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320
largely exceeding four hundred thousand dollars, and she has
since become the holder and owner of these preferred bonds
which with interest due thereon, amount to over three hun-
dred and twenty thousand dollars. And the State of Vir-
ginia, upon the memorial of the Canal Company and upon
the opinion and advice of the Attorney General of Maryland,
as far back as 1849, endorsed and guaranteed the bonds of
the Company to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars
for repairs, upon which she has already paid interest to the
amount of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Vir-
ginia therefore is interested in the preferred debt secured by
this mortgage as creditor and guarantor to the extent of over
one million two hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and
the whole debt due by the Company on account of these pre-
ferred bonds and interest unpaid thereon, now exceed four
millions of dollars.
The General Assembly of Maryland, having become satis-
fied that the interest of the State, as well as of the bondhold-
ers could only be secured by giving the bondholders an influ-
ential share in the management of a work whose whole reve-
nue must for many years belong to them exclusively, passed
at the January session, 1867, "An Act entitled, an Act to
authorize the Board of Public Works to vote the stock of the
State in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company for a Presi-
dent and four Directors upon the nomination of the holders
of the preferred bonds of said Company; the object of which,
is explicitly set forth in its title and preamble.''
This Act requires the Board of Public Works at the first
general meeting of Stockholders, to cast the Stockholder vote
of the State: first for its acceptance, and then for a President
and four Directors as nominees of the Trustees of the prefer-
red Bondholders.
Under this law, the General Assembly intended that the
preferred Bondholders should exercise that influence in the
management of the Ganal Company and its works which was
due to their paramount interest therein, until their debt was
paid off or secured to be be paid off, by a sinking fund, the
creation and management of which was particularly provided
for in said Act of Assembly, and the Stockholders and prefer-
red Bondholders hoped at last to be repaid their great sacri-
fices, the latter by the payment of their debt, the former by
relieving their property of a destructive incumbrance consist-
ing of these bonds, and ultimately, from the burden of the
many millions of dollars due the State of Maryland
And your memorialists respectfully represent that by the
charter of the said Canal Company the annual meetings of
the Stockholders thereof are required to be held on the first
Monday of June, and that at said meetings a President and
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