On the 8th of May, 1858, they held a meeting with closed doors, there being present the original company of ten or eleven white members and one colored, whom Brown had brought with him, and a somewhat miscellaneous gathering of negro residents of Canada.

Some sort of promise of secrecy was mutually made; then John Brown, in a speech, laid his plan before the meeting.
One Delany, a colored doctor, in a response, promised the assistance of all the colored people in Canada.

The provisional constitution drafted by Brown at Rochester was read and adopted by articles, and about forty-five persons signed their names to the "Constitution," for the "proscribed and oppressed races of the United States." Two days afterwards, the meeting again convened for the election of officers; John Brown was elected commander-in-chief by acclamation; other members were by the same summary method appointed secretary of war, secretary of state, secretary of the treasury, and two of them members of congress.

The election of a president was prudently postponed.
This Chatham Convention cannot claim consideration as a serious deliberative proceeding.

John Brown was its sole life and voice.