The lack of information on the work of the convention, which sat from May 25 to September 17, 1787, is frequently deplored. The deficiency is due not to indifference on the part of those concerned, but largely to the lack of information given out to the public at the time and since. In apologising to Jefferson for not sending a full account of the proceedings during the sessions, Madison said: "It was thought expedient, in order to secure unbiassed discussion within doors, and to prevent misconceptions and misconstructions without, to establish some rules of caution." These rules, adopted early in the proceedings, forbade the inspection of the minutes by any one not a member, prohibited the copying of any part of them, and enjoined the members against disclosing anything said in the sessions. Dr. Manasseh Cutler, who visited Philadelphia during the summer, went to the State House, but found "sentries planted without and within--to prevent any person from approaching near--who appear to be very alert in the performance of their duty." When he went to pay his respects to Dr. Franklin, a member of the convention from Pennsylvania, the philosopher showed him a curiosity in the shape of a two-headed snake and fell to speculating upon what it would do if, on meeting the stem of a bush, the heads should choose to go one on each side of it. "He was then going to mention," wrote Cutler in his journal, "a humorous matter that had that day taken place in convention, in consequence of his comparing the snake to America; but the secrecy of the convention matters was suggested to him, which stopped him." [Illustration: MANASSEH CUTLER] This secrecy was felt to be binding perpetually by many of the members. The secretary of the convention, Major Jackson, who came to Philadelphia as private secretary to General Washington, kept the official minutes. This book, by one of the final motions of the convention, was entrusted to Washington, who had presided so conscientiously over the sessions that he did not allow himself even the privilege of debating. In 1796, he deposited it among the public archives. Until the year 1837, these minutes, with a few letters submitted by some of the seceding delegates justifying their action, and the gleanings from eighty-odd private letters written by members of the convention, constituted all public knowledge of the details of the meeting. But in the year mentioned above, Madison's papers were purchased by the National Government, and among them was found a number of little home-made books containing his priceless "Notes on the Convention." In the introductory pages, Madison tells how he carried out his determination to preserve a record of the debates for the benefit of posterity.