The chief opponents of the new arrangement were the clergy. It was on the 23rd of February 1652 that the delegates assembled at Dalkeith; and on the following day Baillie writes: “All the ministers of Edinburgh prays still for the king, and preaches very freely and zealously against the way of the English; this they are very angry at, and threatens to remeed it.” But the ministers were divided against each other. Some resisted the Union because they were Royalists, some because they could not tolerate the idea of uniting with a country in which the Independents and other “Sectaries” had so much power, and others because they thought that the result of the Union would be that the Church would become subordinate to the State. But their resistance was of no avail; and they could only lament the defection of so many of the laity. “Good Sir John Seaton,” Baillie writes in reference to the Conference at Dalkeith, “was the first that subscribed his free and willing acceptance of the incorporation for East Louthian. The two Swintons followed for the Merse, Stobs for Tiviotdale, Dundas for West Louthian, William Thomson and Fairbairne, I think, have done the like for Edinburgh, and its like almost all burghs and shyres will, under their hand, renounce their Covenant; Glasgow and the West purposes to refuse, for which we are like deeply to suffer; but the will of the Lord be done.”[71] The result of the meeting of delegates was reported to Parliament; and the Council of State was instructed to prepare a Bill for the union of the two countries. Deputies were sent from Scotland to Westminster to adjust the details of the measure, and, in particular, to fix the number of members who were to represent Scotland in the Parliament of the United Commonwealth. A series of conferences were held between these deputies and a Committee of Parliament, at which the demands of Scotland were discussed. There was great difficulty in settling the question of representation.[72] The English proposal was that, in the united Parliament, England should be represented by four hundred members, Scotland by thirty, and Ireland by thirty. The number of commoners in the Scottish Parliament had been one hundred and twenty; and the deputies wished sixty Scottish members to have seats in the House of Commons. The English Government, however, refused to admit more than thirty. This was agreed to; and the Union Bill was about to pass, when, on the 20th of April 1653, Cromwell put an end to the Long Parliament.