<P> The Congress of the Confederation opened in the last stages of the American Revolution . Combat ended in October 1781, with the surrender of the British after the Siege and Battle of Yorktown . The British, however, continued to occupy New York City, while the American delegates in Paris, named by the Congress, negotiated the terms of peace with Great Britain . Based on preliminary articles with the British negotiators made on November 30, 1782, and approved by the "Congress of the Confederation" on April 15, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was further signed on September 3, 1783, and ratified by Confederation Congress then sitting at the Maryland State House in Annapolis on January 14, 1784 . This formally ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain and the thirteen former colonies, which on July 4, 1776, had declared independence . In December 1783, General George Washington, commander - in - chief of the Continental Army, journeyed to Annapolis after saying farewell to his officers (at Fraunces Tavern) and men who had just reoccupied New York City after the departing British Army . On December 23, at the Maryland State House, where the Congress met in the Old Senate Chamber, he addressed the civilian leaders and delegates of Congress and returned to them the signed commission they had voted him back in June 1775, at the beginning of the conflict . With that simple gesture of acknowledging the first civilian power over the military, he took his leave and returned by horseback the next day to his home and family at Mount Vernon near the colonial river port city on the Potomac River at Alexandria in Virginia . </P> <P> On March 1, 1781, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were signed by delegates of Maryland at a meeting of the Second Continental Congress, which then declared the Articles ratified . As historian Edmund Burnett wrote, "There was no new organization of any kind, not even the election of a new President ." The Congress still called itself the Continental Congress . Nevertheless, despite its being generally the same exact governing body, with some changes in membership over the years as delegates came and went individually according to their own personal reasons and upon instructions of their state governments, some modern historians would later refer to the Continental Congress after the ratification of the Articles as the Congress of the Confederation or the Confederation Congress . (The Congress itself continued to refer to itself at the time as the Continental Congress .) </P> <P> The Congress had little power and without the external threat of a war against the British, it became more difficult to get enough delegates to meet to form a quorum . Nonetheless the Congress still managed to pass important laws, most notably the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 . </P> <P> The War of Independence saddled the country with an enormous debt . In 1784, the total Confederation debt was nearly $40 million . Of that sum, $8 million was owed to the French and Dutch . Of the domestic debt, government bonds, known as loan - office certificates, composed $11.5 million, certificates on interest indebtedness $3.1 million, and continental certificates $16.7 million . </P>

How many houses did the confederation congress have