[354] Governor Bowdoin's first Message to the Legislature, May 31, 1785. [355] July 1, 1785. [356] The delegation at that time consisted of Elbridge Gerry, Samuel Holten, and Rufus King. Their "Reasons assigned for suspending the delivery to Congress of the Governor's letter for revising and altering the Confederation" may be found in the Life of Hamilton, II. 353. See also Boston Magazine for 1785, p. 475. [357] November 25, 1785. [358] Letter of Messrs. Gerry, Holten, and King, delegates in Congress, to the Governor of Massachusetts, assigning reasons for suspending the delivery of his letter to Congress, dated September 3, 1785. Life of Hamilton, II. 353, 357. "We are apprehensive," said they, "and it is our duty to declare it, that such a measure would produce throughout the Union an exertion of the friends of an aristocracy to send members who would promote a change of government; and we can form some judgment of the plan which such members would report to Congress. But should the members be altogether republican, _such have been the declamations of designing men_ against the Confederation generally, against the rotation of members, which, perhaps, is the best check to corruption, and against the mode of altering the Confederation by the unanimous consent of the legislatures, which effectually prevents innovations in the articles by intrigue or surprise, that we think there is great danger of a report which would invest Congress with powers that the honorable legislature have not the most distant intention to delegate." [359] November 30th, 1785. [360] The resolution introduced on the 30th of November was agreed to in the Delegates, but before it was carried up to the Senate, it was reconsidered and laid upon the table. Elliot's Debates, I. 114, 115. Letter of Mr. Madison to General Washington, of December 9, 1785, Washington's Works, IX. 508. [361] What direct agency General Washington had in suggesting or promoting this scheme, does not appear; although it seems to have originated, or to have been agreed upon, at his house. His published correspondence contains no mention of the visit of the commissioners; but Chief Justice Marshall states that such a visit was made, and in this statement he is followed by Mr. Sparks. (Marshall, V. 90; Sparks, I. 428.) Mr. Madison, writing to General Washington in December, 1785, refers to "the proposed appointment of commissioners for Virginia and Maryland, _concerted at Mount Vernon_, for keeping up harmony in the commercial regulations of the two States," and says that the meeting of commissioners from all the States, which had then been proposed, "seems naturally to grow out of it." (Washington's Writings, IX. 509.)