II. And be it further enacted, that if the said convention shall approve of the erection of the said district into an independent state, on the foregoing terms and conditions, they shall and may proceed to fix a day posterior to the first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and ninety, on which the authority of this commonwealth and of its laws, under the exceptions aforesaid, shall cease and determine forever over the proposed state, and the said articles become a solemn compact mutually binding on the parties, and unalterable by either, without the consent of the other. Provided however, that prior to the first day of September, one thousand seven hundred and ninety, the congress of the United States shall assent to the erection of the said district into an independent state, and shall agree that the proposed state shall immediately after the day to be fixed as aforesaid, posterior to the first day of September, one thousand seven hundred and ninety, or at some convenient time future thereto, be admitted into the federal union. And to the end that no period of anarchy may happen to the good people of the proposed state, it is to be understood that the said convention shall have authority to take the necessary provisional measures for the election and meeting of a convention at some time prior to the day fixed for the determination of the authority of this commonwealth and of its laws over the said district, and posterior to the first day of September, one thousand seven hundred and ninety, aforesaid, with full power and authority to frame a fundamental constitution of government for the proposed state, and to declare what laws shall be in force therein, until the same shall be abrogated or altered by the legislative authority acting under the constitution so to be framed and established. Provided, that no act of the said convention, or of the legislature of the proposed state, shall invalidate or affect the rights, titles, or interests, of any person, or description of persons, herein before secured or guarded.

III. This act shall be transmitted by the executive to the representatives of this commonwealth in congress, who are hereby instructed to use their endeavours to obtain from congress a speedy act to the ef fect above specified.

pamattox riv.

cr from

Pocahuntus

bridge

CHAP. LXXXII.

An act for improving the navigation of Appamattox river, from Broadway to Pocahuntas bridge.

[Passed the 30th of December, 1788]

1. WHEREAS it hath been represented to the preAct for im- sent general assembly, that the navigation of Appaproving navi mattox river might be greatly improved by deepening gation of Ap the channel from Pocahuntas bridge to Broadway, se as to admit large vessels to go up to the town of PeBroadway to tersburg: Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That books shall be opened in the town of Petersburg, on the first day of February next, under the management of Robert Bolling, junior, Joseph Jones, Theodrick Bland. Christopher M.Conico, Thomas Griffin Peachey, James Campbell, Edward Pegram, and William Barksdale, for receiving subscriptions for the purpose of deepening the channel of the said river. The subscriptions shall be made personally or by power of attorney, and shall be in current money, and paid in gold or silver coin at the current value. The capital to be subscribed for the purpose aforesaid, shall be ten thousand pounds, and shall be divided into two hundred shares of the value of fifty pounds each. Any person may subscribe one or more whole shares, but no subscription shall be received for less than one share.

II. So soon as one half of the said capital shall be subscribed, the managers herein before named, shall by advertisement in the Petersburg gazette, call a general meeting of the subscribers at the said town of Petersburg. The subscribers who are present at the said meeting shall choose a president, and four directors, and thereafter the subscribers, their heirs and assigns, shall be incorporated into a company, by the name of the Appamattox company, and by that name may sue and be sued. The president and directors shall continue in office for one year, and from thence until the next meeting of the company; and they, or a majority of them, shall have full power to receive subscriptions un

til the before mentioned capital is completed: to contract with any persons on behalf of the company to perform such works as they judge necessary for deepening the channel of the said river from Pocahuntas bridge to Broadway, and for keeping the same open: to appoint such officers as they deem necessary to be employed in the service of the company: to call a meeting of the company, when necessary, to receive from the subscribers the sums respectively subscribed by them, at such times, and in such proportions, as they shall judge proper: and to transact all the other business and concerns of the said company.

III. If any member shall fail to pay to the person authorised by the president and directors to receive the same, the proportion of the subscription required of him within one month after such requisition is made in the Petersburg gazette, the said president and directors may recover the same by motion in the general or district court, in the same manner as the president and directors of the James river and Potowmack companies, can recover the arrears due from any member of the said companies.

IV. There shall be a meeting of the said Appamatlox companp, on the first Monday in May in every year, at which members, or their proxies, having one hundred and five shares at the least, shall be present, and at any intermediate meeting, members or proxies, having sixty shares, shall be sufficient.

V. If a sufficient number of members be not present on the first day; the meeting may be adjourned from day to day, until a sufficient number attend. In counting the votes, each member shal! be allowed one vote for every share, as far as ten shares, and one vote for every five shares after ten. The said company at their annual meeting, or at any other meeting called by the president and directors, may call upon them for an account of their proceedings and contracts, for the execution of the plan for deepening the said river, and of the money received and disbursed by them, and may allow them a sum for their services: may displace the said president and directors, or any of them, and appoint others in their stead: may lower the tolls here inafter allowed them, and may exempt any vessels from the papment thereof: And shall, after leaving in the hands of the president and directors a sufficient VOL. XIE. Z 4

sum for the expences attending the repairs of the said works, and other contingent charges, make an equal dividend of the nett profits arising from the tolls and other profits thereof amongst themselves according to their respective proportions. In consideration of the expences that will be incurred by the said company in deepening the bed of the said river and keeping the same open, the members of the said company, their heirs and assigns, shall be entitled to the tolls berein after mentioned, for ever, as tenants in common, in proportion to their respective shares, and the same shall be deemed real estate, and be for ever exempt from the payment of any tax or imposition whatsoever.

VI. And it shall and may be lawful for the said president and directors, to demand and receive at the place called the Bakehouse, on the said river, or at such other places above that as the said president and directors shall appoint, tolls from vessels drawing upwards of five feet of water, for their passage by or through the said places, according to the following table and rates, to wit: On vessels of five and half feet, three shillings per foot; on vessels of six feet, three shillings and nine pence per foot; on vessels of six and half feet, four shillings and six pence per foot; on vessels of seven feet, five shillings and three pence per fool; on vessels of seven and half feet,six shillings per foot; on vessels of eight feet, six shillings and nine pence per foot; on vessels of eight and half feet, seven shillings and six pence per foot; on vessels of nine feet, nine shillings per foot; on vessels of nine and half feet, eleven shillings and three-pence per foot; on vessels of ten feet, fifteen shillings per foot; on vessels over ten feet, and not more than twelve feet, twenty shillings per foot; and on all vessels over twelve feet, one pound five shillings per foot. Which tolls are rated in money, and may be discharged in gold or silver coin at their current value.

VII. The tolls herein before allowed to be demanded and received, shall be paid on condition only, that the said Appamattax company shall make the said river capaple of being navigated in any season, from Broadway to Pocahuntas bridge, by vessels drawing twelve feet water, and in case the company shall not begin the said work within two years after the company shall be formed, and compleat the same within se

ven years after it is begnn, then the said company shall not be intitled to any benefit or privilege under this

act.

VIII. If payment of the said tolls shall be refused, when any vessel from which the same are demandable offers to pass by or through the said places herein before named, the collectors may lawfully refuse to such vessel; and if any such vessel shall pass without paying the said tolls, the master, skipper, or owner of such vessel, shall forfeit and pay to the said Appamattox company, the sum of two ponnds for every foot of water which it may draw; to be recovered on motion and ten days notice, in any court of record within this commonwealth. The said river and the channel thereof when deepened as aforesaid, shall forever be considered and taken as a public highway for the passage of all vessels, and transportation of all commodities, upon payment of the tolls aforesaid; and no other tax or toll shall at any time hereafter be imposed for the use of the water of the said river; but the said river shall nevertheless be subject to such regulations, as may be prescribed by the laws of this state or the United States. The shares in the said company shall to all intents and purposes be held and transferred by the proprietors thereof, in the same manner and on the same conditions, as the shares of the proprietors in the James river and Potowmack companies.

IX. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to prevent vessels drawing less than five and an half feet water, from using and navigating the said river Appamattox, in the same manner as if this act had never been made: Provided always, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to affect the private right of any individual owning a fishery on the said river.