, while the remarks of individual members of your body
are kept secret, the propositions made and the treatment they meet
with, might not advantageously be made public, and whether such a
course would not best accord with the real interests committed to the
conference. Such a kind of compromise between absolute secrecy and
unlimited publicity is usually, we believe, observed in cases where an
European congress holds the peace of the world and the fate of nations
in its hands. And we have thought that the British American Conference
might perhaps consider the precedent not inapplicable to the present
case. Such a course would have the further advantage of preventing
ill-founded and mischievous rumours regarding the proceedings from
obtaining currency.[1]

{59} This ingenious appeal was signed by S. Phillips Day, of the London
_Morning Herald_, by Charles Lindsey of the Toronto _Leader_, and by
Brown Chamberlain of the Montreal _Gazette_. Among the other writers
of distinction in attendance were George Augustus Sala of the London
_Daily Telegraph_, Charles Mackay of _The Times_, Livesy of _Punch_,
and George Brega of the New York _Herald_. But the conference stood
firm, and the impatient correspondents were denied even the mournful
satisfaction of brief daily protocols. They were forced to be content
with overhearing the burst of cheering from the delegates when
Macdonald's motion proposing federation was unanimously adopted. The
reasons for maintaining strict secrecy were thus stated by John
Hamilton Gray,[2] a delegate from New Brunswick, who afterwards became
the historian of the Confederation movement:

After much consideration it was determined, as in Prince Edward Island,
that the convention should hold its {60} deliberations with closed
doors. In addition to the reasons which had governed the convention at
Charlottetown, it was further urged, that the views of individual
members, after a first expression, might be changed by the discussion
of new points, differing essentially from the ordinary current of
subjects that came under their consideration in the more limited range
of the Provincial Legislatures; and it was held that no man ought to be
prejudiced, or be liable to the charge in public that he had on some
other occasion advocated this or that doctrine, or this or that
principle, inconsistent with the one that might then be deemed best, in
view of the future union to be adopted.... Liberals and