The New England Federalists soon found seven great reasons for party action. They were the uncertain success of the war by land; the great commercial distress; [f] the possession by the enemy of a large part of Maine; the publication of the terms upon which England would grant peace; [g] the proposed legislation in the fall of 1814, providing for the increase of the United States army by draft or conscription; the proposed modified form of impressment of sailors; and the bill allowing army officers to enlist minors and apprentices over eighteen years of age, with or without consent of parents or guardians. [h] These measures drove the New England Federalists, at the call of Massachusetts, to the formation of the Hartford Convention. The Connecticut legislature approved the sending of delegates by a vote of 153 to 36 opposed. Massachusetts and Rhode Island answered with like enthusiasm. New Hampshire and Vermont hesitated, but the counties of Cheshire and Grafton in the former state and of Windham in the latter sent each a delegate to the convention. Rhode Island sent four delegates and Massachusetts twelve, of whom George Cabot was elected president of the convention. Connecticut furnished the secretary of the convention, and later its historian in Theodore Dwight of Hartford. She also sent seven other delegates, namely: Chauncey Goodrich, mayor of Hartford, and from 1814 to 1815 governor of the state; John Treadwell, ex-governor; James Hillhouse, who had served as United States representative and senator; Zephaniah Swift, United States representative and later chief judge of superior court of Connecticut; Calvin Goddard, United States representative; Nathaniel Smith, United States representative and later judge of the supreme court; and Roger Minot Sherman, a distinguished lawyer and member of the state legislature. All the delegates to the Hartford Convention were men of high character, and most of them well-known leaders of the Federal party. The convention lasted for three weeks, and, as its sessions were conducted with the greatest secrecy, many prejudicial rumors and surmises arose. The Massachusetts summons had bidden the delegates convene for measures of safety "not repugnant to our obligations as members of the Union," and the convention acknowledged that it found the greatest difficulty in "devising means of defense against dangers, and of relief from oppressions proceeding from the act of their own Government without violating constitutional principles or disappointing the hopes of a suffering and injured people." The secrecy, the known antagonism to the Administration, the knowledge of New England's early disbelief in the cohesive power of the Union, and the convention's demands and resolutions, combined to give a bad and traitorous reputation to the Hartford Convention that has never been absolutely cleared away.