Ultimately, the Penang Secession Committee failed to attain its goals and petered out. A secession motion tabled in the Penang Settlement Council in 1949 was narrowly dismissed by British official votes, while another petition sent to London in 1951 also met with British disapproval. While some British and American observers were sympathetic to the secessionists' cause, the British administrators were reluctant to jeopardise their own plans to gradually grant independence to a united Malayan polity. Moreover, the British government allayed the fears raised by the secessionists by guaranteeing George Town's free port status and by reintroducing municipal elections for the city in 1951.