In 1782, negotiations were entered into for a similar treaty with the States General of the Netherlands. When the instructions to Mr. Adams to negotiate this treaty were under consideration in Congress, it was recollected that the French treaty contained a stipulation, the effect of which would enable the heirs of the subjects of either party, dying in the territories of the other, to inherit real property, without obtaining letters of naturalization.[276] The doubt suggested itself,--as it well might,--whether such an indefinite license to aliens to possess real property within the United States, was not an encroachment upon the rights of the States. It seems to have been expected, when the French treaty was entered into, that the States would acquiesce in this provision, on account of the peculiar relations of this country to France, and because of the saving clause in the Articles of Confederation in favor of the treaties to be made with that power and with Spain.[277] But such a stipulation as this was clearly not within the meaning of that clause; and it was received with great repugnance by many of the States.[278] In the treaty with the Netherlands, it was proposed to insert a similar provision; but it was found to be extremely improbable that the States would comply with a similar engagement with another power. The language was therefore varied, so as to give the privilege of inheritance only as to the "effects" of persons dying in the country;--an expression which would probably exclude real property, but which might possibly be construed to include it.[279] With regard to duties and imposts, the Dutch treaty contained the same stipulation as the French, putting the subjects of either power on the footing of the most favored nations, and thereby holding out to the subjects of the United Provinces the promise of an equality, under the laws of the United States, with the subjects of France.[280] The same stipulation was inserted in a treaty subsequently made at Paris with the King of Sweden.[281] If these stipulations were supposed or intended to be binding upon the States, so as to restrain them from adopting, within their respective jurisdictions, any other rule than that fixed by the French treaty, for the subjects of the United Provinces and the King of Sweden, it is quite clear that the Articles of Confederation gave no authority to Congress to make them. They could have no effect, therefore, in producing a uniformity of regulation throughout the United States, with regard to the trade with Sweden and the Netherlands.