1785-e] The States regulate trade. 311 a strong appeal. After some debate, the General Court gave it as their opinion that the powers of Congress were not adequate to the great purposes they were designed to effect, and passed a resolution that it would be expedient to summon a convention of delegates from every State for the sole purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. They also instructed the Governor to write to the executives of the other twelve States urging them to recommend the passage of laws likely to hinder the monopolising policy of Great Britain, passed a Navigation Act forbidding the export of American goods from Massa- chusetts in British bottoms, and laid a tonnage duty on foreign ships. New Hampshire and Rhode Island passed similar Acts. Imitating the merchants of New York and Boston, the people of Philadelphia met, resolved that the oppression under which commerce languished could only be relieved by granting Congress full power to regulate trade, appointed a committee of correspondence, and called on the legislature of Pennsylvania to shut out foreign goods by high duties. This the legislature did ; and the agitation in behalf of the amendment was again taken up by New York. Encouraged by the action of Boston and Philadelphia, and dissatisfied with the action of their own legislature, the Chamber of Commerce of New York, in the autumn of 1785, made a new appeal to the legislature, the States and the people. The movement now spread to Virginia. The Potomac river had always been regarded as the boundary between Virginia and Maryland. The charter of Lord Baltimore had so defined it, but had made the jurisdiction of the colonial governors extend across the river to the southern shore. By the constitution of 1776, Virginia had recognised this charter, and ceded to Maryland all the territory claimed by it, with all rights demanded, except the free use and navigation of the Potomac and Pokomoke rivers from source to mouth. The language conveying the grant was broad and general, and might, without much sophistry, be construed into a complete relinquishing by Virginia of all jurisdiction over both rivers. Yet the matter seems to have escaped notice till after the peace, when Madison, hearing of the many flagrant evasions of Virginian laws by the captains of foreign vessels loading on the Virginia side of the river, suggested a joint commission from Mary- land and Virginia to define the powers of each on the Potomac. This commission was appointed, and in a supplementary report set forth how, in the course of their labours, they had been deeply impressed by the want of legislation on the currency, on duties, and on commercial matters in general, and proposed that two commissioners should be appointed annually to report upon the details of a commercial system for the following year. The legislature of Maryland was the first to act on the report. In doing so, it went beyond the suggestion of the commission, and proposed that Delaware and Pennsylvania should be invited to join Virginia and Maryland in a common system of
