But they denied that treaties were necessary, and maintained that it would be unwise to enter at present into any arrangements by which they might not wish afterwards to be bound. They determined, therefore, to deal with this country as a collection of rival States, with each of which they could make their own terms, after the pressure of their policy, and the impossibility of escaping from its effects, had begun to be felt. They accordingly began, by excluding from the British West Indies, under Orders in Council, the whole American marine, and by prohibiting fish, and many important articles of our produce, from being carried there, even in British vessels.[284] At the termination of the war, the foreign commerce of the United States was capable of great expansion. It consisted of three important branches,--the trade of the Eastern, that of the Middle, and that of the Southern States; each of which required at once the means of reaching foreign markets. The rice and indigo of the South might be carried to Europe. The Middle States might export to Europe tobacco, tar, wheat, and flour; and to the West Indies, pork, beef, bread, flour, lumber, tar, and iron. The Eastern States might supply the markets of Europe with spars, ship-timber, staves, boards, fish, and oil, and those of the West Indies with lumber, pork, beef, live cattle, horses, cider, and fish. The whole of these great interests of course received a sudden and almost fatal blow from the English Orders in Council, and no means whatever existed of countervailing their effects, but such as each State could provide for its own people, by its own legislation. Congress, however, awoke to the perception of an efficient and appropriate remedy, of a temporary character, and prepared to apply it, through an amendment of their powers. For the purpose of meeting the policy of Great Britain with similar restrictions on her commerce, they recommended to the States to vest in Congress, for the term of fifteen years, authority to prohibit the vessels of any power, not having treaties of commerce with the United States, from importing or exporting any commodities into or from any of the States, and also with the power of prohibiting, for a like term, the subjects of any foreign country, unless authorized by treaty, from importing into the United States any merchandise not the produce or manufacture of such country.[285] There was already before the States, as we have seen, in the revenue system of 1783, a proposal to them to vest in Congress power to levy certain duties on foreign commodities, for the same period; and if these two grants of power had been made, and made promptly, by the States, Congress would have possessed, for a time, an effectual control over commerce, and the practical means of forming suitable commercial treaties.