That when one party breaks any stipulation of a treaty, the other is free to break it also, either in the whole, or in equivalent parts, at its pleasure.
That Congress having made no elections,
Four of the States assumed, separately, to modify the recovery of debts—
1. By indulging their citizens with longer and more practicable times of payment.
2. By liberating their bodies from execution, on their delivering property to the creditor, to the full amount of his demand, on a fair appraisement, as practised always under the elegit.
3. By admitting, during the first moments of the non-existence of coin among us, a discharge of executions by payment in paper money.
The first of these acts of retaliation, was in December, 1783, nine months after the infractions committed by the other party.
And all of them were so moderate, of so short duration, the result of such necessities, and so produced, that we might, with confidence, have referred them, alterius principis, quo boni viri, arbitrio.
3. That induced, at length, by assurances from the British court, that they would concur in a fulfilment of the treaty,
Congress, in 1787, declared to the States its will, that even the appearance of obstacle, raised by their acts, should no longer continue;