|
23
In 1774 as Maryland passed its first comprehensive road bill
(with the full support of Baltimore) and as the Walpole Associates
offered Mercer their merger deal, Ballendine returned to America with forty
"engineers" and various equipment for work on the river. Despite Mary-
land's reluctance to cooperate, Ballendine held a meeting with his
supporters to discuss plans. He told the meeting that he had received "a
subscription from some of the principal proprietors, etc., of the province
of Vandalia, now residing in England, for the further encouragement of
the proposed undertaking," and he asked those assembled for additional
funds. Washington, who had given Ballendine such a lukewarm endorsement
in 1772, now subscribed 6500 of the L8000 raised at the meeting. 40
Although subscription sales had gone well in England, without the
necessary legislative action by Maryland, further subscriptions in the
colonies proved difficult to get, the L8000 from the 1774 meeting notwith-
standing. The regional economy was in a difficult period, particularly
because of the strained relations between the colonies and England. By
December 1774, Ballendine announced that he could not raise any more money
"without selling off the very Estate /his% to be benefited by the scheme
on very low terms at present and many with whom I have spoke on the subject
are circumstanced as myself." 41
In early 1775, George Washington and George Mason, now thorough
supporters of Ballendine, introduced a new bill in the Virginia House of
Burgesses which they hoped might be more attractive to Maryland, but Mason
40 Virginia Gazette, July 7, 1774; Maryland Gazette, September 8,
1774; Delap acne, Life of Thomas Johnson, p. 76; Broadside of John
Ballendine, Potomac CompanyMisce-Tlaneous Accounts, Records of the National
Park Service, Item 179, National Archives, Washington, D. C.
41 Quoted in Delaplaine, Life of Thomas Johnson, pp. 79-80.
|
