s who were asked to
bestow it, among which was a provision that the duties should be
"collectible under the authority, and accrue to the use of the state
in which the same should be made payable." Notwithstanding these
restrictions, marking the keen sighted jealousy with which any
diminution of state sovereignty was watched, this resolution
encountered much opposition even in congress.

During these transactions, the public attention was called to another
subject which served to impress still more powerfully on every
reflecting mind, the necessity of enlarging the powers of the general
government, were it only to give efficacy to those which in theory it
already possessed.

The uneasiness occasioned by the infractions of the treaty of peace on
the part of Great Britain, has been already noticed. To obtain its
complete execution, constituted one of the objects for which Mr. Adams
had been deputed to the court of St. James. A memorial presented by
that minister in December, 1785, urging the complaints of America, and
pressing for a full compliance with the treaty, was answered by an
enumeration of the violations of that compact on the part of the
United States. The Marquis of Carmarthen acknowledged explicitly the
obligation created by the seventh article to withdraw the British
garrisons from every post within the United States; but insisted that
the obligation created by the fourth article, to remove every lawful
impediment to the recovery of _bona fide_ debts, was equally clear and
explicit.

"The engagements entered into by a treaty ought," he said, "to be
mutual, and equally binding on the respective contracting parties. It
would, therefore, be the height of folly as well as injustice, to
suppose one party alone obliged to a strict observance of the public
faith, while the other might remain free to deviate from its own
engagements as often as convenience might render such deviation
necessary, though at the expense of its own credit and importance."

He concluded with the assurance, "that whenever America should
manifest a real determination to fulfil her part of the treaty, Great
Britain would not hesitate to prove her sincerity to co-operate in
whatever points depended upon her, for carrying every article of it
into real and complete effect."

This letter was accompanied by a statement of the infractions of the
fourth article.

Copies of both documents were immediately transmitted by Mr. Adams to
congress,