150 Miles).”
	The plan “was in a tolerable train” when Washington “set out for Cambridge in 1775, and would have been in an excellent way had it not been for the difficulties which were met with in the Maryland Assembly, from the opposition which was given (according to report) by the Baltimore Merchants, who were alarmed, and perhaps not without cause, at the consequence of water transportation to George Town of the produce which usually came to their market.”  The war then “called Mens attention to different objects—and all the money they could or would raise, were applied to other purposes,” but Washington was in full accord that “not a moment ought to be lost in recommencing this business; for I know the Yorkers will delay no time to remove every obstacle in the way of the other communication.”  Since “the Interest & policy of Maryland is proportionably concerned with that of Virginia to remove obstructions and to envite the trade of the Western territory,” he suggested that Jefferson—then attending Congress in Annapolis—learn “the sentiments of the principal characters of that State, respecting this matter.”
	Encouraged by this response, Jefferson wrote Madison that Washington “would accept the superintendance of the clearing the Patowm’ and Ohio, if put on a hopeful footing.”  As neither Jefferson nor Washington was then a member of the Virginia assembly, they needed Madison’s support to gain legislative approval of the project.  After his initial lukewarm response on March 16, 1784, Madison again wrote Jefferson about the subject on April 25.  Having already discussed the need for a commission to settle the jurisdiction of the river “below the head of navigation” in his earlier letter, he now suggested that “It will be well I think to sound the ideas of Maryland also as to the upper parts of the N. branch of it.  The policy of Ba[l]timore will probably thwart as far as possible, the opening of [it]; and without a very favorable construction of the right of Virginia and even the privilege of using the Maryland bank, it would seem that the necessary works could not be accomplished.”  Nevertheless, opening the navigation of the Potomac above tidewater continued to rank low on Madison’s list of priorities.  During the general assembly session of May 1784, he authored, as noted earlier, resolutions appointing himself, George Mason, Edmund Randolph, and Alexander Henderson commissioners to meet with commissioners from Maryland to frame regulations concerning the Potomac River.  Unfortunately, as he wrote Jefferson, he had “found no opportunity of broaching a scheme for opening the Navigation of the Potowmac under the auspices of Genl. Washington.”  As reflected in his correspondence with Jefferson during this period, Madison saw a distinction between the appointment of commissioners to establish regulations on the Potomac below tidewater—a subject of vital interest to him—and the scheme for opening the river above tidewater, for which he evinced limited enthusiasm.
	Although Jefferson continued to maintain his interest in the enterprise, he was appointed by Congress to negotiate treaties with foreign nations, and sailed for Paris on July 5, 1784.  Henceforth Washington resumed the lead in gaining legislative support for extending the inland navigation of the Potomac River.  The previous year Maryland had shown some interest in such a project, appointing Normand Bruce and Charles Beatty to examine the upper Potomac and estimate the time and expenses required to improve the river, but their report to the legislature in November 1783 produced no action.  During the following summer public interest in clearing the Potomac developed at Alexandria, and a subscription circulated to raise money to finance the project.  But the greatest impetus for the legislation eventually enacted in both Virginia and Maryland came from Washington, who returned from a trip in the fall of 1784 to the Ohio Valley fired with enthusiasm for the need to improve the Potomac and connect it by road with rivers flowing into the Ohio.  Immediately after his return he launched a successful effort to gain the support of both the Maryland and Virginia legislatures for the undertaking.
	On October 10, 1784, Washington wrote a long letter to Virginia governor Benjamin Harrison setting forth the tremendous advantages to be gained by opening and extending the inland navigation of both the Potomac and the James rivers, “the shortest, easiest & least expensive communication with the invaluable & extensive Country back of us,” and urging legislative support for such an undertaking which, “if it should be recommended by you [Harrison], & adopted by the Assembly,” would “mark your administration as an important œra in the Annals of the Country.”  The main object, to open avenues of trade between Virginia and the western lands, was according to Washington of such “vast commercial and political importance” that “posterity will consider it, & regret (if our conduct should give them cause) that the present favourable moment to secure so great a blessing for them, was neglected.”  He concluded his letter by noting that James Rumsey’s “discovery for working Boats against stream, by mechanical powers (principally),” was “not only a very fortunate invention for these States in general, but as one of those circumstances which have combined to render the present epocha favourable above all others for fixing, if we are disposed to avail ourselves of them, a large portion of the trade of the Western Country in the bosom of this State irrevocably.”
	Washington did not merely extol the virtues and urge the necessity of such a project; he outlined specific recommendations for legislative action.  Many of these were subsequently adopted by the assembly.  To begin with, he suggested that the state appoint commissioners to “make an actual survey of James River & Potomack from tide water to their respective sources,” noting “the kind of navigation, & the obstructions in it; the difficulty & expence attending the removal of these obstructions; the distances from place to place thro’ the whole extent; and the nearest & best Portages between these waters & the Streams capable of improvment which run into the Ohio,” as well as those streams, the Ohio itself, and, in short, all “the Waters East & West of the Ohio, which invite our notice by their proximity, & the ease with which Land transportation may be had between them & the Lakes on one side, & the rivers Potomac & James on the other.”  In the meantime, “could not there be a sum of money granted towards opening the best, or if it should be deemed more eligible, two of the nearest communications, one to the Northward & another to the Southward, with the settlements to the westward?” If, however, “there should not appear a manifest disposition in the Assembly to make it a public undertaking,” he recommended that the assembly pass an act “to incorporate, & encourage private Adventurers if any should associate & sollicit the same, for the purpose of extending the navigation of Potomac or James river,” and, “in the former case, to request the concurrence of Maryland in the measure.”  For his own part, Washington believed that it would prove “of equal importance & convenience to improve the navigation of both the James & Potomac,” as the latter “affords the nearest communication with the Lakes,” while the former “may be more convenient for all the settlers below the mouth of the G[rea]t Kanhawa, & for some distance perhaps above, & west of it.”  He concluded his recommendations by raising the issue of  “the supposed difficulty of obtaining a passage thro’ the State of Pennsylvania,” which would be necessary for a route that went from the Potomac to the Ohio River via the Youghiogheny, though “how an application to its Legislature would be relished,” he would “not undertake to decide.”
	Washington also discussed his ideas with George Plater, the president of the Maryland Senate, in the fall of 1784.  “Since I had the Honor of visiting you,” Plater wrote Washington on October 20, 1784, “I have been revolving in my Head the Subject of our Conversation respecting the opening [of] the Potowmack, Advancing the Trade of the back & new settled Countries [in] this these middle States & the more I consider it, the more I am impressed with the Utility & Advantages resulting therefrom.”  So impressed was Plater that he was “determined to press the Measure in our Assembly” and requested that Washington send him “some Description of the Waters in the back Country, the Land Carriage unavoidably necessary, & what other Information you may deem important.”
	Harrison responded favorably, too, informing Washington on November 13, 1784, that he had laid his letter of the 10th “before the assembly, who appear so impress’d with the utility of the measure that I dare say they will order the survey you propose immediately and will at their next sitting proceed to carry the plan into execution.”  Washington was already on his way to Richmond before receiving this letter, arriving at the capital on November 14, for the purpose of meeting the Marquis de Lafayette, whom he was to escort to Annapolis.  While in Richmond Washington addressed the house of delegates on November 15, and he discussed the Potomac River project with James Madison, the leader of the house, and other members, before departing with Lafayette a week or so later. 
	In the meantime, a meeting of the “very numerous and respectable . . . Gentlemen of this State and Maryland” convened in Alexandria on November 15, 1784, “to deliberate and consult on the vast, great, political and commercial Object, the rendering navigable [of] the River Potomack from Tide Water.”  The meeting drew up a petition to be presented to the legislatures of both states and a bill which they first sent to Washington for his perusal “& then to place it in proper hands.”  On November 28, Washington forwarded to Madison the draft of the bill, a covering letter from the chairman of the meeting at Alexandria, and probably a copy of the petition.  The petition was presented to the Virginia House of Delegates on December 4, 1784, and referred to a committee of the whole house, which, on December 7, agreed “That an act ought to pass, for opening and extending the navigation of the river Potomac.”  Two days later a committee—that did not include James Madison—reported to the house a bill for “establishing a company for opening and extending the navigation of the river Potomac.”
	After conducting Lafayette as far as Annapolis on his way to New York, Washington returned to Mount Vernon and on December 3, 1784, wrote Madison and Joseph Jones that his trip had afforded “opportunities of conversing with some of the leading characters in the different branches of the Legislature of Maryland, on the subject of inland navigation, and the benefits which might arise from a commercial intercourse with the Western territory.”  He had found them “forcibly struck with the importance of these objects” but that “no public money . . . is likely to be obtained from that State.”  As there was little chance of getting public money from Virginia either, he suggested that “the wisdom of both assemblies be exerted without delay to hit upon such a happy medium as will not on the one hand, vest two [sic; too] much power and profit in a private company;—and on the other to hold out sufficient inducements to engage men to hazard their fortunes in an arduous undertaking.”  As there were some objections to “the bill I sent you,” Washington recommended that each assembly “depute one or more members to meet at some intermediate place, and agree . . . upon an adequate bill to be adopted by both States.”  In addition, “might it not prove a politic step for” the delegates to the proposed meeting “to agree upon a representation to be made by their respective Assemblies to the State of Pennsylvania, of the political advantages which would flow from a close connection with the Western Territory; and to request their concurrence to make the communication through their State AS EASY AND AS DIFFUSIVE AS POSSIBLE?”
	After receiving Washington’s letter, the Virginia House of Delegates dropped consideration of the Potomac bill brought in on December 7, 1784, and adopted new resolutions on December 13 appointing Washington, Horatio Gates, and Thomas Blackburne to meet with persons appointed by Maryland “to concert with them the regulations under which a company ought to be established.”  The commissioners were also authorized to discuss “a plan, for opening a proper road between the waters of the Potomac and the most convenient western waters.”  Washington received the resolutions by express rider six days later and immediately wrote Maryland governor William Paca setting December 22, 1784, as the date for the meeting.  Blackburne was unable to attend, but Washington and Gates (who, “having been sick the whole time,” gave little assistance) met in Annapolis with the commissioners appointed by Maryland and drafted “An ACT for establishing a company for opening and extending the navigation of the river Patowmack,” which was passed by the Maryland legislature on December 28.
	The commissioners also considered the best location for a road to connect the upper Potomac with the West and recommended that in order to determine the best route both legislatures appoint “skilful persons to view and accurately examine and survey Potomack” and to lay out a road “as they may think will most effectually establish the communication between the said Eastern and Western Waters.”  The commissioners were “of Opinion, that the States of Virginia and Maryland [should] request permission of the State of Pennsylvania to lay out and improve a Road through such part of that State as may be necessary . . . from Fort Cumberland to the navigable part of the Youghigeny and on such permission being obtained that proper persons be appointed to survey, mark, clear and improve such Road at the equal expence of Virginia and Maryland.”  On the same day it passed the Potomac Company act the Maryland legislature adopted resolutions appropriating $3,333 1/3 “to defray one half of the expence of examining surveying cutting clearing improving and keeping in repair a proposed road from the Waters of Potomack river to the River Cheat, and if necessary to the Monongahela” and requesting the governor to “write to the Legislature of Pennsylvania to request permission to lay out and improve a Road through such part of that State as may be necessary.”  Washington wrote Madison informing him of the commissioners’ actions late on the night of December 28, 1784, and enclosed a letter from himself and Gates to the Virginia legislature, a report of the meeting of the commissioners, and copies of the Maryland act and resolves of the same date.
	During Washington’s absence and before receiving his report of December 28, 1784, the Virginia assembly proceeded to act on the suggestions included in his October letter to Governor Harrison.  On December 18 the assembly passed (but the governor did not sign) a bill for opening and extending the James River, which after the receipt of Washington’s report was dropped in favor of an act modeled on that passed by the Maryland assembly for the Potomac.  Then on December 28—again before receiving Washington’s report—the assembly adopted a resolution expanding the responsibilities of the Virginia commissioners who had been appointed the previous June to meet with commissioners from Maryland to discuss the navigation and jurisdiction of the Potomac. The legislature resolved that Virginia’s commissioners were also to join with their Maryland counterparts in a representation to Pennsylvania regarding “a convenient road” through its territory from the North Branch “to the waters running into the Ohio.”  Madison wrote Washington on January 1, 1785, that “this instruction ought rather to have been committed to the late Conference [in Annapolis]; but when the Commission under which you attended it passed, I was confined to my room and it did not occur to any other member.”  Now, having received Washington’s letter of December 28, 1784, enclosing the Maryland resolution regarding the road, he thought it would “be best to refer it after the example of Maryld. to the Executive.”  Nevertheless, Madison reported to Jefferson on January 9, 1785, that the assembly’s “proposition to unite with Maryland in representing to Pena. the advantages which will accrue to a part of her citizens from opening the proposed communication with the Sea” which “did not pass till it was too late to refer it to Genl. Washington’s negociations with Maryland . . . now makes a part of the task allotted to the Commissrs. who are to settle with Maryd. the jurisdiction & navigation of Potowmac below tide water.”
	Upon receipt of Washington’s report, William Grayson took charge of the Potomac Company bill, and on January 5, 1785, the Virginia legislature passed  “An act for opening and extending the navigation of Potowmack river,” modeled on the bill drafted by the Annapolis meeting and  passed by the Maryland legislature on December 28, 1784.  Madison was able to inform Washington on January 9, 1785, that “I have now the pleasure of confirming the expectations hinted in my last concerning the result of the measures which have been favoured with your patronage.  The Bill for opening the Potowmac has passed precisely on the model transmitted from Maryland.”  At long last Washington had succeeded in attaining concurrent legislation to support effectively his long-held dream of improving and extending the navigation of the Potomac above tidewater.  
	The act chartered a private company to be incorporated as the “Potowmack Company” after raising by subscription one-half of an initial capital stock of $222,222.22.  The company was authorized to “cut such canals, and erect such locks, and perform such other works as they shall judge necessary for opening, improving, and extending the navigation of the said river above tide water, to the highest part of the North Branch, to which navigation can be extended.” 
	The act also provided for the condemnation of land “through which the said canal is intended to pass,” and entitled the company to receive tolls at various places on the river as stipulated in the act.  The right of the company to initiate proceedings of condemnation and the authority to impose tolls established in its charter gave it tremendous potential for shaping the economy and lives of thousands of people.  By levying tolls the company had the capacity to influence the final price of every product shipped on the upper Potomac. Subsequent to the Potomac Company’s founding, anyone who owned property on the riverbank essentially did so at the pleasure of the company.  
	After passing the Potomac Company act, which dealt with the jurisdiction and commerce of the upper river, the Maryland legislature turned its attention to the appointment of commissioners to meet with those appointed by Virginia the previous spring.  The Maryland legislature instructed its commissioners “to frame such liberal and equitable regulations touching the jurisdiction and navigation of the waters of Chesapeake bay, and the rivers Patowmack and Pocomoke, as may be mutually advantageous to the two states, and to make report thereof to the general assembly.”  On January 16, 1785, the assembly chose Thomas Johnson, Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, and Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer for the task.  The last three were the same men Maryland had appointed for the aborted February 1778 conference.  As for their instructions, the house resolved that “the said commissioners be directed to govern themselves in the execution of the trust reposed in them by the instructions of the general assembly” of December 22, 1777, “and the instructions which shall be given by this assembly.”  The house set a place and date for the commissioner’s meeting: Alexandria, Virginia, on March 21, 1785.  On January 22, the senate received a letter from the governor of Virginia, written three weeks earlier, which may have been intended as a reminder to Maryland that nothing had been heard from them in over six months.  Both houses wrapped up their work on the resolution that day and sent it on its way back to Virginia.
	With so much time having passed since the appointment of Virginia’s commissioners, perhaps it could have been expected that a glitch in the workings of Virginia’s government would occur.  As George Mason reported to James Madison: “So great has been the Neglect in some of our public Departments, that neither Mr. Henderson or myself had been furnished with Copys of the Assembly’s Resolutions [leading to the Conference]; and I shou’d not have known that I was one of the Persons appointed, had I not, by mere Accident two or three Days before the Meeting, been informed of it, by two of the Maryland Commissioners writing to me, that they shou’d endeavour to take my House in their Way, and go with me to Alexandria.”
	The Maryland commissioners did pick up Mason, as well as Henderson, but James Madison and Edmund Randolph did not show at the appointed time.  Continuing his letter to Madison, Mason wrote “We waited some Days ex[p]ecting your Arrival in Alexandria; when I received a Letter [f]rom the Attorney [as Randolph was often called], upon other Business, without mentioning a Word of the Meeting, or of the Assembly’s Appointment.  This convinced us that there must have been some Blunder or Neglect.” 
	The two sets of commissioners decided to hold the meeting anyway, because the Marylanders had come so far.  George Washington, who dined with Mason on March 24, 1785, graciously offered his house as a more pleasant place to meet, and the commissioners arrived from Alexandria the next day.  The two Virginia commissioners did not have a copy of their instructions, which was fortunate, because they were required to have at least three present before they could meet with Maryland’s commissioners.  More importantly, they were authorized to discuss only the “jurisdiction & navigation of the River Potowmack,” whereas Maryland’s instructions, just as they had in 1777, made free navigation through the capes of the Chesapeake Bay a sine qua non of any agreement.  Madison’s hand in the resolutions, which he had in fact authored, was clearly evident.  Concerned only with the jurisdiction of the Potomac, which the 1776 Virginia constitution had, in his view, mistakenly given up, he neglected to include the issues of most vital importance to Maryland.
	Washington, having never in his extensive writings about the Potomac evinced the slightest interest in the issues of navigation and jurisdiction below tidewater, did not have a copy of the resolutions on hand.  This is not surprising; Washington was not a member of the assembly, and all of his efforts and focus had concentrated on inland navigation on the upper part of the river.  He did, however, happen to have a copy of the resolution passed by the Virginia legislature on December 28, 1784, authorizing the Virginia commissioners to join those appointed by Maryland in a representation to Pennsylvania regarding “a convenient road from the head of such navigation to the waters running into the Ohio,” another object near to his heart.  Since the road resolution authorized any two of the commissioners to act, Mason and Henderson felt authorized to proceed, probably using the Maryland instructions as a guide.

The Terms of the Mount Vernon Compact
	The five commissioners spent the next few days hammering out the thirteen articles of what came to be known as the Mount Vernon Compact.  Each of the three instructions given to Maryland’s commissioners found its way into the final agreement, as Articles One (free navigation through the Capes of the Chesapeake), Six (the Potomac as a common highway), and Ten (jurisdiction over piracies, crimes, and offenses).  Virginia gained the right to fish in the Potomac in Article Seven.  Other articles conferred mutual advantages.
	The juxtaposition of the first two articles particularly reveals the Compact’s tidewater focus.  Article One gave Maryland free navigation in the tidewaters of the Chesapeake Bay and the Pocomoke River owned by Virginia.  Article Two granted analogous rights by allowing Virginia’s vessels to enter “any of the Rivers of the State of Maryland.”  The Potomac, wholly owned by Maryland, was tacitly included.  These articles composed a quid pro quo, a granting of mutually equivalent advantages to each state.  Taken together, the two articles highlight the Compact’s emphasis on tidewater affairs.
	The very words of the Compact firmly uphold that point.  Scattered throughout the articles are terms like “navigation” or “navigating” (Articles 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8), “naval office” and “naval officer” (4 and 5), “sailing” (1), “harbour” (1, 2), “port” (1, 2, 3, 4, and 11), “wharf” (7), “quarantine” (8), “ballast” (8), “lighthouse” (9), “beacon” (9), and “piracy” (10).  Each of those words refers mainly or exclusively to oceangoing and tidewater transport.
	Navigation, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the “action or practice of passing on water, esp[ecially] the sea, in ships or other vessels; sailing.”  The dictionary specifically contrasts the unmodified word with the phrase “inland navigation,” which is limited to “communication by means of canals and navigable rivers.”  If the commissioners had wanted the Compact to refer to the inland portions of the Potomac, they would almost certainly have used the phrase “inland navigation,” or specified “above tidewater.” They did not.
	The word “sailing” implies tidewater navigation.  A sail could conceivably be raised on a rivergoing boat, but it would make little sense, because a river’s own current is a more efficient means of propelling a boat downstream.  And no sail can force a boat upstream against the current of a river like the Potomac.  That is why George Washington was so enthralled in September 1784 by James Rumsey’s invention of a mechanical boat which could crawl its way upstream by pushing against the river bed.  Rumsey’s boat was “a pole boat, which was to move upstream when a paddle wheel, turned by the current, pushed rows of setting poles against the bottom of the river. . . . The swifter the current the faster the boat would go against it—until something smashed.” 
	The tidewater focus is confirmed by the meaning of harbor: “a place of shelter for ships.”  And a port is a “place by the shore where ships may run in for shelter from storms, or to load and unload.”  In fact, the Virginia Port Act of 1784 restricted “the ships and other vessels trading to this commonwealth from foreign ports [that is, from any place outside of Virginia], which are the property of other than the citizens of the same,” to five specified ports, only one of which—Alexandria—was on the Potomac, and all of which were, of necessity, below tidewater.  Furthermore, naval officers can be stationed only in ports, because as one “whose duty it is to receive copies of all manifests and entries in the Custom-House,” his presence would be meaningless in an inland town.  Likewise, the naval office for the Potomac was located, by law, on the tidal portion of the river.
	Quarantining a boat on the inland portion of a river would have made no sense, because a quarantine is the “period during which a ship, capable of carrying contagion, is kept isolated on its arrival at a port.”  People trading on the upper part of the river would have been either residents of the United States who needed no quarantine, or foreigners who had already passed through quarantine upon their arrival at a tidewater port.  And ballast, “any heavy material, placed in the hold of a ship, in order to sink her to such a depth as to prevent her from capsizing when under sail or in motion,” works against small river boats, which should not be made to draw more water, lest they strike the bottom of shallow and rocky rivers like the Potomac.  Ballast was hardly necessary on the works envisioned by the Potomac Company legislation, which were to be “well capable of being navigated in dry seasons, by vessels drawing one foot water.”
	A lighthouse is a “tower . . . with a powerful light . . . at the top, erected at some important or dangerous point on or near the sea-coast for the guidance of mariners.”  Likewise, a beacon was used for maritime, not inland, shipping: “A lighthouse or other conspicuous object placed upon the coast or at sea, to warn vessels of danger or direct their course.”  Piracy is yet another word whose usage is normally confined to seagoing or tidewater navigation: “The practice or crime of robbery and depredation on the sea or navigable rivers, etc., or by descent from the sea upon the coast.”
	Even though some of those words could have conceivably been used in the context of inland navigation, taken together their preponderant connotation is seagoing and tidewater transportation.  Today, it is easy to forget how dependent the colonies were on sailing ships for their travel and commerce.  The commissioners, though, would have had no confusion about the scope of their task, as Madison’s correspondence makes abundantly clear.
	With respect to the fishery rights in Article Seven, while there were fish in both parts of the river, the fisheries on the tidewater portion of the river, as in the rest of the bay, were of sufficient economic importance to merit regulation, while fishing above the falls was much smaller in scale.  Furthermore, the use of the word “wharf” in this article implies the tidewater, because a wharf is a “substantial structure . . . built along the water’s edge, so that ships may lie alongside for loading and unloading.”  A small-scale wharf could have been built on the upper river, but Article Seven specifically referred to wharves that might have obstructed and injured navigation, meaning large-scale, seagoing navigation worthy of interstate regulation, not small-scale inland navigation. 

Ratification of the Mount Vernon Compact of 1785
	The Maryland and Virginia commissioners signed their agreement on Monday, March 28, 1785, and then turned to a brief and entirely separate task: the forwarding of a letter from the Maryland and Virginia legislatures to the president of Pennsylvania’s executive council.  The letter advised that the two states planned to “promote the clearing & extending [of] the Navigation of Potomack, from tide-Water, upwards,” and to open a “convenient Road, from the Head of such Navigation, to the Waters running into the Ohio, and to render these Waters navigable.” Some parts of the specified route lay within Pennsylvania, so the Maryland and Virginia legislatures, whom the five commissioners temporarily represented, hoped that Pennsylvania would allow the goods conveyed along the route to pass without applying any extra tolls beyond those needed to reimburse the builders and to maintain the route itself.  This letter, as Madison wrote on  January 1, 1785, “ought rather to have been committed to the late Conference” in Annapolis about the Potomac Company, which Washington attended in December 1784.  But it had been written too late, and so “now makes a part of the task alloted to the Commissrs. who are to settle with Maryd. the jurisdiction & navigation of Potowmac below tide water.”  The commissioners did nothing more than forward the letter to Pennsylvania—which required the signatures of representatives from both Maryland and Virginia—adopting verbatim the words of the December 28, 1784, resolution.
	Only after they had successfully negotiated the Mount Vernon Compact did Henderson write to the clerk of the Virginia assembly for a copy of the resolves and discover that he and Mason had acted without official sanction.  On August 9, 1785, Mason wrote a long letter to Madison enclosing “Copys of the Proceedings of the Virga. & Maryd. Commrs.” and defending his actions.  “We thought ourselves unfortunate in being deprived of yours [and Randolph’s] . . . Assistance in this important Business,” Mason wrote, “and nothing but absolute Necessity shou’d have induced me to enter upon it, without you; but the Maryland Gentlemen wou’d have been much disgusted with a Disappoi[nt]ment, after attending, at such a Distance, in very bad Weather.”  Mason intended to defend his and Henderson’s actions to the legislature, but became sick with “Fits of the Convulsive Cholic, complicated with the Gout in the Stomach,” and was forced to “entreat” Madison on December 7 “to make my Apology to the Assembly for having rather exceeded our Authority.”  Lest Madison “shou’d not recollect” the reasons set forth in his earlier letter on the subject, Mason then proceeded to repeat, nearly verbatim, his letter of August 9.  Madison, who had finally seen the achievement of his goal of negotiating the tidewater navigation—just as Washington had achieved his with the Potomac Company legislation—therefore took charge of shepherding the agreement through the fall session of the Virginia assembly.  Maryland ratified the Mount Vernon Compact on November 24, 1785, and Virginia followed suit on December 30.   
	Although he had hosted the commissioners at Mount Vernon, their meeting seems to have made very little impression on Washington, who only briefly mentions their presence in his diary, and says nothing at all about the subject of their negotiations.  He devotes considerably more space to the weather and almost certainly was not present during their deliberations.  Washington wanted the commissioners to forward the letter to Pennsylvania about the road, which they did, but otherwise did not concern himself with their business.  In contrast, entries in Washington’s published diary covering his trip to the Ohio in September-October 1784 include 71 detailed pages of description of the Potomac and the other rivers he hoped ultimately to connect with the Ohio.  Nor did Washington devote any space in his voluminous correspondence to the Mount Vernon Conference, whereas nearly every letter he wrote in 1785 had something to say about the Potomac Company.  The inland navigation of the Potomac was, and always had been, Washington’s great passion, and he was not particularly concerned with the problems of trade and navigation on the lower river.
	There is no indication Washington even cared who owned the river, as long as it was made navigable above the falls and extended to connect with the western waters.  Having finally—after years, even decades of effort—achieved that goal with the Potomac Company legislation, he would have strenuously opposed anything that might have jeopardized that victory.  In particular, Washington would have never sanctioned, let alone encouraged and provided the setting for, a meeting of the Maryland and Virginia commissioners had their authority extended to the entire river, tidewater and inland portions both.  In that case, they would have had the potential to endanger—even undo—the legislation creating the Potomac Company passed a few short months before.  The company had essentially been given exclusive jurisdiction over the river and its banks above tidewater, as well as the right to levy tolls on traffic passing through that portion.  None of the principal participants ever discussed the potential for the meeting of the commissioners appointed to “frame such liberal & equitable regulations concerning the said River as may be mutually advantageous to the two States” to conflict or in any way overlap or even relate to the Potomac Company legislation passed a few months before.
	The issue did not arise because none of the participants perceived a conflict.  Madison, anxious that Maryland and Virginia reach agreement on the jurisdiction of the tidal stretch of the river, did not share Washington and Jefferson’s intense enthusiasm for improving the upper Potomac.  On the other hand, Madison did not oppose the project and never once suggested that the company’s authority in any way conflicted with his own aims for an agreement on commercial matters on the lower river.  In a long letter to Jefferson on January 9, 1785, Madison described in detail the act that created the Potomac Company, but he never suggested that the powers granted to the company on the upper river had any connection at all to the forthcoming meeting of Maryland and Virginia commissioners.  These were totally separate matters.  The commissioners appointed by Virginia, he continued in the same letter, “are to settle with Maryd. the jurisdiction & navigation of Potowmac below tide water.”  After the commissioners met in March 1785, he again wrote Jefferson to report that “Chase & Jennifer on the part of Maryland, Mason & Henderson on the part of Virginia have had a meeting on the proposition of Virga. for settling the navigation & jurisdiction of Potowmac below the falls, & have agreed to report to the two assemblies, the establishment of a concurrent jurisdiction on that river & Chesapeak.  The most amicable spirit is said to have governed the negociation.”
	Had the Mount Vernon commissioners been concerned with anything other than the river’s tidal portion, the provisions of their Compact would have conflicted with the powers given to the Potomac Company a few short months before.  Article Six of the Compact declared that the “River Potomack shall be considered as a common High Way, for the purpose of Navigation and Commerce to the Citizens of Virginia and Maryland and of the United States,” but the Potomac Company had already been permitted to collect tolls and “refuse passage” to any vessels that failed to pay.  The Potomac Company enjoyed the power of condemnation, and while property owners were to be compensated for any existing improvements, they were not entitled to “recover compensation for any damages which may happen to any mills, forges, or other water works or improvements which shall be begun or erected by such proprietor, after such first valuation.”  Landowners on either shore were not free to build mills, forges, or other improvements that interfered with the Company, while Article Seven of the Mount Vernon Compact guaranteed to the “Citizens of each State respectively . . . the privilege of making and carrying out Wharfs and other Improvements so as not to obstruct or injure the Navigation of the River,” without reference to improvements interfering with the Company’s works.  It is highly significant that these potential conflicts engendered no discussion or commentary among the participants, and the Compact and related correspondence never once mentioned how its provisions might be construed in the light of the Potomac Company legislation.  Washington and the commissioners never suggested that the Compact threatened or interfered in any way with the Company because they never intended for the Compact to apply above tidewater.  The Potomac Company legislation concerned the river above tidewater, while the Mount Vernon Compact was intended to pertain only to the tidal stretch.