The Annapolis commissioners made a written report of their recommendations. This report was sent to the respective legislatures of the five nations, which had commissioners at Annapolis. Copies were also sent to the Federal Congress and to the Executives of the other eight nations in the federation. The report explained that the commissioners had become convinced that there were many important defects in the federal system, in addition to its lack of any power over commerce. The report recommended that the thirteen nations appoint “commissioners, to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday in May next, to take into consideration the situation of the United States; to devise such further provisions as shall seem to them necessary to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union; and to report such an act for that purpose, to the United States in Congress assembled as, when agreed to by them, and afterwards confirmed by the legislature of every state, will effectually provide for the same.” The Annapolis recommendation was acted upon by the legislatures of twelve nations. Each nation, except Rhode Island, appointed delegates to attend the Philadelphia Convention to begin in May, 1787. Madison himself, in his introduction to his report of the debates of the Philadelphia Convention, gives his own explanation of why Rhode Island did not send delegates. “Rhode Island was the only exception to a compliance with the recommendation from Annapolis, well known to have been swayed by an obdurate adherence to an advantage, which her position gave her, of taxing her neighbors through their consumption of imported supplies--an advantage which it was foreseen would be taken from her by a revisal of the Articles of Confederation.” This is mentioned herein merely to bring home to the minds of Americans of the present generation the reality of the fact, now so difficult to realize, that there were _then_ actually in America thirteen independent nations, each having its powerful jealousies of the other nations and particularly of its own immediate neighbors. The actual reality of this fact is something which the reader should not forget. It is important to a correct understanding of much that is said later herein. It is often mentioned in the arguments that accompanied the making of our Constitution, that the nation of New Jersey was suffering from exactly the same trouble as the nation of Rhode Island was causing to its neighbors. Almost all imported supplies consumed by the citizens of New Jersey came through the ports of New York and Philadelphia and were taxed by the nations of New York and Pennsylvania.