But the imbecility of the Confederation, from this pretension, soon became apparent. As early as December, 1782, a committee of Congress made an elaborate report on the refusal of Rhode Island, one of the States, to confer certain powers on Congress with regard to revenue and commerce. In April, 1783, an Address of Congress to _the States_ was put forth, appealing to their justice and plighted faith, and representing the consequence of failure on their part to sustain the Government and provide for its wants. In April, 1784, a similar appeal was made to what were called “the several States,” whose Legislatures were recommended to vest “the United States in Congress assembled” with certain powers. In July, 1785, a committee of Congress made another elaborate report on the reason why the States should confer upon Congress powers therein enumerated, in the course of which it was urged, that, “unless _the States_ act together, there is no plan of policy into which they can separately enter which they will not be separately interested to defeat, and of course all their measures must prove vain and abortive.” In February and March, 1786, there were three other reports of committees of Congress, exhibiting the failure of _the States_ to comply with the requisitions of Congress, and the necessity for a complete accession of _all the States_ to the revenue system. In October, 1786, there was still another report, most earnestly renewing the former appeals to _the States_. Nothing could be more urgent. As early as July, 1782, even before the first report to Congress, resolutions were adopted by the State of New York, declaring “that the situation of _these States_ is in a peculiar manner critical,” and that “the radical source of most of our embarrassments is _the want of sufficient power in Congress_ to effectuate that ready and perfect coöperation of _the different States_ on which their immediate safety and future happiness depend.”[183] Finally, in September, 1786, at Annapolis, commissioners from several States, after declaring “the situation of the United States delicate and critical, calling for an exertion of the united virtue and wisdom of all the members of the Confederacy,” recommended the meeting of a Convention “to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union.” In accord with this recommendation, the Congress of the Confederation proposed a Convention “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several Legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union.”