portance that good roads and good water communication should bind the East and the West together. He thought Virginia was the state to do this. It extended then far to the westward, and it had great rivers flowing to the sea. It was the most important state in the country, and it was very natural that Washington should look to it to carry out his grand ideas; for the separate states had the power at that time - Congress was unable to do anything. It is interesting to see how Washington, who thought he could go back to Mount Vernon and be a planter, was unable to keep his mind from working upon a great plan which intended the advantage of a vast number of people. He was made to care for great things, and he cared for them naturally.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CALLED TO THE HELM.

WHILE Washington was busy planting trees at Mount Vernon and making excursions to see his western lands, the country was like a vessel which had no captain or pilot, drifting into danger. During the War for Independence, one of the greatest difficulties which Washington had to overcome was the unwillingness of the several states to act together as one nation. They called themselves the United States of America, but they were very loosely united. Congress was the only body that held them together, and Congress had no power to make the states do what they did not care to do. So long as they all were fighting for independence, they managed to hold together; but as soon as the war was over and the states were recognized as independent, it was very hard to get them to do anything as one nation. Every state was looking out for itself, and afraid that the others might gain some advantage over it.

This could not go on forever. They must be either wholly independent of one another or more closely united. The difficulty was more apparent where two states were neighbors. Virginia and

Massachusetts might manage to live apart, though in that case troubles would be sure to arise, but how could Virginia and Maryland maintain their individual independence? The Chesapeake and Potomac seemed to belong to one as much as to the other; and when foreign vessels came up the stream, was each state to have its own rules and regulations? No. They must treat strangers at any rate in some way that would not make each the enemy of the other.

These two states felt this so strongly that they appointed a commission to consider what could be done. Washington was a member of the commission, and asked all the gentlemen to his house. They not only discussed the special subject committed to them, but they looked at the whole matter of the regulation of commerce in a broad way, and agreed to propose to the two states to appoint other commissioners, who should advise with Congress and ask all the states of the Union to send delegates to a meeting where they could arrange some system by which all the states should act alike in their treatment of foreign nations and of each other.

That was exactly what Congress ought to have been able to do, but could not, because nobody paid any attention to it. Nor did this meeting, which was called at Annapolis in September, 1786, accomplish very much. Only five states sent delegates, and these delegates were so carefully in