900 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 21,

Mr. Hammond (the rules being suspended) submitted the
following

REPORT.
To the Honorable,

The General Assembly of Maryland.

The undersigned beg leave respectfully to report, that by
chapter 370, of the Acts of the General Assembly of Mary-
land, of 1868, they had the honor to be appointed Commis-
sioners on the part of the State of Maryland, to meet a like
number of persons to be appointed by the State of Virginia,
to settle and adjust the boundary line on the Eastern Shore
of the Chesapeake bay, between the States of Virginia and
Maryland; their work to be reported to this General Assembly
for approval or rejection. That no provision was made in the
said Act for application to the Commonwealth of Virginia,
to appoint Commissioners on the part of that State ; and in
the absence of civil government by the people of that State,
during the time which has elapsed since the passage of the
Maryland Act, there was no authority governing that State
which would probably have considered itself justified in ap-
pointing Commissioners for that purpose; or to which the
State of Maryland could, with propriety, have made such
application. Nothing, therefore, has been done by the under-
signed, in the practical execution of the trust confided to
them. The restoration of civil Government to the people of
Virginia, affords a hope that at the request of the General
Assembly of Maryland, a joint commission may be constituted
to adjust this long pending controversy.

The undersigned, by appointment of the General Assembly
of Maryland of 1867, constituted a part of the joint commis-
sion upon this boundary question, whose proceedings were
reported to the General Assembly of Maryland, in 1868.
That report contains a brief account of the failure of the
efforts theretofore made to adjust this boundary question,
and shows that the failure in the las ; attempt was probably
mainly attributable to the injudiciou i and inconsistent decla-
rations in the legislative Acts of the two States upon the sub-
ject. The report also stated that it did not appear to the
Commissioners that there could be a ly insuperable difficulty
in arriving at an amicable adjustment or compromise of the
divisional line in question, if the conflicting legislation of
of the two States was removed ; and with a view to that result,
the repeal of the Act of Maryland of 1860, chapter 385, was
recommended. The report was not printed in time for the
action of that General Assembly, an . the recommendation is
renewed to your Honorable Body, in the hope that Virginia
also will repeal the resolutions which were supposed to restrict
its Commissioners in the joint concussion, of 1867. Then,
if another joint commission shall beconstituted, it will be