But the administration, in which he was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, went out of office immediately after he had proposed this measure, and their successors, following a totally different line of policy, procured an act of Parliament authorizing the King in Council to regulate the commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain and her dependencies.1

Mr. Pitt's bill was designed to admit the vessels and subjects of the United States into all the ports of Great Britain, in the same manner as the subjects and vessels of other independent sovereign states, and to admit merchandise and goods, the growth, produce, or manufacture of this country, under the same duties and charges as if they were the property of British subjects, imported in British vessels. It also proposed to establish an entirely free trade between the United States and the British islands, colonies, and plantations in America. The new administration, on the contrary, believing that this would encourage the American marine, to the ruin of that of Great Britain, and would deprive the latter of a monopoly in the consumption of her colonies, and in their carrying trade, resolved to reverse this entire policy. In this course, they were encouraged by the views which they took of the internal situation of this country, and which were, to a great extent, justified by the fact. They believed that we could not act, as a nation, upon questions of commerce; that

1 April, 1783

the climates, the staples, and the manners of the States were different, and their interests therefore opposite; and that no combination was likely to take place, from which England would have reason to fear retaliation. They supposed, that, inasmuch as the Confederation had no power to make any but general treaties, and as the States had reserved to themselves nearly every power concerning the regulation of trade, no treaty could be made that would be binding upon all the States; and that, if treaties should become necessary, they must be made with the States respectively. But they denied that treaties were necessary, and maintained that it would be unwise to enter at present into any arrangements by which they might not wish afterwards to be bound. They determined, therefore, to deal with this country as a collection of rival States, with each of which they could make their own terms, after the pressure of their policy, and the impossibility of escaping from its effects, had begun to be felt. They accordingly began, by excluding from the British West Indies, under Orders in Council, the whole American marine, and by prohibiting fish, and many important articles of our produce, from being carried there, even in British vessels.1

At the termination of the war, the foreign commerce of the United States was capable of great ex

pansion. It consisted of three important branches,— the trade of the Eastern, that of the Middle, and that of the Southern States; each of which required at once the means of reaching foreign markets. The rice and indigo of the South might be carried to Europe. The Middle States might export to Europe tobacco, tar, wheat, and flour; and to the West Indies, pork, beef, bread, flour, lumber, tar, and iron. The Eastern States might supply the markets of Europe with spars, ship-timber, staves, boards, fish, and oil, and those of the West Indies with lumber, pork, beef, live cattle, horses, cider, and fish. The whole of these great interests of course received a sudden and almost fatal blow from the English Orders in Council, and no means whatever existed of countervailing their effects, but such as each State could provide for its own people, by its own legisla tion.

Congress, however, awoke to the perception of an efficient and appropriate remedy, of a temporary character, and prepared to apply it, through an amendment of their powers. For the purpose of meeting the policy of Great Britain with similar restrictions on her commerce, they recommended to the States to vest in Congress, for the term of fifteen years, authority to prohibit the vessels of any power, not having treaties of commerce with the United States, from importing or exporting any commodities into or from any of the States, and also with the power of prohibiting, for a like term, the subjects of any foreign country, unless authorized by treaty,

from importing into the United States any merchandise not the produce or manufacture of such country.1 There was already before the States, as we have seen, in the revenue system of 1783, a proposal to them to vest in Congress power to levy certain duties on foreign commodities, for the same period; and if these two grants of power had been made, and made promptly, by the States, Congress would have possessed, for a time, an effectual control over commerce, and the practical means of forming suitable commercial treaties.

But the proposal of the 30th of April, 1784, met with a tardy and reluctant attention among the States. Only one of them had acted upon it, as late as the following February, when the delegates for Maryland laid before Congress an act of that State upon the subject.2 New Hampshire was the next State to comply, in the succeeding June. In the mean time, however, Congress prepared to prosecute negotiations in Europe, trusting to the chances of an enlargement of their powers, in pursuance of their recommendation. Accordingly, they proceeded, in the spring of 1784, to appoint a commission to negotiate commercial treaties, and settled the principles on which such treaties were to be formed. The leading principle then determined on was, that each party to the treaty should have a right to carry their own produce, manufactures, and merchandise

1 April 30, 1784.

2 February 14. 1785. Journals, X. 53.

3 By an act passed June 2223, 1785; laid before Congress October 10, 1785. Ibid. 353.

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in their own bottoms to the ports of the other, and to take thence the produce, manufactures, and merchandise of the other, paying, in both cases, such duties only as were paid by the most favored nation. The resolves appointing the commission also contained a very explicit direction, that "the United States, in all such treaties, and in every case arising under them, should be considered as one nation, upon the principles of the Federal Constitution." Yet the Federal Constitution did not, at that very moment, make the United States one nation for this purpose. Its principles gave to Congress no authority which could prevent the States from prohibiting any exportations or importations whatever, as to their respective territories; and the validity of these treaties, thus proposed to be negotiated with fifteen European powers, depended altogether upon the precarious assent of the thirteen States to the alterations in the principles of the Federal Constitution which Congress had proposed.

That assent was not likely to be given, so as to become effectual for the purposes for which it had been asked. The action of the States was found, in the spring of 1786, to present a mass of incongrui

1 The commission consisted of Mr. John Adams, then at the Hague, Dr. Franklin, then in France, and Mr. Jefferson, then in Congress. Mr. Jefferson sailed from Boston on the 5th of July, and arrived in Paris on the 6th of August, 1784. (Works, I. 49.) The powers with whom they were to nego

tiate commercial treaties were Russia, Austria, Prussia, Denmark, Saxony, Hamburg, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Genoa, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Venice, Sardinia, and the Ottoman Porte. Secret Journals, III. 484-489. May 7, 1784.