The undersigned, representatives of English and Canadian newspapers, find that it would be impossible for them satisfactorily to discharge their duties if an injunction of secrecy be imposed on the conference and stringently carried into effect. They, therefore, beg leave to suggest whether, 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: