On August 17th, 1839, the Board at last broke their silence, and in a letter to Sir John Colborne they gave utterance to their reasons for opposition. They blamed the Governors for not having first submitted the Charter to them before sending it to the Colonial Office,--and in this they were well within their rights. They had not, they said, even seen a certified copy of the document. They now agreed, however, that the existing Charter required alteration. They suggested that all the Governors of the College should be residents of the Province, but they objected to giving the Governors power to fill vacancies as they occurred, as this would lead in the end to a clique or cabal rule which would lead to abuses in the management of the Institution. The number of Professorships should, they thought, be left unlimited, at the joint discretion of the Governors and the Board. The Governors were to be subservient in power to the Board, and all appointments were to be ratified by the Crown. There should also be permission given for the granting of Honorary degrees. The Visitatorial duties and powers of the Royal Institution should be more clearly defined. "The Board," the letter stated, "also think it important, seeing that the declared object of the Royal Charter was the promotion of true religion, that the body of the Governors should be Protestants, and they beg leave also to call the particular attention of your Excellency to the necessity of introducing some provision into the amended Charter for requiring not only the Principal, Vice-Principal and Professors, and all others engaged in the instruction of youth in the University, but also the Governors themselves before being admitted to office, to make and subscribe a declaration of their belief in the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God, and in the doctrine of the Trinity of persons in the Godhead, as held by orthodox Protestant Churches." To the majority of these suggestions the Governors agreed. But they denied the right of the members of the Board to exercise so great a power as such suggestions, if carried out, would give them. They protested against the necessity of having appointments ratified by the Crown. There was a rapid cross-fire of correspondence to the Governor-General, in which the various suggestions were presented and answered by each of the contending parties. But into the details of this long-continued and at times bitter correspondence it is unnecessary here further to enter. Meanwhile the Charter waited.