its legislature
resolved that "the present powers of the Congress of the United States,
as contained in the articles of confederation, are not fully adequate to
the great purposes they were originally designed to effect." The
Massachusetts delegates in Congress--Gerry, Holton, and King--were
instructed to recommend a general convention of the states for the
purpose of revising and amending the articles of confederation; but the
delegates refused to comply with their instructions, and set forth their
reasons in a paper which was approved by Samuel Adams, and caused the
legislature to reconsider its action. It was feared that a call for a
convention might seem too much like an open expression of a want of
confidence in Congress, and might thereby weaken it still further
without accomplishing any good result. For the present, as a temporary
expedient, Massachusetts took counsel with New Hampshire, and the two
states passed navigation acts, prohibiting British ships from carrying
goods out of their harbours, and imposing a fourfold duty upon all such
goods as they should bring in. A discriminating tonnage duty was also
laid upon all foreign vessels. Rhode Island soon after adopted similar
measures. In Congress a scheme for a uniform navigation act, to be
concurred in and passed by all the thirteen states, was suggested by one
of the Maryland delegates; but it was opposed by Richard Henry Lee and
most of the delegates from the far south. The southern states, having no
ships or seamen of their own, feared that the exclusion of British
competition might enable northern ship-owners to charge exorbitant rates
for carrying their rice and tobacco, thus subjecting them to a ruinous
monopoly; but the gallant Moultrie, then governor of South Carolina,
taking a broader view of the case, wrote to Bowdoin, governor of
Massachusetts, asserting the paramount need of harmonious and united
action. In the Virginia assembly, a hot-headed member, named Thurston,
declared himself in doubt "whether it would not be better to encourage
the British rather than the eastern marine;" but the remark was greeted
with hisses and groans, and the speaker was speedily put down. Amid such
mutual jealousies and misgivings, during the year 1785 acts were passed
by ten states granting to Congress the power of regulating commerce for
the ensuing thirteen years. The three states which refrained from acting
were Georgia, South Carolina, and Delaware. The acts of th