It is said that the loftiest minds of Congress were swayed by the judgment of George Washington in this matter. They agreed with him that America should establish the precedent of a nation locating and founding a city for its permanent capital by legislative enactment. Furthermore, they wished to honor that first President and great general and counselor, who had made their independence possible, by conferring upon him the power to select for this Federal City the locality he had in prophetic vision chosen as a suitable site for the capital of the Republic. By this act Congress expressed its faith in President Washington by permitting him to establish the capital anywhere along the Potomac between the Eastern Branch and the Connogochegue, a distance of 80 miles. The boundaries of no other city were ever fixed with more certainty. It is recorded that George Washington was harassed by the importunities of anxious residents and aggressive speculators, but that he never wavered in his purpose to select for the site of the Federal City that which in former years he had chosen for the Federal home upon the establishment of the Republic. By proclamation of January 24, 1791, President Washington directed that a preliminary survey be made, or, in the President’s words, “lines of experiment” were to be run. This survey was substantially in accord with the lines subsequently adopted, moving the southern boundary point of the “ten miles square” farther south so as to include a convenient part of the Eastern Branch and also the town of Alexandria. The act of July 16, 1790, was thereupon amended accordingly by act approved March 3, 1791, as follows: