“With an extent of territory sufficient to maintain more than ten millions of inhabitants, ... we can only boast of a population something less than six hundred thousand, and it is but too obvious that this population under the present state of things already approaches its maximum. Within twenty-five years past more than two hundred thousand of our inhabitants have removed to the waters of the Ohio, Tennessee, and Mobile; and it is mortifying to witness the fact that thousands of our wealthy and respectable citizens are annually moving to the West, ... and that thousands of our poorer citizens follow them, being literally driven away by the prospect of poverty. In this state of things our agriculture is at a stand.” The Virginians showed an equally strong sense of their perils. Twelve months after the North Carolina legislature took the matter in hand, a committee of the Virginia legislature in December, 1816, discussed the same topic and reached the same conclusion.[160] Although something had been done by corporations to open canals on the Potomac, the James River, and to the Dismal Swamp, the State of Virginia had in sixteen years made little advance in material welfare. While New England had built turnpikes wherever a profit could be expected, in Virginia, said the committee, “the turnpike-roads of the Commonwealth, except a few short passes of particular mountains and a road recently begun from Fredericksburg to the Blue Ridge, are confined principally to the county of Loudon, the adjacent counties of Fairfax, Fauquier, and Frederick, and to the vicinity of the seat of government.” In other respects the situation was worse. “While many other States,” said the committee,[161] “have been advancing in wealth and numbers with a rapidity which has astonished themselves, the ancient Dominion and elder sister of the Union has remained stationary. A very large proportion of her western territory is yet unimproved, while a considerable part of her eastern has receded from its former opulence. How many sad spectacles do her low-lands present of wasted and deserted fields, of dwellings abandoned by their proprietors, of churches in ruins! The genius of her ancient hospitality, benumbed by the cold touch of penury, spreads his scanty hoard in naked halls, or seeks a coarser but more plenteous repast in the lonely cabins of the West. The fathers of the land are gone where another outlet to the ocean turns their thoughts from the place of their nativity, and their affections from the haunts of their youth.” Another committee reported to the House of Delegates Jan. 5, 1816, in favor of extending the banking system of the State.[162] The report used language new as an expression of Virginian opinions.