ation. I am not without hopes that matters will soon take a
favourable turn in the federal constitution. The discerning part of
the community have long since seen the necessity of giving adequate
powers to congress for national purposes, and those of a different
description must yield to it ere long."

[Sidenote: Discontents of the Americans against the commercial
regulations of Britain.]

While the recommendation of the 30th of April, 1784, was before the
states, many causes contributed to diffuse through the community such
a general dissatisfaction with the existing state of things, as to
prepare the way for some essential change in the American system. In
the course of the long war which had been carried on in the bosom of
their country, the people of the United States had been greatly
impoverished. Their property had been seized for the support of both
armies; and much of their labour had been drawn from agriculture for
the performance of military service. The naval power of their enemy
had almost annihilated their commerce; from which resulted the
two-fold calamity, that imported commodities were enhanced to an
enormous price, while those for exportation were reduced much below
their ordinary value. The inevitable consequence was, that those
consumable articles which habit had rendered necessary, were
exhausted; and peace found the American people, not only destitute of
the elegancies, and even of the conveniences of life, but also without
the means of procuring them, otherwise than by anticipating the
proceeds of future industry. On opening their ports, an immense
quantity of foreign merchandise was introduced into the country, and
they were tempted by the sudden cheapness of imported goods, and by
their own wants, to purchase beyond their capacities for payment. Into
this indiscretion, they were in some measure beguiled by their own
sanguine calculations on the value which a free trade would bestow on
the produce of their soil, and by a reliance on those evidences of the
public debt which were in the hands of most of them. So extravagantly
too did many estimate the temptation which equal liberty and vacant
lands would hold out to emigrants from the old world, as to entertain
the opinion that Europe was about to empty itself into America, and
that the United States would derive from that source such an increase
of population, as would enhance their lands to a price heretofore not
even conjectured. Co-operating w