The conference opened at Charlottetown on September 1, the following delegates being present: from Nova Scotia, Charles Tupper, William A. Henry, Robert B. Dickey, Jonathan McCully, Adams G. Archibald; from New Brunswick, S. L. Tilley, John M. Johnston, John Hamilton Gray, Edward B. Chandler, W. H. Steeves; from Prince Edward Island, J. H. Gray, Edward Palmer, W. H. Pope, {50} George Coles, A. A. Macdonald. Newfoundland, having no part in the movement, sent no representatives. Meanwhile Lord Monck, at the request of his ministers, had communicated with the lieutenant-governors asking that a delegation of the Canadian Cabinet might attend the meeting and lay their own plans before it. This was readily accorded. The visitors from Canada arrived from Quebec by steamer. They were George Brown, John A. Macdonald, Alexander T. Galt, George E. Cartier, Hector L. Langevin, William McDougall, D'Arcy McGee, and Alexander Campbell. No official report of the proceedings ever appeared. It is improbable that any exists, but we know from many subsequent references nearly everything of importance that took place. On the arrival of the Canadians they were invited to address the convention at once. The delegates from the Maritime Provinces took the ground that their own plan might, if adopted, be a bar to the larger proposal, and accordingly suggested that the visitors should be heard first. The Canadians, however, saw no reason to fear the smaller union. They believed that Confederation would gain if the three provinces by the sea could be treated as a single unit. {51} But, being requested to state their case, they naturally had no hesitation in doing so. During the previous two months the members of the coalition must have applied themselves diligently to all the chief points in the project. It may be supposed that Galt, Brown, and Macdonald made a strong impression at Charlottetown. They spoke respectively on the finance, the general parliament, and the constitutional structure of the proposed federation. These subjects contained the germs of nearly all the difficulties. When the delegates reassembled a month later at Quebec, it is clear, from the allusions made in the scanty reports that have come down to us, that the leading phases of the question had already been frankly debated.