No more important question was proposed to the commissioners in 1816 than the one which asked them to ascertain where the money that was to build the Erie Canal was coming from. Of course a loan must be made and the commissioners at once began casting about for information. William Bayard inquired for loans in Europe, but no answer was now at hand. "The Committee entertain no doubt," was the tentative reply in 1817, "but that as much money can be obtained in this country, as may be required for the canal, on the credit of the state, at an interest of 6 per cent by the creation of a funded debt, and that ample funds may be appropriated for the payment of the interest, and the gradual extinguishment of the debt without the imposition of taxes." The commissioners applied to those states which, it seemed, would be most benefited by the canal, Vermont on one side and Ohio and Kentucky (!) on the other, and to the United States. "But if no extraneous aid should be afforded," the commissioners concluded with threatening menace, "it will at all times be in the power of this state to levy high transit on the articles transported to and from those states and the territory of the United States, and thereby secure eventually, a greater fund than can possibly arise from any present contribution from those quarters." In order to facilitate gifts in lands or money, the commissioners scattered blank forms of cession and bequest throughout the country; "one form relates to gratuitous grants of land for the ground through which the canal is to pass, and the other is a contribution to the fund for making it. Agents have also been appointed in Vermont and Ohio for the same purpose." It was reported that nearly all the land necessary for the canal throughout its entire length would be ceded by the owners to the state for the purpose. In concluding their report for the year ending February 15, 1817, the commissioners affirmed that "their investigations have shown the physical facility of this great internal communication, and a little attention to the resources of the state will demonstrate its financial practicability. And they may be permitted to remark, that unless it is established the greater part of the trade which does not descend the Mississippi, from all those vast and fertile regions west of the Seneca lake, will be lost to the United States." This report is signed by De Witt Clinton, S. Van Rensselaer, Samuel Young, and Myron Holley.