From these proceedings, and from the general representations made by the American merchants, General Washington had augured the most happy effects. In a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, he thus expressed his hope of the consequences which would attend the efforts then making to enlarge the powers of congress. "However unimportant America may be considered at present, and however Britain may affect to despise her trade, there will assuredly come a day when this country will have some weight in the scale of empires." But a concurrence of the states in granting to the general government the beneficial powers in question, was not so near being effected as was hoped by its friends. A resolution was moved in congress, recommending it to the several states to vest in that body full authority to regulate their commerce, both external and internal, and to impose such duties as might be necessary for that purpose. 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.