This power was to be fettered with several extraordinary limitations, which might render it more acceptable to the governments 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, by whom they were referred to Mr.Jay, the secretary for foreign affairs.

The report of that upright minister did not, by contravening facts, affect to exculpate his country.