When the full Convention met on 18 December just before the recess, Midleton made an address in which his scheme further conceded to Ireland the control of excise in addition to all purely Irish services. Merely customs and defence were to remain for the period of the war with the Imperial Parliament, thereafter to be decided by a joint commission. He appealed to both Nationalists and Northern Unionists to seek agreement on these lines. Redmond, already very ill, was waylaid through indisposition and a snow storm in his home in the Wicklow hills and could not attend. The fears of those present were that should the proposals be adopted, the decision would be exposed to attack by a combination of three forces personified by: Sinn Féin, who would condemn anything other than complete separation; the Hierarchy, as represented by Bishop O’Donnell; and by William Martin Murphy and his "Independent" (the most widely read nationalist paper in Ireland).