“When this deficiency becomes apparent, no reason can preclude the right of the whole people who were parties to it to adopt another.... But as a proposition for such a convention from a single State would probably be unsuccessful, and our danger admits not of delay, it is recommended by the committee that in the first instance a conference should be invited between those States the affinity of whose interests is closest.” Thus, after ten years’ delay, the project of a New England Convention was brought forward by State authority, through the process of war with England, which George Cabot from the first declared to be the only means of producing it.[336] As Otis’s committee presented the subject, the conference was in the first place to devise some mode of common defence; and, in the second, “to lay the foundation for a radical reform in the national compact by inviting to a future convention a deputation from all the States in the Union.” The report closed by offering seven Resolutions, recommending the enlistment of a State army of ten thousand men, a loan of a million dollars at six per cent, and the appointment of delegates “to meet and confer with delegates from the States of New England or any of them” on the defence of those States and the redress of their grievances. The Senate committee also made a strenuous argument against the President’s decision that State militia were in State service unless called for by a United States officer and placed under his direction,[337] and recommended that the subject should be referred to the next session. To the proposition for a conference of the New England States, and to Otis’s other Resolutions, the Senate and House assented, October 13, by large majorities, varying in numbers, but amounting to two hundred and sixty against ninety in the case of the proposed convention. The minority in both Houses presented protests, charging the majority with intending more than was avowed. “The reasoning of the report,” said the Protest signed by seventy-six members of the House,[338] “is supported by the alarming assumption that the Constitution has failed in its objects, and the people of Massachusetts are absolved from their allegiance, and at liberty to adopt another. In debate it has been reiterated that the Constitution is no longer to be respected, and that revolution is not to be deprecated.” The House refused to receive the Protest, as disrespectful. The minority withdrew from further share in these proceedings; and the majority then, October 19, chose twelve delegates “to meet and confer on the 15th December next with such as may be chosen by any or all of the other New England States upon our public grievances and concerns.” The choice was marked by a conservative spirit not altogether pleasing to Timothy Pickering. George Cabot and Harrison Gray Otis stood at the head of the delegation.