JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES
IN
Historical and Political Science
Under the Direction of the
Departments of History, Political Economy, and Political Science

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BRITISH COMMITTEES, COMMISSIONS,
AND COUNCILS OF TRADE AND
PLANTATIONS, 1622–1675

BY
CHARLES M. ANDREWS

Professor of History

BALTIMORE
THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS

PUBLISHED MONTHLY
January, February, March, 1908

Copyright 1908 by
THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

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BRITISH COMMITTEES, COMMISSIONS, AND COUNCILS OF TRADE AND PLANTATIONS, 1622–1675.

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CHAPTER I.

Control of Trade and Plantations Under James I and Charles I.

In considering the subject which forms the chief topic of this paper, we are not primarily concerned with the question of settlement, intimately related though it be to the larger problem of colonial control. We are interested rather in the early history of the various commissions, councils, committees, and boards appointed at one time or another in the middle of the seventeenth century for the supervision and management of trade, domestic, foreign, and colonial, and for the general oversight of the colonies whose increase was furthered, particularly after 1650, in largest part for commercial purposes. The coupling of the terms "trade" and "foreign plantations" was due to the prevailing economic theory which viewed the colonies not so much as markets for British exports or as territories for the receipt of a surplus British population—for Great Britain had at that time no surplus population and manufactured but few commodities for export—but rather as sources of such raw materials as could not be produced at home, and of such tropical products as could not be obtained otherwise than from the East and West Indies. The two interests were not, however, finally consolidated in the hands of a single board until 1672, after which date they were not separated until the final abolition of the old Board of Trade in 1782. It is, therefore, to the period before 1675 that we shall chiefly direct our attention, in the hope of throwing some light upon a phase of British colonial control that has hitherto remained somewhat obscure. Familiar as are many of the facts connected with the early history of Great Britain's management of trade and the colonies, it is nevertheless true that no attempt has been made to trace in detail the various experiments undertaken by the authorities in England in the interest of trade and the plantations during the years before 1675. Many of the details are, and will always remain, unknown, nevertheless it is possible to make some additions to our knowledge of a subject which is more or less intimately related to our early colonial history.

At the beginning of colonization the control of all matters relating to trade and the plantations lay in the hands of the king and his council, forming the executive branch of the government. Parliament had not yet begun to legislate for the colonies, and in matters of trade and commerce the parliaments of James I accomplished much less than had those of Elizabeth. "In the time of James I," says Dr. Prothero, "it was more essential to assert constitutional principles and to maintain parliamentary rights than to pass new laws or to create new institutions." Thus the Privy Council became the controlling factor in all matters that concerned the colonies and it acted in the main without reference or delegation to others, since the practice of appointing advisory boards or deliberative committees, though not unknown, was at first employed only as an occasional expedient. The councils of James I were called upon to deal with a wide variety of colonial business—letters, petitions, complaints and reports from private individuals, such as merchants, captains of ships voyaging to the colonies, seamen, prisoners, and the like, from officials in England, merchant companies, church organizations, and colonial governments, notably the governor and council and assembly of Virginia. To all these communications the Council replied either by issuing orders which were always mandatory, or by sending letters which often contained information and advice as well as instructions. It dealt with the Virginia Company in London and sent letters, both before and after the dissolution of the company, to the governor and council in Virginia, and in all these letters trade played an important part. For example, the order of October 24, 1621, which forbade the colony to export tobacco and other commodities to foreign countries, declared that such a privilege as an open trade on the part of the colony was desirable "neither in policy nor for the honor of the state (that being but a colony derived from hence)," and that it could not be suffered "for that it may be a loss unto his Majesty in his customs, if not the hazarding of the trade which in future times is well hoped may be of much profit, use, and importance to the Commonalty."[1] Similarly the Council issued a license to Lord Baltimore to export provisions for the relief of his colony at Avalon,[2] ordered that the Ark and the Dove, containing Calvert and the settlers of Maryland, be held back at Tilbury until the oaths of allegiance had been taken,[3] and instructed the governor and company of Virginia to give friendly assistance to Baltimore's undertaking.[4]

Of the employment of committees or special commissions to inquire into questions either commercial or colonial there is no evidence before the year 1622. A few months after the dissolution of the third Stuart parliament, James I issued a proclamation for the encouragement of trade, and directed a special commission not composed of privy councillors to inquire into the decay of the clothing trade and to report to the Privy Council such remedial measures as seemed best adapted to increase the wealth and prosperity of the realm.[5] At the same time he caused a commission to be issued to the Lord Keeper, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord President of the Council and others "to collect and cause a true survey to be taken in writing of the names, qualities, professions, and places of habitation of such strangers as do reside within the realm of England and use any retailing trade or handicraft trade and do reform the abuses therein according to the statutes now in force."[6] The commissioners of trade duly met, during the years 1622 and 1623, summoned persons to appear before them, and reported to the Council. Their report was afterward presented to the King sitting with the Council at Wansted, "was allowed and approved of, and commandment was given to enter it in the Register of Counsell causes and to remain as an act of Counsell by order of the Lord President."[7] There is evidence also to show that the commission issued orders on its own account, for in June, 1623, the Mayor and Aldermen of the city of London wrote two letters to the commission expressing their approval of its orders and sending petitions presented to them by citizens of London.[8]

On April 15, 1625, less than three weeks after the death of James I, a warrant was issued by his successor for a commission of trade, the duties of which were of broader and more general character than were those of the previous body.[9] The first record of its meeting is dated January 18, 1626, but it is probable that then the commission had been for some time in existence, though the exact date when its commission was issued is not known. The text of both commission and instructions are among the Domestic Papers.[10] The board was to advance the exportations of home manufactures and to repress the "ungainful importation of foreign commodities." Looked upon as a subcommittee of the Privy Council, but having none of the privy councillors among its members, it was required to sit every week and to consider all questions that might be referred to it for examination and report. The fact that a complaint against the patent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges was referred to it shows that it was qualified to deal not only with questions of trade but also with plantation affairs.[11] At about the same time a committee of the Council was appointed to take into consideration a special question of trade and to make report to the Council. Neither of these bodies appears to have had more than a temporary existence, although the commission sat for some time and accomplished no inconsiderable amount of work.

The first Privy Council committee of trade that had any claim to permanency was that appointed in March, 1630, consisting at first of thirteen members, the Lord Keeper, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord President, the Lord Privy Seal, Earl Marshall, the Lord Steward, Earl of Dorset, Earl of Holland, Earl of Carlisle, Lord Dorchester, the Vice-Chamberlain, Sir Henry Cottington and Mr. Secretary Coke. This committee was to meet on Friday mornings. The same committee, with the omission of one member, was appointed the next year to meet on Tuesdays in the afternoon. In 1634 the membership was reduced to nine, but in 1636, 1638 and 1639, by the addition of the Lord Treasurer, the number was raised to ten, as follows: the Lord President, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Keeper, the Lord Privy Seal, Earl Marshall, Earl of Dorset, Lord Cottington, Mr. Comptroller, Mr. Secretary Coke and Mr. Secretary Windebank. The meetings were again held on Fridays, though on special occasions the committee was warned to meet on other days by order of the Council, and on one occasion at least assembled at Hampton Court.[12] To this committee were referred all matters of trade which came to the attention of the Council during the ten years, from 1630 to 1640. Notes of its meetings between 1631 and 1637 were kept by Secretaries Coke and Windebank and show the extent and variety of its activities. Except for the garbling of tobacco it does not appear to have concerned itself with plantation affairs.[13] As the King was generally present at its meetings, it possessed executive as well as advisory powers, not only making reports to the Council, but also drafting regulations and issuing orders on its own account. Occasionally it appointed special committees to examine into certain trade difficulties, and on September 21, 1638, and again on February 3, 1639, we find notice of a separate board of commissioners for trade constituted under the great seal to inquire into the decay of the clothing industry. This board sat for two years and made an elaborate report to the Privy Council on June 9, 1640.[14]

Though committees for trade, ordnance, foreign affairs, and Ireland had a more or less continuous existence during the period after 1630, no similar committee for plantations was created during this decade. Temporary commissions and committees of the Council had been, however, frequently appointed. In 1623 and 1624 several sets of commissioners for Virginia were named "to inquire into the true state of Virginia and the Somers Islands plantations," "to resolve upon the well settling of the colony of Virginia," "and to advise on a fit patent for the Virginia Company." In 1631 a commission of twenty-three persons, of whom four constituted a quorum, was created, partly from within and partly from without the Privy Council, "to advise upon some course for establishing the advancement of the plantations of Virginia."[15] Similar commissions were appointed to meet special exigencies in the careers of other plantations, Somers Islands, Caribbee Islands, etc. In 1632, we meet with a committee forming the first committee of the Council appointed for the plantations, quite distinct in functions and membership from the committee for trade and somewhat broader in scope than the commissions mentioned above. The circumstances of its appointment were these: In the year 1632 complaints began to come in to the Privy Council regarding the conduct of the colony of Massachusetts Bay. Thomas Morton and Philip Ratcliffe had been banished from that colony and sent back to England. Sir Christopher Gardiner, also, after a period of troubled relations with the authorities there, had taken ship for England. These men, acting in conjunction with Gorges and Mason, whose claims had already been before the Council, presented petitions embodying their grievances. On December 19, 1632, the Council listened to the reading of these petitions and to the presentation of a "relation" drawn up by Gardiner. After long debate "upon the whole carriage of the plantation of that country," it appointed a committee of twelve members, called the Committee on the New England Plantations, with the Archbishop of York at its head, "to examine how the patents for the said plantations have been granted." This committee had power to call "to their assistance such other persons as they shall think fit," "to examine the truth of the aforesaid information or any other information as shall be presented to them and shall make report thereof to this board and of the true state of the said plantations." The committee deliberated on the "New England Case," summoned many of the "principal adventurers in that plantation" before it, listened to the complainants, and reported favorably to the colony. The essential features of its report were embodied in an order in council, dated January 19, 1633.[16] This committee, still called the Committee for New England, was reappointed in December, 1633, with a slight change of membership, Laud, who had been made primate the August before, taking the place of the Archbishop of York as chairman. But this committee was soon overshadowed by the greater commission to come.[17]

The first separate commission, though, in reality, a committee of the Privy Council, appointed to concern itself with all the plantations, was created by Charles I, April 28, 1634. It was officially styled the Commission for Foreign Plantations; one petitioner called it "the Lords Commissioners for Plantations in General," and another "the learned Commissioners appointed by the King to examine and rectify all complaints from the plantations." It is probable that the term "Committee of Foreign Plantations" was occasionally applied to it, as there is nothing to show that the committee of 1633 remained in existence after April, 1634.[18] Recommissioned, April 10, 1636, it continued to sit as an active body certainly as late as August, 1641, and possibly longer,[19] though there is no formal record of its discontinuance. Its original membership was as follows: William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury; Richard Neile, Archbishop of York; Sir Thomas Coventry, the Lord Keeper; Earl of Portland, the Lord Treasurer, Earl of Manchester, the Lord Privy Seal, Earl of Arundel, the Earl Marshall, Earl of Dorset, Lord Cottington, Sir Thomas Edmondes, the Master Treasurer, Sir Henry Vane, the Master Comptroller, and the secretaries, Coke and Windebank. Later the Earl of Sterling was added.[20] Five constituted a quorum. The powers granted to the commission were extensive and almost royal in character: to make laws and orders for the government of the English colonies in foreign parts; to impose penalties and imprisonment for offenses in ecclesiastical matters; to remove governors and require an account of their government; to appoint judges and magistrates, and to establish courts, both civil and ecclesiastical; to hear and determine all manner of complaints from the colonies; to have power over all charters and patents, and to revoke those surreptitiously or unduly obtained. Such powers clearly show that the commission was designed as an instrument for enforcing the royal will in the colonies, and furnishes no precedent for the later councils and boards of trade and foreign plantations. Called into being probably because of the continued emigration of Puritans to New England, the complaints against the Massachusetts charter, and the growth of Independency in that colony, it was in origin a coercive, not an inquisitory, body, in the same class with the courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, and the Councils of Wales and the North. Unlike these bodies, it proved practically impotent, and there is nothing to show that it took any active part in the attempt to repeal the Massachusetts charter or in any important particular exercised the powers granted to it. It did not remove or appoint a governor, establish a court, or grant or revoke a charter. It received petitions either directly or from the Privy Council and made recommendations, but it never attempted to establish uniformity in New England or to bring the New England colonies more directly under the authority of the Crown. Whether it was the failure of the attempt to vacate the Massachusetts charter, or the poverty of the King, or the approach of civil war that prevented the enforcement of the royal policy, we cannot say, but the fact remains that the Laud commission played a comparatively inconspicuous part during the seven years of its existence and has gained a prominence in the history of our subject out of all proportion to its importance.

More directly connected with the commercial and colonial interests of the realm were the subcommittees which the Privy Council used during these years and earlier as advisory and inquisitory bodies. In addition to committees of its own, the Privy Council called on various outside persons known to be familiar with the circumstances of a particular case or experts in the general subject involved, and entrusted to them the consideration of important matters that had been called to its attention. As we have already seen, such a subcommittee on trade had been appointed in 1625, and after 1630 we meet with many references to individuals or groups of experts. The attorney general was called upon to examine complaints regarding New England and Maryland in 1632 and 1635; the Chancellor of London was requested to examine the parties in a controversy over a living in St. Christopher in 1637; many commercial questions were referred to special bodies of merchants or others holding official positions. In 1631 a complaint regarding interlopers in Canada was referred to a committee of three, Sir William Becher, clerk of the Council; Serj. (Wm.) Berkeley, afterward governor of Virginia, and Edward Nicholas, afterward clerk of the Council, and a new committee in which Sir William Alexander and Robert Charlton took the place of Becher and Nicholas was appointed in 1632.[21] Berkeley, Alexander, and Charlton were known as the Commissioners for the Gulf and River of Canada and parts adjacent, and were all directly interested in Canadian trade.[22] These committees received references from the Council, summoned witnesses and examined them, and made reports to the Council. Similarly, the dispute between Vassall and Kingswell was referred on March 10, 1635, to Edward Nicholas and Sir Abraham Dawes for examination and report, and because it was an intricate matter, consumed considerable time and required a second report.[23] Again a case regarding the Virginia tobacco trade was referred to the body known as the "Commissioners of Tobacco to the Lords of the Privy Council," appointed as early as 1634 and itself a subcommittee having to do with tobacco licenses, customs, and trade. The members were Lord Goring, Sir Abraham Dawes, John Jacob, and Edmund Peisley. The first specific references to "subcommittees," eo nomine, are of date May 23, May 25, and June 27, 1638. The last named reference mentions the receipt by the Privy Council of a "certificate" or report from Sir John Wolstenholme and Sir Abraham Dawes "unto whom their lordships had formerly referred the hearing and examining of complaints by John Michael in the Laconia case."[24] As the earlier reference of May 23 had to do with the estate of Sir Thomas Gates and that of May 25 to a Virginia matter, it is evident that this particular subcommittee had been appointed some time before May 23, 1638, and that the only thing new about it was the term "subcommittee" as applied to such a body. This conjecture seems reasonable when we note that Wolstenholme and Dawes had already served on the commission for Virginia and were thoroughly conversant with plantation affairs, while Dawes was also a member of the tobacco commission and had served on the committee in the Kingswell-Vassall case. An examination of later "subcommittees" shows that many of the same men continued to be utilized by the Council in their capacity as experts. Lord Goring, John Jacob, Sir Abraham Dawes, with Sir William Becher and Edward Nicholas, clerks of the Council, and Edward Sandys, brother of Sir Edwin Sandys, and a councillor of Virginia under Governor Wyatt, formed the subcommittee to whom, on July 15, was referred the complaint of Samuel Mathews against Governor Harvey. When the same matter was referred again to a subcommittee on October 24, Sir Dudley Carleton, formerly one of the commissioners for Virginia, and Thomas Meautys, clerk of the Council, were substituted for Dawes and Nicholas.[25] These committees were instructed "to call the parties before them, to examine the matter, and find out the truth, and then to make certificate to their lordships of the true state of things and their opinion thereof."[26] Similar references continued to be made during the year 1639, on January 4, February 22, March 8,[27] June 12, 16, July 17, 26, 28, August 28, and the evidence seems to show that the committee, though frequently changing its membership, was considered a body sitting regularly and continuously. The certificate of July 9, 1638, in answer to the reference of June 16, was signed by Sir William Becher, Thomas Meautys, Sir Francis Wyatt, and Abraham Williams; that of July 23 by Becher, Dawes, Jacob, and Williams. After August 28 we hear no more of the subcommittee. Whether this is due to a failure of the Register to enter further references and certificates or to the actual cessation of its labors, we cannot say. The committee was always appointed by the Council, and always reported to that body. Frequently its certificates are entered at length in the Register.[28] The petition upon which it acted was sometimes sent directly to itself, frequently to the Privy Council, which referred it to the subcommittee, and but rarely to the Commissioners for Foreign Plantations.[29] The committee was limited in its scope to no one colony. It reported on matters in England, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Somers Islands, and Virginia. It dealt with secular business and ecclesiastical questions, and on one occasion at least was required to examine and approve the instructions issued to a colonial governor.[30] It does not appear ever to have acted except by order of the Privy Council, and was never in any sense of the word a subcommittee of the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, although in reporting to the Council it was reporting to those who composed that commission.[31]

From 1640 to 1642 plantation business was managed by the Privy Council with the aid of occasional committees of its own appointed to consider special questions. The term "subcommittee," as we have seen, does not appear to have been used after 1639,[32] but commissions authorizing experts to make inquiry and report are referred to, and committees of the Council took into consideration questions of trade and the plantations. During the year from July 5, 1642, to June, 1643, no measures relating to the colonies appear to have been taken, for civil war was in full swing. In 1643, Parliament assumed to itself the functions of King and Council and became the executive head of the kingdom. Among the earliest acts was the appointment of a parliamentary commission of eighteen members, November 24, 1643, authorized to control plantation affairs. At its head was Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, and among its members were Philip, Earl of Pembroke, Edward, Earl of Manchester, William, Viscount Say and Seale, Philip, Lord Wharton, and such well known Puritan commoners as Sir Arthur Haslerigg, John Pym, Sir Harry Vane, Junior, Oliver Cromwell, Samuel Vassall, and others. Four members constituted a quorum. The powers granted to this commission were extensive, though as far as phraseology goes, less complete than those granted to the commission of 1634. The commissioners were to have "power and authority to provide for, order, and dispose all things which they shall from time to time find most fit and advantageous to the well governing, securing, and strengthening, and preserving" of "all those islands and other plantations, inhabited, planted, or belonging to any of his Majesty's the King of England's subjects." They were authorized to call to their assistance any inhabitants of the plantations or owners of land in America who might be within twenty miles of their place of meeting; to make use of all records, books, and papers which concerned any of the colonies; to appoint governors and officers for governing the plantations; to remove any of the officials so appointed and to put others in their places; and, when they deemed fit, to assign as much of their authority and power to such persons as they should deem suitable for better governing and preserving of the plantations from open violence and private disturbance and destruction.

In the exercise of these powers the commissioners never embraced the full opportunity offered to them by their charter. They did appoint one governor, Sir Thomas Warner, governor of the Caribbee Islands. They granted to the inhabitants of Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport a patent of incorporation and conferred upon the patentees authority "to rule themselves by such form of civil government as by voluntary consent of all or the greater part of them they should find most suitable to their estate or condition.[33] They also endeavored to make a grant of the Narragansett country to Massachusetts, at the special request of Massachusetts' agents in 1643, but failed, partly because they had no certain authority to grant land and partly because the only clause of their commission which seemed to give such authority required the consent of a majority, and the agents could obtain but nine signatures to the grant. Even these activities on the part of the board lasted but little over a year, and after 1644 the commissioners played a more or less passive role. They continued to sit but their only recorded interest in colonial affairs concerned New England. From 1645 to 1648 they became involved in the controversy over the Narragansett country, and in the attempt of Massachusetts to thwart her enemies, the Gortonists and the Presbyterians.[34] Whether the commission continued to sit after the execution of the King is uncertain; there are no further references to its existence. That many of its members remained influential in colonial affairs is evident from the fact that at least seven of the commissioners became members of the Council of State, appointed February 13, 1649: Philip, Earl of Pembroke (died 1650); Sir Arthur Haslerigg, Sir Harry Vane, the younger; Oliver Cromwell, Dennis Bond, Miles Corbet, and Cornelius Holland. Haslerigg was a conspicuous leader in colonial as well as other matters during the entire period of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate; Vane became president of the new board of trade created in August, 1650, was at the head of the Committee of the Admiralty, which often had colonial matters referred to it, and served frequently on plantation committees from 1649 to 1659; while Bond, Corbet, and Holland, though never very active, were members of one general and a few special committees that concerned themselves with trade and plantations. Thus the spirit of the Independent wing of the old commission continued to influence the policy of the government in the early years of the Commonwealth period. The Council of State, appointed by act of the Rump Parliament, was given full authority to provide for England's trade at home and abroad and to regulate the affairs of the plantations. Though its membership underwent yearly changes and its composition and members were altered many times before 1660, its policy and machinery of control remained constant except as far as they were affected by the greater power which the Council gained in the face of the growing weakness of Parliament.

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([1]) Privy Council Register, James I, Vol. V, p. 173; repeated p. 618.

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([2]) P.C.R., Charles I. Vol. V, p. 106.

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([3]) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. IX, p. 291.

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([4]) Cal. State Papers, Colonial, 1574–1660, p. 170, § 78.

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([5]) Rymer, Fœdera XVII. pp. 410–414.

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([6]) Public Record Office, Chancery, Crown Dockets, 4, p. 280, June 26, 1622.

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([7]) P.C.R., James I, Vol. VI, pp. 333, 365–368, July, 1624.

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([8]) Analytical Index to the Series of Records known as Remembrancia preserved among the Archives of the City of London, 1579–1644, p. 526.

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([9]) Cal. State Papers, Domestic, 1625–1649, pp. 4, 84.

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([10]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1625–1649, pp. 225, 522, §§ 19, 20, p. 495.

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([11]) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. II, Pt. I, p. 68.

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([12]) P.C.R., Charles I, Vols. V, p. 10; VI, p. 7; X., p. 3; XII, p. 1; XV, p. 1.

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([13]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1629–1631, p. 526; 1634–1635, pp. 453, 472, 513, 584; 1635, pp. 30, 515, 548, 598; 1635–1636, pp. 44, 231; 1636–1637, p. 402; 1637, pp. 47; 1637–1638, p. 410. The secretaries' notes will be found as follows: Coke, 1629–1631, pp. 526, 535; Windebank, 1634–1635, pp. 500, 513; 1635, pp. 11–12, 29, 502, 536; 1635–1636, pp. 291–292, 428–429, 551–552; 1636–1637, pp. 402; 1637, p. 47.

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([14]) Historical MSS. Commission, Report XV. Manuscripts of the Duke of Portland, VIII, pp. 2–3.

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([15]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 44, 62, 63, 64, 130; Virginia Magazine, VIII, pp. 29, 33–46, 149.

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([16]) Bradford, pp. 352–355; P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. VIII, pp. 346–347; Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, p. 158.

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([17]) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. IX, p. 1. The order in Council of July 3, 1633, regarding Virginia and Lord Baltimore, is headed "Lords Commissioners for Foreign Plantations." It is evident, however, that this body is not a separate board of commissioners but the Privy Council sitting as a committee of the whole for plantations. The membership does not agree with that of the committee of 1632, that committee did not sit in the Star Chamber, and such a committee could not issue an order which the Privy Council alone could send out. There was no separate commission of this kind in July, 1633, as Tyler, England in America, pp. 122–123 (Amer. Nation Series, IV) seems to think.

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([18]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 184, 200, 251, 259.

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([19]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1675–1676, § 193.

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([20]) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. X, p. 1; XII, p. 1; XV, p. 1; Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 177, 232.

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([21]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 9, 140, 151, 158, 211, 258.

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([22]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1600, p. 129.

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([23]) Cal. State Papers, Col., pp. 197–198, 207.

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([24]) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. XV, p. 300.

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([25]) Virginia Magazine, X, p. 428; XI, p. 46.

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([26]) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. XV, p. 508.

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([27]) "Att Whitehall, 8th of March, 1638(9)

Their Lordships do pray and require the subcommittee for foreign plantations to consider of this petition at their next meeting and to make report to their Lordships of their opinion concerning the same.

Will. Becher."

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([28]) P.C.R., Charles I, Vols. XV, p. 343; XVI, pp. 542–543.

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([29]) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. XVI, p. 558; Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, p. 301.

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([30]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1675–1676, § 190.

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([31]) The commissioners frequently formed a majority of those present at a Privy Council meeting. For example, in 1638, the Council wrote a letter to the governor of Virgina. This letter was signed by eleven councillors, of whom eight were members of the Commission. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the different capacities in which Archbishop Laud acted. A series of minutes drawn up by him in 1638 of the subjects upon which he had prepared reports to the King notes the following: concerning the six plantations, grants of offices in reversion, new patent offices and monopolies, the execution of the King's former directions, and trade and commerce. In making these reports Archbishop Laud acted as president of the Council, president of the Commission for Foreign Plantations, president of the committee for Foreign Affairs, High Commission Court, etc.

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([32]) The term "subcommittee" is used by petitioners as late as August, 1640 (Cal. Col., 1574–1660, p. 314), but no references and reports of so late a date are to be found in the Calendar or the Register.

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([33]) This is, of course, the well-known Williams patent of 1644. Rhode Island, Colonial Records, I, pp. 143–146.

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([34]) Osgood, The Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, III, pp. 110–112.

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CHAPTER II.

Control of Trade and Plantations During the Interregnum.

The earliest separate council to be established during the period from 1650 to 1660 was that appointed by act of Parliament, August, 1650, known as the Commission or Council of Trade, of which Sir Harry Vane was president and Benjamin Worsley, a London merchant and "doctor of physic," already becoming known as an expert on plantation affairs, was secretary. This body was specially instructed by Parliament to consider, not only domestic and foreign trade, the trading companies, manufactures, free ports, customs, excise, statistics, coinage and exchange, and fisheries, but also the plantations and the best means of promoting their welfare and rendering them useful to England. "They are to take into their consideration," so runs article 12 of the instructions, "the English plantations in America or elsewhere, and to advise how these plantations may best be managed and made most useful for the Commonwealth, and how the commodities thereof may be so multiplied and improved as (if it be possible) those plantations alone may supply the Commonwealth of England with whatsoever it necessarily wants." These statesmanlike and comprehensive instructions are notable in the history of the development of England's commercial and colonial program. Free from the limitations which characterize the instructions given to the earlier commissions, they stand with the Parliamentary ordinance of October, 1650, and the Navigation Act of 1651, as forming the first definite expression of England's commercial policy. Inadequate though the immediate results were to be, we cannot call that policy "drifting" which could shape with so much intelligence the functions of a board of trade and plantations. There is no trace here of the coercive and politico-ecclesiastical purpose of the Laud Commission, or of the partisan policy in the interests of the Puritans that the Warwick Commission was instructed to carry out. Here we have the first attempt to establish a legitimate control of commercial and colonial affairs, and to these instructions may be traced the beginnings of a policy which had the prosperity and wealth of England exclusively at heart.

Of the history of this board but little has been hitherto known and its importance has been singularly neglected. It was more than a merely advisory body, like the later councils and boards of trade, for it had the power to issue orders of its own. It sat in Whitehall, received information, papers,[1] and orders from the Council of State, and reported to that higher authority, which approved or disapproved of its recommendations. To it the Council instructed traders and others to refer their petitions, and itself referred numbers of similar papers that came into its hands.[2] This board took into consideration the various questions touched upon in its instructions, especially those concerning fisheries (Greenland), manufactures, navigation, commerce, trade (with Guinea, Spain, Canary Islands, etc.), the poor, the trading companies (especially the East India and Guinea companies), the merchant companies (chiefly of London), and freedom of trade. During the first year of its existence it was an active body and could say on November 20, 1651, that it had made seven reports to the Council of State and seven to Parliament, that it had its opinions on six subjects ready to be reported, and eight other questions under debate.[3] In two particulars a fuller consideration of its work is desirable.

The Council of Trade devoted a considerable amount of time to regulating the buying and selling of wool, and to settling the difficulties that had arisen among the curriers, fellmongers, staplers, and clothiers of London and elsewhere regarding their trade privileges. Late in the spring of 1651 petitions and statements of grievance had been sent both to the Council of Trade and to the Common Council of London by the "freemen of the city trading in wool," for redress of grievances practiced by the Society of Staplers. Shortly afterward, May 13, apparently in answer to the complaint of the freemen of London, the fellmongers of Coventry petitioned the Council of Trade, begging that body not to interfere with its ancient privileges. Taking the matter into consideration, the Council, on May 14, issued an order requiring the companies to present their expedients and grievances, and appointed a committee of two expert wool staplers, members of the Staplers Company, to meet with the other companies and draft a certificate of their proper and ancient rights. The Common Council, on the same day, ordered its committee of trade, or any five of them, to attend the Council of Trade and assist the "Company of Upholders," the committee presenting the original complaint, in its attempt to obtain a redress of grievances according to the plan already placed before the Common Council. These efforts were not very successful, for the wool growers refused to meet the committee of staplers appointed by the Council of Trade, and the fellmongers and clothiers could not reach an agreement with the staplers as to the latter's ancient privileges. Consequently, the Council of Trade, on June 11, issued a second order requiring the committee of trade of the Common Council to report on "the foundation and nature of the Staple and the privileges pretended to by that Society." This committee "heard certain of the principal staplers and perused the acts and records produced by them in defence of the same," and reported to the Council of Trade on June 26 that, in its opinion, the Company of Staplers had become an unnecessary and useless Society, and were the principal cause for the dearness of wool, the badness of cloth, and the general decay of the woolen trade.[4]

The trouble seems to have been that the fellmongers and staplers were deemed useless middlemen between the growers and the clothiers, and injurious to the clothing industry because of their abuses. The controversy was carried before the Council of State and its committees, and both fellmongers and staplers argued long and forcibly in defence of their trade.[5] On November 3, 1652, the two societies presented an answer to the particular order of the Council of Trade which declared them unnecessary and disadvantageous, denied the charges, and prayed that they might enjoy their trade as before. Even as late as April 16, 1653, the fellmongers petitioned for leave to produce wool-growers and clothiers to certify the necessity of their trade.[6] But fellmongers and staplers as factors in English trade and industry were beginning to pass away by the middle of the seventeenth century.

The second important question that came before the Council was no less significant in its relation to the growth of British trade than was the decay of the Societies of Fellmongers and Staplers. It concerned the breaking down of the privileges of the merchant companies in general, and the establishment of free ports and free trade in England—that is, free trade controlled and ordered by the state. To this end, the Council appointed a committee of eleven merchants to whom it gave elaborate directions to report on the feasibility of setting apart four free ports to which foreign commodities might be imported without paying customs dues if again exported. These merchants met and drew up a report dated April 26, 1651, and again on May 26 of the same year expressed further opinions on the advisability of the "opening of free ports for trade." "Trade being the basis and well-being of a Commonwealth, the way to obtain it is to make it a free trade and not to bind up ingenious spirits by exemptions and privileges which are granted to some particular companies." In addition to the home merchants, the Council of Trade presented its queries to the merchant strangers and to the Committee for the Affairs of Trinity House, all of whom returned answers. It also made public its desire to consider the appointment of "convenient ports for the free trade in the Commonwealth," and as early as May 22 a number of the out-ports, Dover, Plymouth, the Isle of Wight, Barnstaple, Bideford, Appledore, and Southampton petitioned that they be recognized as free landing places. The period was one of rivalry between London and the out-ports, and the latter believed that the various acts of 1650 and 1651 were in the interest of the London merchants only. "Yet thus much that act seems to have on it only a London stamp and a contentment to subject the whole nation to them, for most of the out-ports are not capable of the foreign trade to Indies and Turkey. The Londoners having the sole trade do set what price they please upon their commodities, knowing the country cannot have them nowhere but by them, whereby not only the out-ports are undone but the country brought to the devotion of the city. But a great abuse is here, for the city are not contented with this act but only so far as it serves their own turns, for they procure (upon some pretexts or other) particular licenses for many prohibited commodities contrary to that act, as namely for the importation of French wines and free both of custom and excise tax, and for the importation of whale oil and skins so as either directly or indirectly they will have the whole trade themselves."[7] Evidently the Council of Trade favored the establishment of a freer trade as against the monopoly of the merchant companies, believing, it may be, that London did monopolize trade and that it was "no good state of a body to have a fat head and lean members." The city authorities, apparently alarmed at the favorable action of the Council, took immediate action. On June 19, 1651, the Court of Aldermen instructed Alderman Fowke, one of its most influential members, in case the Council of Trade came to an agreement favorable to free trade, to move for a reconsideration in order that London might have a hearing before the matter was finally settled.[8] But the hearing, if had, could not have been successful in altering the determination of the Council, for a few months later, on December 5, 1651, the Common Council of London, probably convinced that the Council of Trade was in earnest in its policy and alarmed at the prospect of losing its trading privileges, ordered its committee of trade to prepare a petition to Parliament, the Council of State, or the Council of Trade, asking that London be made a free port. The petition was duly drawn up and approved by the Common Council, which ordered its committee "to maintain" it before the Council of Trade.[9] Evidently the matter went no further. The Council of Trade continued its sittings and debated and reported on a number of petitions "complaining of abuses and deceits" in trade, but after 1652 it plays but an inconspicuous part. Even before that date many questions before it were taken over by the Council of State and referred to its own committees. Fellmongers and staplers defended their cause before the higher body and the free trade difficulty continued to be agitated, at least as far as concerned the Turkey trade and the Greenland fishing, by the Council committee after it had passed out of the hands of the lesser body.[10] The period was one of transition from a monopolized to an open trade, and consequently to many trade everywhere appeared to be in decay. Remedies were sought through the intervention of the state and the passing of laws, but the early period of the Commonwealth was not favorable to a successful carrying out of so promising an experiment. On October 3, 1653, trade was reported from Holland as "somewhat dead" and the Council of Trade, which the Dutch at first feared might be "very prejudicial" to their state, was declared "only nominal," so that the Dutch hoped that in time those of London would "forget that they ever were merchants." In fact, however, the Council of Trade had come to an end more than four months before this report was made.

That the Council of Trade, notwithstanding its carefully worded instructions, had no part in looking after the affairs of the colonies is probably due to the activity of the Council of State, which itself exercised the functions of a board of trade and plantations. According to article 5 of the Act of February 13, 1649, appointing a Council of State, it was to use all good ways and means for the securing, advancement, and encouragement of the trade of England and Ireland and the dominions to them belonging, and to promote the good of all foreign plantations and factories belonging to the Commonwealth. It was also empowered "to appoint committees of any person or persons for examinations, receiving of informations, and preparing of business for [its] debates or resolutions." The members chosen February 14, 1649, were forty-one in number and were to hold office for one year.[11] February 12, 1650, a second council was elected, of which twenty were new members and the remaining twenty-one taken over from the former body.[12] On November 24, 1651, a third council was chosen under the same conditions.[13] The same was true of the fourth council of November 24, 1652.[14] Many of the "new" members were generally old members dropped for a year or more. On July 9 and 14, 1653, the number of members was reduced to thirty-one, and this council was designed to last only until the following November.[15] Two councils, the fifth and sixth were, therefore, elected in the same year, each composed of fifteen old and fifteen new members. The sixth council, elected November 1, 1653, was chosen for six months, but after six weeks was supplanted by the body known as the Protector's Council, elected December 16, 1653, under the provisions of the Instrument of Government.[16] This council was to consist of not more than twenty-one nor less than thirteen members, and according to the method of election provided for in that instrument, was practically controlled by Cromwell himself. The membership varied from time to time, rarely numbering more than sixteen, with an average attendance of about ten. Cromwell was frequently absent from its meetings, but the council, though designed constitutionally to be a check upon his powers, was in reality his ally and answerable to him alone, particularly after the dissolution of Parliament in January, 1655. The council provided for in The Humble Petition and Advice was but a continuation of the Protector's Council, so that from December, 1653, until May, 1659, the Protector's Council, representing Cromwell policy and interest, continued to exist. After the abdication of Richard Cromwell and the restoration of the Rump Parliament, the Protector's Council came to an end, and a new council, the eighth, was chosen on May 13, 14, 15, 1659.[17] This body contained ten members not of Parliament and lasted until December 31, when a new Council of State was chosen for three months; but on February 21 the council was suspended, and two days afterward the tenth and last council was chosen.[18] On May 21, 1660, this council was declared "not in being," and formally came to an end on May 27, when Charles II, who had had his Privy Council more or less continuously since 1649, named at Canterbury Monck, Southampton, Morrice, and Ashley as privy councillors. The first meeting at Whitehall was held May 31.[19]

The Council of State itself acted as a board of trade and plantations and directly transacted a large amount of business in the interest of manufactures, trade, commerce, and the colonies. It initiated important measures, received petitions, remonstrances, and complaints, either at first hand or through Parliament, from which it also received special orders, entered into debate upon all questions arising therefrom, summoned before it any one who might be able to furnish information or to offer advice, and then drew up its reply, embodied in an order despatched to government officials, private individuals, adventurers, merchant and trading companies, colonial governments in particular or in general. For example, it ordered letters to be written to the plantations, giving them notice of the change of government in 1649, sending them papers necessary for their information, and requiring them to be obedient if they expected the protection which the Republic was prepared to extend to them. Until March 2, 1650, it does not appear to have organized itself especially for this purpose, but on that date it authorized the whole council, or any five members, to sit as a special committee for trade and plantations, and on February 18 and December 2, 1651, repeated the same order.[20] During the early part of this period it depended to a considerable extent on committees, either of merchants and others outside the council, men already engaged in trade with the plantations, such as Worsley, Maurice Thompson (afterward governor of the East India Company), Lenoyre, Allen, Martin Noell, and others, or of councillors forming committees of trade (sitting in the Horse Chamber in Whitehall), of plantations, of the admiralty, of the navy, of examinations, of Scottish and Irish affairs, and of prisoners, to whom many questions were referred and upon whose reports the Council acted. It also appointed special committees to take into consideration particular questions relating to individual plantations, Barbadoes, Somers Islands, Bermudas, New England, Newfoundland, Virginia. Of all these committees none appears to have been more active, as far as the plantations were concerned, than the Committee of the Admiralty, before whom came a large amount of colonial business, which was transacted with the coöperation of Dr. Walker, of Doctors Commons, advocate for the Republic, and David Budd, the proctor of the Court of Admiralty.

An important departure was introduced on December 17, 1651, when a standing committee of the Council was created, consisting of fifteen members, to concern itself with trade and foreign affairs. This committee took the place of that which had formerly sat in the Horse Chamber in Whitehall, and renewed consideration of all questions which had been referred to that body. It was organized, as were all the Council committees, with its own clerk, doorkeeper, and messenger, and as recommissioned on May 4, 1652, and again on December 2, 1652, when the membership was raised to twenty-one and the plantations were brought within the scope of its business, became a very independent and active body until its demise in April, 1653. Its members were Cromwell, Lords Whitelocke, Bradshaw, and Lisle, Sir Arthur Haslerigg, Sir Harry Vane, Sir William Masham, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Colonels Walton, Purefoy, Morley, Sidney, and Thomson, Major Lister, Messrs. Bond, Scott, Love, Challoner, Strickland, Gurdon, and Alleyn.[21] This committee, to which new members were frequently added, sat in the Horse Chamber at Whitehall and took cognizance of a great variety of commercial and colonial business. It considered the question of free trade versus monopolies and during the summer of 1652, after the Council of Trade had fallen into disfavor, debated at length the desirability of opening the Turkey trade as freely to adventurers as was that of Portugal and Spain. It listened to a number of forcible papers presented in the interest of free trade in opposition to trade in the hands of companies; it dealt with the operation of the Navigation Act of 1651 and rendered decisions regarding penalties, exemptions, licenses, and the disposal of prizes and prize goods; it devoted a large amount of time to plantation business; and, for the time being, probably supplanted consideration of these matters by the Council of State, and rendered unnecessary the appointment of any other committee on colonial affairs. Except for the Admiralty Committee and one or two other committees to which special matters were referred, as concerning Newfoundland, there appears to have been no other subordinate body actually in charge of affairs in America between December 17, 1651, and April 15, 1653. The period was an important and critical one, and the committee must have had before it business connected with nearly every one of the colonies in America. The Council of State referred to it petitions, etc., from and relating to Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Haven, Rhode Island, Newfoundland, Maryland and Virginia, Barbadoes, Nevis, Providence Island, and the Caribbee Islands in general. It dealt with the proposed attack on the Dutch at New Amsterdam, losses of merchant ships, privateer's commissions and letters of marque; the Greenland and Newfoundland fisheries, naval stores, and land disputes. It drafted bills and governors' commissions, considered vacancies in the colonies, and received applications for office, and, in one case, promoted the founding of a plantation in South America.[22] This business was performed to a considerable extent through subcommittees, many of which met in the little Horse Chamber and acted in all particulars as regular committees. On one occasion, the entire committee was appointed a subcommittee, and very frequently the committee met for no other purpose than to hear the report of a subcommittee. These subcommittees, which were generally composed of councillors, referred matters to outside persons, merchants, judges, and doctors of civil law, while the committee itself called before it merchants, officials, members of other committees, and indeed any one from whom information might be extracted. The main work was performed by the subcommittees, their reports were reviewed by the committee itself, and, if approved, were sent to the Council of State, which based upon them recommendations to Parliament.[23] After April 15, 1653, we hear no more of this committee. There is some reason to think that the duties entrusted to it were deemed too extensive and a division between trade, plantations, and foreign affairs was planned, but no definite record of such a separation of functions is to be found. A Council Committee of Foreign Affairs was appointed, probably before June, 1653, reappointed on July 27, and again reappointed August 16, but no committees of trade and of plantations appear. Very likely the Council of State, with the assistance of the committees on Scottish and Irish affairs, admiralty, navy, and customs, and a few special committees and commissioners, assumed control of plantation affairs. The interests of industry and trade may have been looked after by the Committee on Trade and Corporations appointed by the Barebones Parliament, July 20, 1653, "to meet at Whitehall in the place where the Council of Trade did sit."[24] Several times during the year this committee proposed the establishment of a separate council of trade to take the place of the former Council, to which proposition Parliament agreed, but nothing was done, and the Parliamentary Committee of Trade and Corporations seems to have been the only official body that existed during the year 1653 for the advancement of trade and industry.[25]

On December 29, 1653, the Protector's Council made known its purpose of taking "all care to protect and encourage navigation and trade," and in March, 1654, we meet with a reference to a committee of the Council appointed for trade and corporations. As this body was organized for continuous sitting, with a clerk, doorkeeper, and messenger, and as a second reference to it appears under date August 21, 1654, the probabilities are in favor of its existence as a regular committee during the year 1654.[26] That it was an important committee is doubtful, for we meet with practically no references to its work, and when in January, 1655, the project of a select trade committee was brought forward it was referred for consideration and report, not to this committee, but to Desborough of the Council and the Admiralty Committee.

The events of the years 1654 and 1655 mark something of an era in the history of trade and commerce, not because the capture of Jamaica had any very conspicuous effect upon Cromwell's own policy or upon the commercial activities of the higher authorities, but because it opened a larger world and larger opportunities to the merchants and traders of London who were at this time seeking openings for trading ventures in all parts of the world. To better their fortunes many men accompanied the expedition under Penn and Venables, and the merchants at home were seized with something of the spirit of the Elizabethans in planning, not only to increase commerce and swell their own fortunes, but also to drive the Spaniard from the southwestern waters of the Atlantic and extend British control and British trade into regions heretofore wholly in the hands of Spain. Barbadoes, Jamaica, Florida, Virginia, New England, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland became a world of great opportunities, and with plans for the expansion of trade went plans for naval and military activity. If the merchants of the period had had their way, a systematic and orderly policy of colonial control in the interest of British power and profit would have been inaugurated during the second period of the Interregnum, but circumstances do not appear to have been propitious, and the disturbed political order during the years 1658 and 1659 led not only to a cessation of activity as far as the government was concerned but also to decay of trade, shrinking of profits, decrease of fortunes, and widespread discouragement. Furthermore, there is nothing to show that Cromwell himself ever rose to a statesmanlike conception of colonial control and administration. He was thoroughly interested in those matters, was personally influenced by the London merchants, frequently called on the most conspicuous of them for advice, placed them on committees and councils established for purposes of trade, and was always open to their suggestions. But while he was willing to act upon their opinions and recommendations in many respects, he never seems to have grasped the essentials of a large and comprehensive plan of colonial control, and it is not possible to discover in what he actually accomplished any broadminded idea of uniting the colonies under an efficient management for the purpose of laying the foundations of an empire. His expedients, interesting and practical as many of them were, do not seem to be a part of any large or well-formed plan. Whether he would ever have risen to a higher level of statesmanship in these respects we cannot say, but he never found time to give proper attention to the suggestions of the merchants or to the demands of trade and commerce.

That he took a great interest in the industrial and commercial development of England is evident from one of his earliest efforts to provide for its proper control. Even while the fleet was on its way to the West Indies, the Council of State instructed Desborough and the Admiralty Committee, January 29, 1655, to consider "of some fit merchants to be a trade committee." There is some reason to think that this instruction was in response to a paper drawn up by certain merchants of London in 1654, entitled, "An Essaie or Overture for the regulating the Affairs of his Highness in the West Indies," drafted after the expedition had sailed and with the confident expectation of conquest in mind.[27] If the original suggestion did not come from the merchants, we may not doubt that in the promotion of the plan they exercised considerable influence. In 1655, Martin Noell and Thomas Povey sent a petition to the Protector regarding trade, and suggested that there be appointed "some able persons to consider what more may be done in order to those affairs and a general satisfaction for the fixing the whole trade of England." They wished that a competent number of persons, of good reputation, prudent and well skilled in their professions and qualifications should be "selected and set apart" for the "care of his Highness Affairs in the West Indies." The number was to be not less than seven, and these not to be "of the same but of a mixt qualification," constituting a select council subordinate only to the Protector and the Council. After careful attention to the fitness of a large number of prominent individuals, a committee of twenty was named on July 12, 1655. If the "Overture" was responsible for the decision to name a select council, its influence went no further, for except that merchants were placed as members, there is no likeness between the plan as finally worked out and that formulated by the merchants. Indeed, Povey himself later expressed his dissatisfaction in saying that "that committee which [we] so earnestly prest should be settled will not tend in any degree to what we proposed, the constitution of it being not proportionable to what was desired."[28] The committee of twenty was soon expanded into a much larger and more imposing body, possibly due to the receipt of the news of the capture of Jamaica and the decision announced in Cromwell's proclamation of August to hold the island. On November 11, 1655,[29] a board, made up of officers of state, gentlemen, and merchants, was commissioned a "Committee and Standing Council for the advancing and regulating the Trade and Navigation of the Commonwealth," generally shortened to "Trade and Navigation Committee," or simply "Trade Committee." Its membership, instead of being seven, was over seventy, and it was thus a dignified though unwieldy body. At its head was Richard Cromwell and its members were as follows: Montague, Sydenham, Wolseley, Pickering, and Jones of the Protector's Council; Lord Chief Justice St. John and Justices Glynn, Steele, and Hale; Sir Henry Blount, Sir John Hobart, Sir Gilbert Gerard, gentlemen of distinction; Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke and Sir Thomas Widdrington, sergeants-at-law; Col. John Fiennes and John Lisle, commissioners of the Great Seal; the four Treasury Commissioners; Col. Richard Norton, governor of Portsmouth; Capt. Hatsell, navy commissioner of Plymouth; Stone and Foxcroft, excise commissioners; Martin Noell, London merchant and farmer of the customs; Upton, customs commissioner; Bond, Wright, Thompson, Ashurst, Peirpont, Crew, and Berry, London merchants; and Tichborne, Grove, Pack (Lord Mayor), and Riccards, aldermen of London; Bonner, of Newcastle; Dunne, of Yarmouth; Cullen, of Dover; Jackson, of Bristol; Toll, of Lyme; Legay, of Southampton; Snow, of Exeter; and Drake, of Sussex. At various times, and probably for various purposes, the following members were added between December 12, 1655, and June 19,1656: Secretary Thurloe, William Wheeler, Edmund Waller, Francis Dincke, of Hull; George Downing, at that time major general and scoutmaster; Alderman Ireton, of London; Col. William Purefoy; Godfrey Boseville; Edward Laurence; John St. Barbe, of Hampshire, [Lord] John Claypoole, Master of the Horse, and Cromwell's son-in-law; John Barnard; Sir John Reynolds; Col. Arthur Hill; George Berkeley; Capt. Thomas Whitegreane; Thomas Ford, of Exeter; Francis St. John; Henry Wright; Col. John Jones, Alderman Frederick, sheriff of London; Richard Ford, the well-known merchant of London; Mayor Nehemiah Bourne; Charles Howard; Robert Berwick; John Blaxton, town clerk of Newcastle; Col. Richard Ingoldsby; Edmund Thomas; Thomas Banks, and Christopher Lister. Thus the Trade Committee, composed of members from all parts of England, represented a wide range of interests. Furthermore, any member of the Protector's Council could come to the meetings of the committee and vote.[30] Such a body would have been very unmanageable but for the fact that seven constituted a quorum and business was generally transacted by a small number of the members. The instructions were prepared by Thurloe after a scrutiny of those of the former Council of Trade, and bore little resemblance to the recommendations of the "Overture," because they were designed to cover a far wider range of interests than were considered by the merchants. The "Overture" was planned only for a plantation council. The Trade Committee was invested with power and authority to consider by what means the traffic and navigation of the Republic might best be promoted and regulated, to receive propositions for the benefit of these interests, to send for the officers of the excise, the customs, and the mint, or such other persons of experience as they should deem capable of giving advice on these subjects, to examine the books and papers of the Council of Trade of 1650, and all other public papers as might afford the members information. When finally its reports were ready for the Council of State, that body reserved to itself all power to reject or accept such orders as it deemed proper and fitting.

The Trade Committee met for the first time on December 27, 1655, in the Painted Chamber at Westminster. Authorized to appoint officers, it chose William Seaman secretary, two clerks, an usher, and two messengers at a yearly salary of £280, with £50 for contingent expenses;[31] and from the entries of the payments ordered to be made to these men for their services, we infer that the board sat from December 27, 1655, until May 27, 1657, exactly a year and a half. During this time it probably accumulated a considerable number of books and papers, though such are not now known to exist. Proposals, petitions, complaints, and pamphlets, such, for example, as that entitled Trading Governed by the State, a protest against the commercial dominance of London, were laid before it, and it took into its own hands many of the problems that had agitated the former board. It discussed foreign trade, particularly with Holland, and the questions of Swedish copper,[32] Spanish wines, and Irish linen; home manufactures, among which are mentioned swords and rapier blades, madder-dyed silk, needle making, and knitting with frameworks; and domestic concerns, such as the preservation of timber. It made a number of recommendations regarding "the exportation of several commodities of the breed, growth, and manufacture of the Commonwealth," "the limiting and settling the prices of wines," "vagrants and wandering, idle, dissolute persons," and the "giving license for transporting fish in foreign bottoms." These recommendations were drafted by the Trade Committee, or by one of its subcommittees, and after adoption were reported to the Council of State and by it referred to its own committee appointed to receive reports from the Trade Committee. When approved by the Council of State, the recommendations were sent to Parliament and there referred to the large Parliamentary committee of trade of fifty members, appointed October 20, 1656. That committee drafted bills which were based on these recommendations and which later were passed as acts of Parliament and received the consent of the Protector. For example, the recommendation regarding exports, noted above, became a law November 27, 1656.[33]

Under the head of "navigation and trade" came the commercial interests of the plantations, and though there existed during this year, 1656, other machinery for regulating plantation affairs, a number of questions were referred from the Council to the Trade Committee that were strictly in the line of plantation development. These questions concerned customs duties on goods exported to Barbadoes, the political quarrels in Antigua which threatened to bring ruin on that plantation and the remedies therefor, the pilchard fishery off Newfoundland, and finally the controversy between Maryland and Virginia which had already been referred to a special committee of the Council. Upon all these questions the Trade Committee reported to the Council; its recommendations and findings were debated in that body or further referred to one of its own committees or to the outside committee for America, and finally embodied in an order regulating the matter in question.[34]

Of the activity of the Trade Committee during the few months of the year 1657, when it continued its sessions, scarcely any evidence appears. There is a very slight reason to believe that it took up the question of free ports, but there is nothing to show that it accomplished anything in that direction. That it came to an end in May seems to be borne out by the fact that the officers of the board were paid only to May 27, but this statement is rendered uncertain by the further fact that on June 26 Portsmouth petitioned the committee to be made a free port and that the petition was brought in by one of the members of the committee for America, Capt. Limbrey.[35] The question cannot be exactly settled. Though the committee was by no means a nominal body, it accomplished little, and certainly did not meet the situation that confronted the trade and navigation of the kingdom.

After the appointment of this select Trade Committee, no standing committee of the Council was created. Questions of trade were looked after either by the Council itself, that of May, 1659, being especially instructed to "advance trade and promote the good of our foreign plantations and to encourage fishing,"[36] by an occasional special committee, by the Trade Committee until the summer of 1657, or by the committees of Parliament. Of Parliamentary committees there were two: one a select committee of fifty members, appointed October 20, 1656, to which were added all the merchants of the House and all members that served for the port towns;[37] and a grand committee of the whole House for trade, appointed February 2, 1658, which sat weekly and was invested with the same powers as the committee of 1656 had had.[38] But except that the first committee adopted some of the recommendations of the Trade Committee, there is nothing to show that these committees took any prominent part in the advancement of the interest in behalf of which they had been created.

From 1654 to 1660 the welfare of the plantations lay chiefly in the hands of the Protector's Council and the Council of State, and their system of control was in many respects similar to that which had been adopted during the earlier period of the Interregnum. At first all plantation questions were referred to committees of the Council appointed temporarily to consider some particular matter. From December 29, 1653, to the close of the year 1659 some fifty cases were referred to about thirty committees, of which twenty were appointed for the special purpose in hand. Many matters were referred to such standing committees as the Admiralty Committee, Customs Committee, etc.; others to the judges of admiralty, commissioners of customs, and the like, while petitions and communications regarding affairs in Jamaica, New England, Virginia, Antigua, Somers Islands, Newfoundland, and Nevis, regarding the transporting of horses, mining of saltpeter, payments of salaries, indemnities, and trade, and regarding personal claims, such as those of Lord Baltimore, William Franklin, De La Tour, and others, were referred to committees composed of from two to eight members of the Council, whose services in this particular ended with the presentation of their report. Sometimes a question would be referred to the whole Council or to a "committee," with the names unspecified, or to "any three of the Council." The burden of serving upon these occasional committees fell upon a comparatively small number of councillors: Ashley, Montague, Strickland, Wolseley, Fiennes, Jones, Sydenham, Lisle, and Mulgrave. One or more of these names appear on the list of every special committee appointed except that to which Lord Baltimore's case was referred, consisting of the sergeants-at-law, Lords Whitelocke and Widdrington. During 1654 the committees for Virginia and Barbadoes, to which were referred other colonial matters, came to be known as the "committee for plantations," but it is doubtful if this was deemed in any sense a standing committee.

When the affairs of Jamaica became exigent after the summer of 1655 a committee of the Council was appointed to carry out the terms of Cromwell's proclamation and to report the needs of the colony. Though the membership was generally changed this committee continued to be reappointed as one question after another arose which demanded the attention of the Council. It reported on the equipment of tools, clothing, medicaments and other necessaries, on the transporting of persons from Ireland and colonies in America, on the distribution of lands in the island, and on various matters presented to the Council in letters and petitions from officers and others there or in England. After 1656 this committee, which continued to exist certainly until the middle of April, 1660, played a more or less secondary part, doing little more than consider the various colonial matters, whether relating to Jamaica or to other colonies, that were taken up by the select or outside committee appointed by Cromwell in 1656.

The employment of expert advisers in the Jamaica business was rendered necessary by the financial questions involved, and in December Robert Bowes, Francis Hodges and Richard Creed were called upon to assist a committee of Council appointed May 10, 1655, in determining the amounts due the wives and assignees of the officers and soldiers in Jamaica. Creed was dropped and Sydenham and Fillingham were added in 1656.[39] But a more important step was soon taken. On July 15,1656, Cromwell appointed a standing committee of officers and London merchants to take general cognizance of all matters that concerned "his Highness in Jamaica and the West Indies." The following were the members: Col. Edward Salmon, an admiralty commissioner and intimately interested in the Jamaica expedition; Col. Tobias Bridges, one of Cromwell's major generals, afterwards serving in Flanders, who was to play an important part in proclaiming Richard Cromwell Protector; Lieutenant Colonel Miller, of Col. Barkstead's regiment, and Lieutenant Colonel Mills; Capt. Limbrey, London merchant and Jamaican planter, who had lived in Jamaica and made a map of the island, and as commander of merchant vessels had made many trips across the Atlantic; Capt. Thomas Aldherne, also a London merchant and sea captain, the chief victualler of the navy, and an enterprising adventurer in trade; Capt. John Thompson, sea captain and London merchant; Capt. Stephen Winthrop, sea captain and London merchant; Richard Sydenham, and Robert Bowes, already mentioned as commissioners for Jamaica,[40] and lastly Martin Noell, London merchant, and Thomas Povey, regarding whom a fuller account is given below. Povey, who was not appointed a member until October, 1657, apparently became chairman and secretary, while Francis Hodges was clerical secretary. Except for Tobias Bridges, the military members had little share in the business of the committee, the most prominent part being taken by Noell, Bridges, Winthrop, Bowes, Sydenham, and Povey. As far as the records show, Salmon, Miller, Aldherne, Thompson, and White never signed a report, while Mills and Limbrey signed but one. The committee seems to have sat at first in Grocer's Hall, afterward in Treasury Chambers, where its members discussed and investigated all questions that came before them with care and thoroughness. Their instructions authorized them to maintain a correspondence with the colonies, obtaining such information and advice as seemed essential; to receive all addresses relating thereunto, whether from persons in America or elsewhere; to consider and consult thereof and prepare such advices and answers thereupon as should be judged meet for the advantage of the community. Their earliest business concerned itself with Jamaica, its revenues, finances, expenses of expeditions thither, arrears due the officers and soldiers, their wives and assignees, individual claims, want of ministers, and other similar questions. But as addresses came in from other colonies the scope of their activity was broadened until it included at one time or another nearly all the American colonies. The committee reported on the constitution, governing powers, fortifications, militia of Somers Islands (Bermudas) and on the fitness of Sayle to be governor there; on the controversy between Virginia and Maryland and on the organization and government of the former colony; on the petition of the Long Islanders and others in New England, and on complaints against Massachusetts Bay; on the revenue, government, and admiralty system of Barbadoes; on questions of governor and arrears of salary in Nevis and Tortugas; on the desirability of continuing the plantation in Newfoundland; and lastly on the important subject of ship insurance, upon which Capt. Limbrey presented a very remarkable paper.[41] These reports were sent sometimes to the Protector, sometimes to the Council of State, and sometimes to the committee of the Council on the affairs of America. While the latter committee, under the name of "Committee for Foreign Plantations" continued until the return of the King, the select committee for America does not appear to have lasted as a whole after the final dissolution of the Rump Parliament, March 16, 1660. Thomas Povey alone seems to have been the committee from March to May, and on April 9 and May 11 made two reports on matters referred to him by the Council committee regarding Jamaica and Newfoundland. As Charles II had been recalled to his own in England before the last report was sent in, the machinery created under Cromwell for the plantations remained in existence after the government set up by him had passed away.[42]

Any account of the system appointed for the control of trade and plantations during the Interregnum is bound to be something of a tangle, not because the system itself was a complicated one, but because its simplicity is clouded by a bewildering mass of details. Occasional committees of Parliament, the Council as a board of trade and plantations, committees of the Council, and select councils and committees do not form a very confusing body of material out of which to fashion a system of colonial control. Yet, despite this fact, the management of the colonies during the Interregnum was without unity or simplicity. Control was exercised by no single or continuous organ and according to no clearly defined or consistent plan. Colonial questions seemed to lie in many different hands and to be met in as many different ways. Delays were frequent and there can be little doubt that many important matters were laid aside and pigeon-holed. When an important colonial difficulty had to pass from subcommittee to committee, from committee to Council, and sometimes from Council to Parliamentary committee and thence to Parliament, we can easily believe that in the excess of machinery there would be entailed a decrease of despatch and efficiency. Indeed, during the Interregnum colonial business was not well managed and there were many to whom colonial trade was of great importance, who realized this fact. Merchants of London after 1655 became dissatisfied with the way the plantations were managed and desired a reorganization which should bring about order, improve administration, economize expenditure, elevate justice, and effect speedily and fairly a settlement of colonial disputes. They doubted whether a Council, "busyed and filled with a multitude of affairs," was able to accomplish these results and they refused to believe that affairs of such a nature should be transacted "in diverse pieces and by diverse councils." The remedy of these men was carefully thought out and carefully expressed and though it was undoubtedly listened to by Cromwell, it never received more than an imperfect application. To these men and their proposals we must pay careful attention for therein we shall find the connecting link between the Protectorate and the Restoration as far as matters of trade and the plantations are concerned.

[!--Note--]

([1]) Among others, The Advancement of Merchandize or certain propositions for the improvement of the trade of this Commonwealth, humbly presented to the Right Honorable the Council of State by Thomas Viollet, of London, Goldsmith, 1651. This rare pamphlet was drawn up by Viollet when connected with the Mint in the Tower and sent to the Council of State, evidently in manuscript form. Most of the papers composing this pamphlet were transmitted by the Council of State to the Council of Trade. For Viollet see Cal. State Papers, Domestic, 1650–1651, 1659–1660.

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([2]) The Council of Trade accumulated in this and other ways a considerable mass of books and papers, but this material for its history has entirely disappeared.

[!--Note--]

([3]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1650, p. 399; 1651, pp. 16, 29, 38, 107, 230; 1651–1652, pp. 87. The first suggestion of this committee was as early as January 1650, Commons' Journal, VI, p. 347.

[!--Note--]

([4]) Guildhall, Journal of the Proceedings of the Common Council, Vol. 41, ff. 45, 55; Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1651, pp. 198, 247–249, 270–271; Inderwick, The Interregnum, ch. II.

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([5]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1651–1652, pp. 470–472, 479–481.

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([6]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1652–1653, p. 282.

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([7]) British Museum, Add. MSS., 5138, f. 145.

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([8]) Guildhall, Repertories of the Court of Aldermen, 61, p. 152^b.

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([9]) Guildhall, Journal of the Proceedings of the Common Council, Vol. 41, pp. 67^b, 68.

[!--Note--]

([10]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1651–1652, pp. 232, 235. The question was as to whether or not the Turkey trade could best be carried on by a company "as now," or by free trade, as in the case of Portugal and Spain. Able arguments in favor of free trade were brought forward, and when later the question of a monopoly of the Greenland whale fishing came up, the Council of State admitted free adventurers to a share in the business. Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1653–1654, p. 379; 1654, p. 16.

[!--Note--]

([11]) Commons' Journal, VI, p. 140.

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([12]) Commons' Journal, VI, p. 361.

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([13]) Commons' Journal, VII, p. 41.

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([14]) Commons' Journal, VII, p. 220.

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([15]) Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 283, 284, 285.

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([16]) Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 343–344; Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1653–1654, pp. 297–298.

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([17]) Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 652, 654, 655; Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1658–1659, p. 349.

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([18]) Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 800, 849.

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([19]) P.C.R., Charles II, Vol. I, May 3/13, 1649—September 28, 1660. Meetings of Privy Councils during the Interregnum were held at Castle Elizabeth, St. Hillary, Breda (1649–1650), Bruges (1656, 1658), Brussels (1659), Breda (1660), Canterbury (May 27, 1660), Whitehall (May 31, 1660).

[!--Note--]

([20]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 335, 352, 366; Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1651–1652, p. 43.

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([21]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, p. 394; Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1651–1652, pp. 67, 232, 235, 426; 1652–1653, pp. 18–27.

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([22]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 373–402, passim.

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([23]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1651–1652, pp. 266, 350, 396, 472; 1652–1653, pp. 18, 27, 160, 171.

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([24]) Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 19, 287. On May 6, 1653, a new commission of trade was proposed by the Council of State but no appointments are given. Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1653–1654, pp. 310, 344.

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([25]) Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 308, 319, 341, 375.

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([26]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1654, pp. 61, 285, 316.

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([27]) Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 11411, ff. 11^b–12^b.

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([28]) That such an outcome was anticipated is evident from the concluding words of the "Overture." "If his Highness shall think fit to constitute a council for the general Trade of these Nations and the several Interests relating thereunto, these seaven may properly be of that number, the employment being of the same nature and therefore will rather informe then divert them who ought indeed to be busyed or conversant in no other Affaires than the matters of Trade."

[!--Note--]

([29]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655, pp. 27, 133, 240.

[!--Note--]

([30]) Thurloe, State Papers, IV, p. 177; British Museum, Add. MSS., 12438, iii; Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655, p. 240, 1655–1656, pp. 1, 2, 54, 73, 100, 114, 115, 141, 156, 162, 188, 252, 275, 297, 327, 382. "We might speak also of the famed 'Committee of Trade' which has now begun its sessions 'in the old House of Lords.' An Assembly of Dignitaries, Chief Merchants, Political Economists, convened by summons of his Highness; consulting zealously how the Trade of this country may be improved. A great concernment of this commonwealth 'which his Highness is eagerly set upon.' They consulted of 'Swedish copperas' and such like; doing faithfully what they could." Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, II, p. 202.

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([31]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655–1656, p. 113; 1656–1657, p. 556; 1657–1658, pp. 308, 589; 1657–1658, p. 69.

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([32]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655–1656, p. 318.

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([33]) Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 442, 452, 460.

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([34]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 436, 439, 440 (2), 441, 443, 447, 453.

[!--Note--]

([35]) Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 12438, iii.

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([36]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1658–1659, p. 349.

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([37]) Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 442, 452.

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([38]) Commons' Journal, VII, p. 596.

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([39]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655–1656, pp. 46, 65, 318, 351.

[!--Note--]

([40]) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1657–1658, pp. 51, 66.

[!--Note--]

([41]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574, 1660, pp. 445, 447, 448, 449, 450, 452, 453, 455, 456, 458, 459, 460, 461, 464, 465, 468, 470, 477; Brit. Mus. Egerton, 2395, ff. 123, 136, 142, 148–151, 157; Add. MSS., 18986, f. 258.

[!--Note--]

([42]) Note to the report of May 11, 1660, is as follows: "By order of the Councill of State sitting and taking care of the government in the interval between the suppression of the Rump of the Parliament and the return of his Majesty which was not many days before the date of this report." Egerton MSS., 2395, f. 263. Probably the recall not the actual landing at Dover is meant.

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CHAPTER III.

The Proposals of the Merchants: Noell and Povey.

Between the colonial and commercial activities of the later years of the Interregnum and the corresponding activities during the early years of the Restoration no hard and fast line can be drawn. The policy of control adopted by Charles II can be traced to the agitation of men, chiefly merchants of London and others familiar with the colonies, who since 1655 had become impressed with the possibilities of the New World as a field for profitable ventures in trade and commerce, and desired, whether under a republic or a monarchy, the coöperation and aid of the government. Among the leaders of this movement were Martin Noell and Thomas Povey.

Martin Noell was probably the most conspicuous London merchant of his time. Of his early life nothing seems to be known. He first appears as a merchant in 1650 trading with Nevis and Montserrat, and in the next few years he extended his operations to New England, Virginia, the other West India islands, and the Mediterranean. His ships trafficked in a great variety of commodities—iron, hemp, pitch, tar, flax, potashes, cables, fish, cocoa, tobacco, etc., and he became a power in London, his place of business in Old Jewry being the resort of merchants, ship captains, and persons desiring to coöperate in his ventures. He was an alderman as early as 1651, was placed a little later on the commission for securing the peace of the city, and held other offices by appointment of the city or of the Commonwealth. He was also a member of the East India Company and influential in its councils. In addition to his mercantile interests he became a farmer, first of the inland and foreign post-office,—one writer speaking of him as "the postmaster,"—and later, on a large scale, of customs and excise. At one time or another he held the farm of the customs in general and of the excise of salt, linen, silk mercery, and wines in particular. In these capacities he acted as a banker of the government, paying salaries and expenses of official appointees, advancing loans, and issuing bills of exchange and letters of credit. His vessels carried letters of marque during the Dutch war and the war with Spain, and he himself traded in prizes and became one of the commissioners of prize goods. The Jamaican expeditions of 1654 and afterward gave him an opportunity to become a contractor and he organized a committee in London for the purpose of financiering the expedition, himself advancing £16,000, and in company with Capts. Alderne, Watts, and others contracted for the supplies of the ships and soldiers, furnishing utensils, clothing, bedding, and provisions for this and other expeditions, notably that to Flanders. He was Gen. Venables' personal agent in London and agent for the army in general in Jamaica. He also became a contractor for transporting vagrants, prisoners, and others to various American plantations. These accumulating ventures increased his interest in the colonies, and after the capture of Jamaica in 1655 he obtained a grant of 20,000 acres in that island, from which he created several plantations. In his new capacity as planter he was constantly engaged in shipping servants, supplies, and horses. The firm of Martin Noell & Company became exceedingly prosperous, and Noell himself one of the mainstays of the government. He became a member of the Trade Committee in 1655, of the committee for Jamaica in 1656, and was frequently called in by the Council of State to offer advice or to give information. He was on terms of intimacy with Cromwell, and because of the Protector's friendship for him and confidence in his judgment, his recommendations for office, both in England and the colonies had great weight. Povey speaks of the "extraordinary favor allowed him (Noell) by his Highness." He had a brother, Thomas Noell, who was prominent in Barbadoes and Surinam and in charge of his interests there. He was also represented in other islands by agents and factors, of whom Edward Bradbourne was the most conspicuous, while Major Richard Povey in Jamaica, and William Povey in Barbadoes, brothers of Thomas Povey, had for a time charge of his plantations in those islands. Noell indirectly played no small part in politics, particularly of Barbadoes, where Governor Searle held office largely through his influence. Besides his Jamaica holdings he had estates at Wexford in Ireland, and in April, 1658, wrote to Henry Cromwell that he had "transplanted much of his interest and affairs and relations" to that country, seeming to indicate thereby that his colonial ventures were not prospering satisfactorily. Noell was a politic man, shrewd and diplomatic, asserting his loyalty to the house of Cromwell, yet becoming a trusty subject of King Charles, from whom he afterward received knighthood.[1]

Thomas Povey was born probably about 1615, son of Justinian Povey, auditor of the exchequer and one of the commissioners of the Caribbee Islands in 1637. He was one of a large family of children, nine at least, Justinian, John, Francis, William, Richard, Thomas, Mrs. Blathwayt (afterward Mrs. Thomas Vivian), Mrs. Barrow, and Sarah Povey, and he spent his early years at the family home in Hounslow. In 1633 he entered Gray's Inn and in 1647 became a member of the Long Parliament. "Purged" with the other Presbyterian members in 1648, he did not return to Parliament until the restoration of those members in 1659. He was evidently inclined at first to go into law and politics, but for reasons unnamed, possibly the slenderness of his fortune, which he says was hardly sufficient to support him, he turned, about 1654, to trade, and was thus brought into close relations with Martin Noell. Of his activities until 1657 we hear very little, though it is evident that from 1654 to 1657 he lived in Gray's Inn, engaging in many trading ventures in the West Indies and elsewhere, was on terms of intimacy with Noell and frequently at his house, and showed himself fertile of suggestions, as always, regarding the improvement of trade and the care and supply of men, provisions, and intelligence. In 1657 he lost by death his brothers John and Francis, and his mother, who died at Hounslow. As two of his brothers had gone to the West Indies with the expedition of 1654 and the remainer of the family was scattered, he decided to marry, and settled down in a house in Lincoln's Inn Fields next the Earl of Northampton, with a widow without children, but possessed "of a fortune capable of giving a reasonable assistance to mine." In October of that year, possibly through Noell's influence, he became a member of the committee for America, and from that time was a conspicuous leader among those interested in plantation affairs. As chairman and secretary of the committee, he took a prominent part in all correspondence, and was familiar with the chief men in all the colonies. He exchanged letters with Searle, of Barbadoes, D'Oyley, of Jamaica, Temple, of Nova Scotia, Digges, at one time governor of Virginia, Russell, of Nevis, Major Byam, of Surinam, Col. Osborn, of Montserrat, General Brayne, in command of one of the expeditions to Jamaica, and particularly with Lord Willoughby of Parham, with whom he stood on terms of intimate friendship and over whose policy he exercised considerable control. He was proposed at this time as agent in London for Virginia, but the suggestion does not appear to have been acted on. His brother Richard was commissary of musters and major of militia in Jamaica, and his brother William, the black sheep of the family, who had married a wife far too good for him, as Povey once wrote her, was provost marshal in Barbadoes and in charge of Noell's interests there, bringing that merchant nothing but "discontent and damage," and causing Thomas Povey a great deal of trouble and expense. The colonial appointments of these brothers were obtained entirely through the influence of Noell and Povey in England. The disordered and uncertain political situation in England in 1659 and the unsettled state of affairs in both Jamaica and Barbadoes at the same time cost Povey great anxiety and a part of his own and his wife's fortune, and he echoed the complaint, widespread at the time, of the decay of trade and the insecurity of all commercial ventures. We may not doubt that Povey, as well as Noell, was ready to welcome the return of the King.[2]

Though Noell and Povey were intimate friends and had been engaged in common trading enterprises for a number of years, we have no definite knowledge of their earlier undertakings, beyond the fact that with Capt. Watts and Capt. Aldherne, whom Povey met by accident at Noell's house, they were particularly concerned in developing the Barbadoes and Jamaica trade. In the years 1657 and 1658, when Noell was "swol'n into a much greater person by being a farmer of the customs and excise," we meet with two enterprises, one for a West India Company, promoted by Lord Willoughby, Noell, Povey, and Watts, as partners and principals, with Watts as sea captain in charge of the vessel; the other for a Nova Scotia Company, composed of Lord William Fiennes, Sir Charles Wolseley, Noell, Povey, and others, with Watts and Collier as managers and Capt. Middleton as sailing master. The latter company was organized for settling a trade in furs and skins in Nova Scotia, and to that end engaged the coöperation of Wolseley's cousin, Col. Thomas Temple, lieutenant general of Nova Scotia since 1655, and of Capt. Breedon, a prominent merchant of New England. It sent out a ship freighted with goods under Capt. Middleton, but despite an auspicious beginning, does not appear to have prospered. The title to Nova Scotia was disputed not only by the French, but also by the Kirkes, whom Cromwell had dispossessed in 1655, when he appointed Temple as governor; hostilities broke out in Nova Scotia, and the company was called upon for a larger stock and incorporation at a time when its promoters seemed unwilling to risk more money. Though Povey was encouraged by the specimens of copper which Temple sent over, the enterprise made no progress until after the Restoration. It is probable that both Noell and Povey lost money by the venture.

The project for a West India Company was more ambitious and must have been formulated some time in 1656 or 1657. Various propositions were drawn up with care, probably by Povey or by Noell and Povey together, for the better serving the interests of the Commonwealth by the erection of a company which had as its object the advancing of trade and the prosecution of the war with Spain. The two ideas seem, however, to have been kept separate. Trade was to be promoted by despatching a vessel to "Florida" under Capt. Watts which, in case it was unable to open trade there, was to take on a lading of pipe staves in New England, sail to the West Indies, and return thence with a cargo of sugar and other West Indian commodities. For the purpose of attacking Spanish towns, of "interrupting the Spanish fleet in their going from Spain to the Indies and in their return thence for Spain, and of ousting the Spaniards from their control in the West Indies and South America"—a subject regarding which Capt. Limbrey had drawn up a paper of information,—the company proposed that the state should furnish and equip twenty frigates which were to be fully provisioned, manned and officered by itself. The company desired to be incorporated by act of Parliament,[3] rather than by a patent under the great seal, because the former would confer "diverse privileges and assistances, and an immunity and sole trade in any place they shall conquer or beget a trade with the Spaniard's dominion," all of which a patent could not convey. The proposals were presented to the Council of State in 1659 and were referred to a special committee. They were debated in Council on August 7, and on October 20 Povey wrote to Governor Searle that they had received encouragement and hoped to have a charter from Parliament, and because "they have so much favor from the state they will have an influence upon most of the English plantations."[4] Either Parliament refused to incorporate the company or in the distractions of the winter of 1659–1660 the proposals were lost sight of.

The group of merchants, among whom Noell and Povey were so conspicuous, seemed to desire, as far as possible, a monopoly of the trade in America and the West Indies, and to that end controlled to no inconsiderable extent political appointments there. Governor Searle, of Barbadoes, was their appointee, and Governors Russell, of Nevis, and Osborn, of Montserrat, were in close touch with them and looked to them for support. In 1657, acting through the committee for America, they recommended that Edward Digges be made governor of Virginia, and about the same time Martin Noell and eighteen others petitioned that Capt. Watts be made governor of Jamaica. Lord Willoughby was practically one of them, and Gen. Brayne and Lieut. Gen. D'Oyley were on intimate terms with them. It is not surprising, in view of the importance of the colonial trade and the disturbed condition of the plantations, that such a man as Povey, who was always ready with plans and proposals, should have endeavored to solve the problem of colonial control. He was in frequent consultation with Noell concerning matters relating to the West Indies, and in consequence, many schemes were discussed and carefully worked out by them. The various drafts touching the West India Company are elaborated in minute detail, and Povey showed clearly that he possessed admirable qualities as a committee-man and an organizer.

The first "overture" or plan seems to have been written in 1654 at the time when the expedition of Penn and Venables was on its way to the West Indies, and does not refer specifically to Jamaica. Its authors recommended that a competent number of persons, not less than seven, of good repute and well skilled in their professions and qualifications, be selected to form a council. A greater number would be undesirable, they said, because "in such an affair where there are many, the chief things are done and ofttimes huddled up by a few; and there is neither that secrecy, steadiness, nor particular care, nor so good an account given of the trust, where more are employed than are necessary and proportionable to the business."[5] The qualifications of the seven are interesting: "(1) One to be a Merchant that hath been in those Indias and trading that waie. (2) One also to bee a Merchant but not related to that trade, and who rather retires from than pursues in profession. (3) One well experienced Seaman, not or but little trading att present. (4) One Gentleman that hath travailed; that hath language and something of the civill Lawe. (5) One Citizen of a general capacitie and conversation. (6) One that understands well our municipall Lawes and the general Constitutions of England. (7) One to be a Secretarie to his Highness in all Affaires in the West Indias, and relating thereunto, who is solely to give himself up to this Employm^t." This council was to be subordinated only to Cromwell and the Council and its powers were to be fairly extensive. It was

"to have power to advise w^th all other Committees or Persons, Officers, or others as occasion shall require;

"to consider (by what they shall observe here and what shalbee represented from the Commission^rs now in the expedition) how and what forreigne Plantations may be improved, transplanted, and ordered;

"to reduce all Colonies and Plantations to a more certaine, civill, and uniforme way of government and distribution of publick justice;

"to keep a constant correspondence with the Commission^rs now in the expedition, and w^th all the Chiefe Ports both at home and abroad;

"to be able to give up once in a year unto his Highness a perfect Intelligence and Account of the Government of every place, of their complaints, their wants, their abundance of every ship trading thither and its lading and whither consigned, and to know what the proceeds of the place have been that yeare, whereby the intrinsick value and the certaine condition of each port will be thoroughly understood. And by this conduct and method those many rich places and severall Governments and Adventures will have all due and continuall care and Inspection taken of them, w^thout divertion to the nearest Affairs of this Nation, w^ch being of so much of a greater and a closer consequence, the Superior Council can seldome bee at leisure to descend any further than to breife and imperfect considerations and provisions, w^ch is the sad Estate of fforeigne Dominions, and distant Colonies and Expeditions from whence usually the most strict, or servile duty and obedience is exacted, but very seldome any Indulgencie or paternall care is allowed to them.

"These therefore are to indeavour and contrive all possible Encouragem^ts and Advantages for the Adventurer, Planter, and English Merchants, in order also to the shutting out all Straingers from that Trade, by making them not necessary to it, and by drawing it wholly and with satisfaction to all parties into our Ports here, that it may bee afterward instead of Bullion to trade with other Nations, it being the Traffick of our own proper and native Commodities. That our Shipping may be increased, our poore here employed, and our Manufactures encouraged: And by the generall consequencies hereof, a considerable Revenue may be raised to his Highness.

"to debate among themselves, and satisfy themselves from others; and to present their Results to his Highness in all matters reserved and proper for his Highness Judgment and last Impressions.

"to bee a readie and perfect Register both to his Highness and all other persons, as far as they may be concerned, of all particulars relating to those Affaires.

"The Secretarie may be the person to represent things from time to time between his Highness and this Councill. To make and receive dispatches. To make readie papers for his Highness signature. And generally his Office wilbee to render the Supreame Management & comp^rhension of this Affaire less cumbersome and difficult to his Highness, hee being allwaies ready to give his Highness a full and a digested consideration, if any particular relating to those Affaires and w^thin the cognizance of that Council."[6]

That these recommendations had any influence in determining the character of the Trade Committee of 1655 is doubtful, but the next effort of the merchants was probably more successful. Some time in 1656 Povey drew up a series of queries "concerning his Highness Interest in the West Indias" in which occur the following suggesive paragraphs:

"Whether a Councell busyed and filled with a multitude of Affaires, w^ch concerne the imediat Safety and preservation of the State at home, can bee thought capable of giving a proper conduct to such various and distant Interests.

"Whether an Affaire of such a nature and consequence may be transacted in diverse peices and by diverse Councells, and how a proper Result cann be instantly arise out of such a kind of management.

"Whether a Councill constituted of fitt Persons Solely sett apart to the busyness of America be not the likeliest means of advancing his Highness Interest there and of bringing them continually to a certain account and readiness whensoever his Highness or his Privie Councill shall have occasion to looke into any particular thereof.

"Whether it be not a prudentiall thing to draw all the Islands, Colonies, and Dominions of America under one and the same management here."[7]

That the men who drafted these queries were mainly responsible for the creation of the select council of 1656, at first known as the Committee for Jamaica and afterwards as the Committee for his Highness Affairs in America, we can hardly doubt, for the constitution and work of that committee represents very nearly the ideas that Povey and Noell had expressed up to this time. It is not to be wondered at that Povey should have been the chairman, secretary, and most active member of this committee after his appointment in 1657.

Two other propositions or overtures appear among Povey's papers that belong to the period of the Protectorate, and were written probably the one in 1656, known as the "Propositions concerning the West India Councill," and the other, known as "Overtures touching the West Indies," before August, 1657.[8] In the first of these the number of the council was to be ten, in the second it was not to exceed six. The "Propositions" repeat in the main the points already quoted, including the recommendation that it should be the business of the council "to consider of the reducing all Colonies and Plantations to a more certaine, civill, and uniform waie of Governm^t and distribution of publick justice." The "Overtures" are much more elaborate, though frequently containing the identical phrases of the first "Overture," with many new paragraphs which seem to show the same spirit of hostility for Spain that is exhibited in the formation of the West India Company. Indeed this document is an outcome of the same movement which led to the formation of that company. Some of the more important sections are as follows:

"To render what we already possess, and all that depends upon it, to be a foundation and Inducem^t for future undertakings; by gathering reasonable assistances from thence, and by mingling and interweaving of Interest, and letting it appear that such Persons and Collonies shall have the more of the Indulgencie of the State as shall merit most in what they shall in any way be readier to do, or contribut to the service of the whole; for hereafter they may be considered as one embodied Commonwealth whose head and centre is here.

"That every Governour shall have his Commission reviewed, and that all be reviewed in one form, w^th such clauses and provisions as shalbee held necessary for the promotion of his Highness other public affairs, and that as soone as order can be conveniently taken therein the several Governours to be paid their allowances from hence (though upon their own accounts), that their dependencie bee immediately and altogether from his Highness....

"That all prudentiall means be applyed to for the rendering these Dominions useful to England, and England helpful to them; and that the severall Peices and Colonies bee drawn and disposed into a more certaine, civill, and uniforme waie of Government and distribution of Publick Justice. And that such Collonies as are the Proprietie of particular Persons or of Corporations may be reduced as neare as cann bee to the same method and proportion w^th the rest w^th as little dissatisfaction or injurie to the persons concerned as may bee.

"That a continual correspondence bee so settled and ordered ... that so each place w^thin itself and all of them being as it were made up into one Commonwealth may be regulated accordingly upon comon and equal Principles."

These proposals are followed by a series of propositions designed to further the enterprise of the merchants and to aid in the defeat of the Spaniards, whereby "those oppressed People (who are w^thheld from Trade though to their extreme suffering and disadvantage)" may be released "from the Tyranny [of Spain] now upon them."

Taken as a whole, these documents form a remarkable series of unofficial papers which formulate foundation principles of colonial empire that England never applied. That these principles met the approval of those who were to shape the colonial policy of the Restoration a further examination will show.

[!--Note--]

([1]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660; Dom., vols. for years 1650–1660, Indexes; Brit. Mus. Egerton, 2395, Add. MSS., 11410, 11411, 15858, f. 97, 22920, f. 22; Lansdowne, 822, f. 164, 823, f. 33.

[!--Note--]

([2]) Cal. State Papers, Col. and Dom. Indexes; Egerton, 2395, which contains Povey's collection of papers; Add. MSS., 11411, which contains his correspondence. See also Dictionary of National Biography.

[!--Note--]

([3]) A draft of such an act is to be found in Egerton, 2395, f. 202.

[!--Note--]

([4]) Brit. Mus. Egerton, 2395, pp. 87–113, 176 (there is a duplicate of Povey's letter in Add. MSS., 11410); Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 475, 477.

[!--Note--]

([5]) That all these proposals were drafted by Povey is evident from similar terms and phrases used in his letters.

[!--Note--]

([6]) Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 11411, ff. 11^b–12^b.

[!--Note--]

([7]) Brit. Mus., Egerton, 2395, f. 86.

[!--Note--]

([8]) Brit. Mus., Egerton, 2395, f. 99; Add. MSS., 11411, ff. 3–3^b. In a letter of August, 1657, Povey refers to these "Overtures," which he says were designed "for the better setting and carrying on of the general affairs of the West Indies, enforcing the authority and powers of the several governors there, and the establishment of a certain course," etc.

[!-- H2 anchor --]

CHAPTER IV.

Committees and Councils Under the Restoration.

Charles II landed at Dover on May 25, 1660 and on the twenty-seventh named at Canterbury four men, General Monck, the Earl of Southampton, William Morrice, and Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who took oath as privy councillors. Others who had been members of the Council on foreign soil or were added during the month following the return of the King swelled the number to more than twenty. The first meeting of the Privy Council was held on May 31, and it was inevitable that during the ensuing weeks many petitions concerning the various claims and controversies which had been agitating merchants and planters during the previous years and had been reported on by the Committee for America should have been brought to the attention of the Council. Such matters as appointments to governorships and other offices, the political disturbances in Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica, the titles to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Barbadoes, became at once living issues. Many of the petitions were from the London merchants, and we may not doubt that the personal influence of those whose names have been already mentioned was brought to bear upon the members of the Council. It became necessary, therefore, for the King and his advisers to make early provision for the proper consideration of colonial business in order that the colonies might be placed in a position of greater security and in order that the West Indian and American trade, from which the King and his Chancellor expected important additions to the royal revenue, might be encouraged and extended. Among the petitions received in June, 1660, were two from rival groups of merchants interested in the governorship and trade of the island of Nevis. One of these petitions desired the confirmation of the appointment of Col. Philip Ward as governor of Nevis; the other the reappointment of the former governor, Russell. This was the first difficult question that had yet arisen, for Berkeley's return to Virginia was a foregone conclusion, while the condition and settlement of Nova Scotia, Barbadoes and Jamaica were to be of importance later. Acting on these petitions regarding Nevis, only the second of which is entered in the Privy Council Register, the King in Council appointed on July 4, 1660, a committee, known as "The Right Honorable the Lords appointed a Committee of this Board for Trade and Plantations." The members were Edward Montague, Earl of Manchester, the Lord Chamberlain; Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, the Lord Treasurer; Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester; William Fiennes, Lord Say and Seale; John Lord Robartes; Denzil Holles, Arthur Annesley, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, and the Secretaries of State, Sir Edward Nicholas and Sir William Morrice. The committee was instructed to meet on every Monday and Thursday at three o'clock in the afternoon, "to review, heare, examine, and deliberate upon any petitions, propositions, memorials, or other addresses, which shall be presented or brought in by any person or persons concerning the plantations, as well in the Continent as Islands of America, and from time to time make their report to this board of their proceedings."[1]

It is evident from the wording of these instructions that the committee was designed to be a continuous one and to carry on the work of the former committee for foreign plantations of the Council of State. There is no essential difference between these committees, except that one represented a commonwealth and the other a monarchy. We pass from the one arrangement to the other with very little jar, and with much less sense of a break in the continuity than when we pass from the system under the Republic to that under the Protectorate. The Privy Council committee had all the essential features of a standing committee and, after the experiment with separate and select councils had proved unsatisfactory, it assumed entire control of trade and plantation affairs in 1675, a control which it exercised until 1696. Though an occasional change was made in its membership and some reorganization was effected in 1668, the Lords of Trade of July 4, 1660, commissioned with plenary powers by patent under the great seal, became the Lords of Trade of February 9, 1675.

From 1660 to 1675 this committee of the Privy Council played no insignificant part although, after the creation of the councils, it was bound to be limited in the actual work that it performed. During the four months after its appointment it was the only body that had to do with trade and plantations except the Privy Council, which occasionally sat as a committee of the whole for plantation affairs. During the summer the committee considered with care and a due regard for all aspects of the case the claims of various persons to the government of Barbadoes. Despite the opposition of Modyford, who had been commissioned governor by the Council of State the April before, and John Colleton, one of the Council of Barbadoes, and despite the efforts of Alderman Riccard and other merchants of London, Francis Lord Willoughby was restored to the government under the claims of the Earl of Carlisle. At the same time the claims of the Kirks, Elliott, and Sterling to Nova Scotia were examined and eventually decided in favor of Col. Temple, the governor there. Willoughby immediately appointed Capt. Watts governor of the Caribbee Islands, himself, through his deputy, took the governorship of Barbadoes, Modyford became governor of Jamaica, Berkeley of Virginia, and Russell of Nevis. It is at least worthy of recall that Willoughby, Watts, Temple, and Russell were all within the circle of Povey's friends, that Povey and Noell both petitioned the King for Russell's reappointment, and that Temple wrote Povey begging him to exert his influence in his (Temple's) behalf, lest he lose the governorship. Povey was certainly in high favor with the monarchy; in 1660 he was appointed treasurer to the Duke of York and Master of Requests to his Majesty in Extraordinary June 22, 1660,[2] and during the years that followed he held office after office and with all the skill of a politician continued to find offices for his kinsmen. William Blathwayt, of later fame, was his nephew. Noell was no less honored; he became a member of the Royal Company of Merchants, the Royal African Company, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, and was finally knighted in 1663 and died in 1665.[3] As we shall see, both men became very active in the affairs of the plantations, and it is more than likely that the opinions of the King in Council were not infrequently shaped by their suggestions and advice.

How early the decision was reached to create separate councils of trade and foreign plantations it is impossible to say. Some time between May and August, 1660, Povey must have planned to recast his "Overtures" and to present them for the consideration of the King. At first he endeavored to adapt those of 1657 to the new situation by substituting "Foreign Plantations" for the "West Indies," "Ma^tie" for "Highness," and "his Ma^ties Privie Councill" for "the great Councill"; but he finally decided to present a new draft, in which, however, he retained many of the essential clauses of the former paper. Whether the recommendations of Povey as presented in the "Overtures" influenced Lord Clarendon to recommend such councils to the King we cannot say; it is more likely that the practice adopted under the Protectorate had already commended itself to the Chancellor, who was beginning to show that interest in the plantations which characterizes the early years of his administration. That he should have consulted Noell and Povey and other London merchants is to be expected of the man who for at least five years kept up a close correspondence with Maverick of New England, Ludwell of Virginia, and D'Oyley, Littleton, and Modyford in the West Indies,[4] and who was constantly urging upon the King the importance of the plantations as sources of revenue and the great financial possibilities that lay in the improvement of trade. On August 17, 1660, the King in Council drafted a letter to "Our very good Lord the Lord Maior of the Citty of London & to the Court of Aldermen of the said City," reading as follows:

"After our hearty commendations these are to acquaint you, That his Majesty having this day taken into his princely consideration how necessary it is for the good of this kingdom, that Trade and Commerce with foreign parts, be with all due care, incouraged and maintayned, And for the better settling thereof declared his gracious intention to appoint a Committee of understanding able persons, to take into their particular consideration all things conducible thereunto; We do by his Ma^ts special command and in order to the better carrying on of this truly royal, profitable, and advantageous designe, desire you to give notice hereof unto the Turkey Merchants, the Merchant Adventurers, the East India, Greenland, and Eastland Companys, and likewise to the unincorporated Traders, for Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, and the West India Plantations; Willing them out of their respective societies to present unto his Majesty the names of fower of their most knowing active men (of whom, when his Majesty shall have chosen two and unto this number of merchants added some other able and well experienced persons, dignified also with the presence and assistance of some of his Majesty's Privy Council) All those to be by his Ma^tie appointed constituted and authoried by commission under the Great Seal as a Standing Committee, to enquire into and rectify all things tending to the Advancement of Trade and Commerce; That so by their prudent and faithful council and advice, his Ma^tie may (now in this conjuncture, whilst most Foraigne Princes and Potentates doe, upon his Ma^ties most happy establishment upon his throne, seek to renew their former Allyances with this Crowne), insert into the several Treatyes, such Articles & Clauses as may render this Nation more prosperous and flourishing in Trade and Commerce. Thus by prudence, care, & industry improving those great advantages to the highest point of felicity, which by its admirable situation Nature seems to have indulged to this his Majesty's kingdom. So we bid you heartily farewell."[5]

This letter was signed by Chancellor Hyde, Earl of Southampton, George Monck, Earl of Albemarle, Lord Say and Seale, Earl of Manchester, Lord Robartes, Arthur Annesley, and Secretary Morrice, who probably formed a special committee appointed to draft it. Some time within the month the answer of the Aldermen must have been received, for on September 19 the Council ordered the attorney general "to make a draught of a commission for establishing a Councell of Trade according to the grounds layed" in the letter of the seventeenth of August, "upon the perusal whereof at the Board his Ma^tie will insert the names of the said Counsell." It is more than likely that the project for the second council, that of plantations, went forward pari passu with the Council for Trade and that the letter to the Mayor and Aldermen served a double purpose. At any rate that must have been the understanding among those interested at the time, for on September 26, one Norwich, Captain of the Guards, who had been in Clarendon's employ, sent in a memorial to the Chancellor begging that the King employ him "in his customs and committees of trade and forraign plantations."[6] The matter of drafting the commissions must have taken some time, for they are not mentioned as ready for the addition of names before the last week in October. The business of making up the lists of members must have been a difficult and tedious matter. Many lists exist among the Domestic Papers which contain changes, erasures and additions, drafts and corrected drafts, which show how much pains Clarendon and the others took to make the membership of the Council of Trade satisfactory. A suggested list was first drawn up containing the names of privy councillors, country gentlemen, customers, merchants, traders, the navy officers, gentlemen versed in affairs, and doctors of civil law. With this list was considered another containing the names of the persons nominated by the different merchant companies. Other lists seem also to have been presented.[7] Probably in much the same way the list of the members of the Council for Foreign Plantations was made up, but more slowly.

The commissions were both ready by October 25 and on November 7 had reached the Crown Office (Chancery), ready to pass the great seal. The commission for the Council of Trade passed the great seal on that day and is dated November 7, 1660; but the commission for the Council for Foreign Plantations was held back that the names of other members might be added and it became necessary to have a new bill passed and duly engrossed three weeks later.[8] Therefore the commission for the Council for Foreign Plantations is dated December 1, 1660.

An analysis of the membership of these two councils and of the membership of the Royal African Company, created soon after, shows many points of interest. The Council of Trade consisted of sixty-two members, that of Foreign Plantations of forty-eight,[9] and that of the African Company of sixty-six. Twenty-eight members are common to the first two bodies, eleven are common to the Council of Trade and the Royal African Company, and eight are common to all three groups. These eight are John Lord Berkeley of Stratton; Sir George Carteret, Sir Nicholas Crispe, Sir Andrew Riccard, Sir John Shaw, Thomas Povey, Martin Noell, and John Colleton. The other members common to the two councils are Lord Clarendon, the Earl of Southampton, Earl of Manchester, Earl of Marlborough, Earl of Portland, Lord Robartes, Francis Lord Willoughby, Denzil Holles, Sir Edward Nicholas, Sir William Morrice, Arthur Annesley, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, William Coventry, Daniel O'Neale, Sir James Draxe, Edward Waller, Edward Digges, William Williams, Thomas Kendall, and John Lewis; while among the other members of the Council for Foreign Plantations are such well-known men as Sir William Berkeley, Capt. John Limbrey, Col. Edward Waldrond, Capt. Thomas Middleton, Capt. William Watts, and Capt. Alexander Howe. Thus the merchants, sea-captains, and planters, men thoroughly familiar with the questions of trade and plantations and intimately connected with the plantations themselves are members of the Council of Plantations and sometimes of that of Trade also. It is significant that among the four London merchants common to all three groups should be found the names of Noell and Povey. Their associates, Crispe and Riccard, were persons well known in the history of London trade, and probably the four names represent the four most influential men among the merchants of London who supported the King. When we turn to the work of these councils we shall see that Povey and Noell were active members also.

However uncertain we may be regarding the influence of Povey and Noell in shaping the policy of Clarendon and the King, that uncertainty disappears as soon as we examine the instructions which were drafted to accompany the commission for a Council for Foreign Plantations. The instructions are little more than a verbal reproduction of the "Overtures" which Povey drafted some time during the summer of 1660 for presentation to the King. They are based on the earlier overtures and proposals and certain passages can be traced back unchanged to the first "Overture" of 1654. Seven of the eleven clauses are taken from the Povey papers as follows:

In the "Overtures" there are no clauses corresponding to those in the Instructions relating to the enforcement of the Navigation Act or to the spread of the Christian religion; these may well be deemed Restoration additions, inserted at Clarendon's request. But the clause concerning the transportation of servants, poor men, and vagrants may well have been Povey's own, for both Povey and Noell were interested in the question and Noell had been in the business since 1654. In the "Queries" is the following paragraph:

"Whither the weeding of this Comon Wealth of Vagabonds, condemned Persons and such as are heere useless and hurtful in wars and peace, and a settled course taken for the transporting them to the Indias and thereby principally supplying Jamaica is not necessary to be consulted."

Among the Povey papers is one entitled "Certain propositions for the better accommodating the Forreigne Plantacons with Servants," which Povey may have drawn up. Hence, there is no good reason to doubt but that Povey wrote the entire draft of these instructions himself. Even those portions that are not to be found in the "Overtures" are written in Povey's peculiar and rather stilted style.

That Povey and Noell were the authors of the instructions given to the Council of Trade it is not so easy to demonstrate. A preliminary sketch of "Instructions for a Councill of Trade" as well as a copy of the final instructions are to be found among the Povey papers and both Povey and Noell were sufficiently familiar with the requirements of trade at that period to have drafted such a document. The fact that the second paper is but an elaboration of the first leads to the conclusion that they bear to each other much the same relation that the "Overtures" bear to the Instructions for the Council of Plantations:

The councils thus commissioned and instructed soon met for organization and business, the Council for Plantations holding its preliminary session December 10, 1660, in the Star Chamber, and all remaining meetings in the Inner Court of Wards; the Council for Trade meeting, first, in Mercer's Hall, near Old Jewry, afterwards in certain rooms in Whitehall, still later in a rented house which was consumed in the great fire, and, after 1667, in Exeter House, Strand. Philip Frowde became the clerical secretary of the Plantation Council and George Duke secretary of the Council of Trade, a position that he seems to have lost in 1663 but to have resumed again before 1667. The meetings were attended chiefly by the non-conciliar members, for it was usually the rule that privy councillors were to be present only when some special business required their coöperation. Both councils were organized in much the same manner, with a number, at least seven, of inferior officers, clerks, messengers, and servants, and in both cases journals of proceedings and entry books containing copies of documents, patents, charters, petitions, and reports were kept.[11] Whether minutes were taken of the meetings of the subcommittees is doubtful; no such papers have anywhere been found.

The Council for Plantations had a continuous existence from December 10, 1660, when the preliminary meeting was held, probably until the spring of 1665, though August 24, 1664, is the date of its last recorded sitting. During that time it shared in the extraordinary activity which characterized the early years of the Restoration and represents, as far as such activity can represent any one person, the enthusiasm of the Earl of Clarendon. There was not an important phase of colonial life and government, not a colonial claim or dispute, that was not considered carefully, thoroughly, and, in the main, impartially by the Council.[12] The business was nearly always handled, in the first instance, by experts, for with few exceptions the working committees were made up of men who had had intimate experience with colonial affairs or were financially interested in their prosperity. The first committee, that of January 7, 1661, for example, was composed of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who had been on plantation committees during the Interregnum; Robert Boyle, president of the Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England and one of the founders of the Royal Society; Sir Peter Leere and Sir James Draxe, old Barbadian planters; Edmund Waller, poet and parliamentarian, who had been interested in colonial affairs for some years; General Venables, who knew Jamaica well; Thomas Povey, Edward Digges, John Colleton (soon to be Sir John), Martin Noell (soon to be Sir Martin), and Thomas Kendall, all merchants and experts on colonial trade, and Middleton, Jefferies, Watts, and Howe, sea-captains and merchants in frequent touch with the colonies. Other committees were made up in much the same way, although the number of members was usually smaller. When letters were to be written or reports drafted that required skill in composition and embodiment in literary form, we find the task entrusted to Povey alone or to Povey assisted by the poets Waller and Sir John Denham. Povey was, indeed, the most active member of the Council, serving as its secretary in much the same capacity as on the Committee for America from 1657 to 1660.[13] On both these boards he exemplified his own recommendation that there should be on the Council "a Person who is to be more imediately concern'd and active than the rest ... allwaies readie to give a full and digested account and consideracon of any particular relating to those Affaires." Among the Povey papers are many drafts of letters and reports in process of construction, bearing erasures and additions which point to Povey as their author.[14]

The Council for Plantations and its committees sat and deliberated apart, the latter in Grocer's Hall; but the subjects under examination were considered by both bodies. The subcommittees were frequently instructed to call in persons interested, to write to others from whom information could be obtained, and to pursue their investigations with due regard for both sides of the case. Sometimes questions would be submitted to the attorney general, to Dr. Walter Walker and others from Doctors Commons, to special members of the Council who were more familiar than the rest with the facts in the case. On at least one occasion all the members of the Council were requested to bring in what information they could obtain regarding a particular matter. Question after question was postponed from one meeting to another, because the Council had not obtained all the details that it felt should be in hand before the report was sent to the King in Council. On a few occasions members of the Council accompanied the report to the Privy Council apparently with the intention of explaining or emphasizing their recommendations. The subjects under debate concerned the internal or external affairs of all the colonies. They related to Jamaica, Barbadoes, Maryland, Virginia, and New England, including Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, Maine, and Long Island; they dealt with Quakers, Jews, vagrants, and servants, supplies, provisions, naval stores, emigrant registration, and abuses in colonial trade; they included that burning question of the period, the Dutch at New Amsterdam and the complaints that arose regarding Holland as an obstruction to English trade. The amount of time taken and pains expended on controversial points can be inferred from an examination of the New England case, which was taken up at the first regular meeting in January and was under examination from that time until April 30, when the Council sent in its report. Even then it was taken up by the Privy Council, referred to its own committee, called the Committee for New England, and in one or two particulars was sent back to the Council for further consideration. In the performance of its duties the Council for Plantations can never be charged with indolence or neglect. In the year 1661 alone it held forty meetings, or an average of one every nine days.

After August, 1664, the records of the Council come to an end, but there is reason to believe that the Council continued its sessions at least until the spring of 1665. That the last meeting was not held on August 24 is certain, not only from the wording of the minute, which reads: "ordered, being a matter of great moment and the day far spent, that the further consideration be deferred for a week," but also from two further references to the existence of the Council, of later date,—one dated September 7, when the Council sent in a report regarding the proposed establishment of a registry office, and the other in the form of an endorsement upon a letter from Lord Willoughby which says: "Ref^d to the Council, Feb. 24," that is February 24, 1665. It seems probable, therefore, that the Council was sitting as late as February-March of that year.[15] Probably its meetings were broken up by the plague which started in London about that time, in the westernmost parish, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and lasted until the end of October. Whether the Council resumed its sessions after the plague had subsided it is almost impossible to say. No definite record exists of its meetings or work. Some of its members had died, Sir Martin Noell in October, 1665, and Sir Nicholas Crispe the next year; others had left England, Lord Willoughby, Capts. Watts and Kendall, and possibly Sir James Draxe; while others had accepted posts that took them away from London, as in the case of Capt. Middleton, who became commissioner of the navy at Portsmouth. Certainly Povey could have had very little to do with the affairs of a council in London in 1664–1666, when as surveyor-general of the victualling department he was required to be frequently at Plymouth and to spend a considerable amount of time travelling about England.[16] Yet there is nothing to show that its commission was revoked, and an order of the Privy Council, September 23, 1667, to which further reference will be made below, reads as if the Council were in existence at that time. If so, it must have been merely a nominal body.

After 1665, and until 1670, plantation affairs seem to have been controlled entirely by the Privy Council and its committees, which proved themselves capable and vigorous bodies. Before 1666, besides the Committee for Foreign Plantations, which has already been noticed, other committees were appointed as occasion arose,—committees for Jamaica, for Jamaica and Algiers, for the Guinea trade, for the Royal Company, for fishing in Newfoundland, for Jersey and Guernsey, and for New England. Committees for Trade and for hearing appeals from the Plantations also existed. On December 7, 1666, after the plague had subsided and the great fire had spent itself, the Privy Council reappointed its plantation committee, which now entered upon a career of greatly increased activity.[17] At the same time the Council made use of its other committees, particularly the "Committee for the Affaires of New England and for the bounding of Acadia," October 2, 4, 1667, which took into consideration the question of the restitution of Acadia to the French;[18] and it referred important matters of business to committees of selected experts. Under these conditions the affairs of the colonies were managed until the appointment of a new Plantation Council in August, 1670.

The Council for Trade met in Mercer's Hall some time before November 13, 1660, and at its preliminary session considered that part of its instructions which related to bullion and coin. On December 13, 1660, it passed a resolution urging and inviting people and merchants to send in petitions, and it requested the King to issue a proclamation defining its powers in all matters relating to trade and manufactures and calling on "any person, concerned in the matters therein to be debated or who have any petition or invention to offer, to apply to them for redress of evils brought on by the late times or for the improvement of trade regulations."[19] In response to, this appeal a large number of petitions, sent either to the Privy Council or directly to the Select Council itself, were received, and the discussion of these petitions and the preparing of reports upon them occupied the attention of the Council during the first two years. These reports show that the Council took its duties seriously and was thoroughly in earnest to improve, if possible, the trade of the kingdom, and to carry out to the full the commands which the King had laid upon it. There is not a clause of the instructions to which it did not pay some attention, and upon many matters it debated long and ardently, making reports that are as valuable for the student of the trade policy of the seventeenth century as are the familiar writings of well-known mercantilists. The Council took up and discussed the export of bullion and coin, expressing its opinion that the penalties should be withdrawn as injurious to trade, because they prevented the English merchants from bringing their money into the kingdom where it would be detained, and saying that money most abounded in countries which enjoyed freedom from restraints on exports. The trade in the Baltic, the East Indies, and the Levant to which trade freedom to export bullion was preeminently important; the Merchant Adventurers, regarding whose history and position the Council made a valuable report, viewing the subject from the beginning; the East India Company, whose petition,—largely reproduced in the report of the Council,—contained a bitter arraignment of the Dutch, calling to mind the "impudent affronts to the honor of this nation and the horrid injuries done to the stock and commerce thereof," and demanding damages and a definite regulation of trade in the forthcoming treaty with Holland then under debate; treaties with foreign powers, clauses in which concerning trade were taken up at the early meetings of the Council; prohibition of imposts on foreign cloths and stuffs, regarding which sundry shopkeepers, tradesmen, and artificers of London had petitioned the Privy Council in November, 1660,[20]—all these matters the Council took under consideration. It dealt with the granting of patents, with the encouragement of home industries, particularly the business of the framework knitters, silk-dyeing, and the manufacture of tapestry, and with the establishment of an insurance company.[21] As far as the plantations were concerned, its recommendations were few, and were made chiefly in connection with reports on the ninth and eleventh articles of its instructions, which touched upon convoys, imports, and composition-ports. It drafted a carefully drawn list of necessary convoys in which, of all the American plantations, only Newfoundland is mentioned. It considered the importation of logwood and tobacco, and upon the latter point made the suggestion "that all tobacco of English Plantations do pay at importation 1/2d. a pound and at exportation nothing." This recommendation was accompanied by a valuable essay on trade in general. It dealt with the question of making Dover a free port for composition trade and took the ground that the Acts of Navigation should be inviolably kept. On this question the Earl of Southampton, the Treasurer, and Lord Ashley (Cooper), Chancellor of the Exchequer, took the opposite ground, favoring the freedom of the port, "Dover having formerly been a port for free trade," and adding that "a free trade thus settled we conceive might conduce to the advantage of your Majesty's customs," trade being injured by the "tyes and observances which the Act of Navigation places upon it." They reported further that the farmers of the customs wished the Act to be dispensed with in some cases.[22]

Regarding the attitude of the Council toward the sixth article of its instructions, the promotion of the fisheries, we have fuller information. At the session of December 17, 1663, there were present the Earl of Sandwich, William Coventry, Sir Nicholas Crispe, Henry Slingsby, Christopher Boone, John Lord Berkeley, Sir Sackville Crowe, Thomas Povey, John Jolliffe, and George Toriano. Acting on a special order from the King, they debated how best the fishing trade might be gained and promoted, and how encouraged and advanced when gained. They considered the respective merits of a commission and a corporation, and whether, if a corporation should be agreed upon, it ought to be universal or exclusive, perpetual or limited, a joint stock or a divided stock, and what immunities and powers should be granted, the character of the persons to be admitted and the number. Taking up each point in turn, the members of the Council first considered "How to gain the Trade of Fishery" and laid down seven methods: 1, 2, by raising money either through voluntary contributions or through lotteries; 3, 4, by restraint of foreign importation or by impositions upon all foreign importation; 5, by letters to all countries urging them to contribute such especial commodities as cordage, lumber, boards, and the like, in exchange for fish; 6, by declaring a war against the Dutch, and at the same time, 7, by naturalizing or indenizing all Hollanders who would come into the English fishery. For the support of the trade when gained the Council proposed: 1, to impose a proportion of fish upon every vintner, innkeeper, alehouse-keeper, victualler, and coffee house in England; 2, to refuse all licenses for fish, which were to be paid for to the corporation; 3, to take the stock of the poor of every parish and provide for the impotent and aged only out of the product, and employ such as were able to work in the fishery—the impotent in the making of nets, etc.; 4, to require the gentlemen of all maritime counties to raise a stock of money in their counties to be employed toward the advance of the fishery; 5, to raise busses, i. e., Dutch herring boats, and to set them forth to their own use and to receive the profits in fish or in the product of it; 6, to employ the imposition laid upon fish by the last Parliament for the purpose of advancing the trade; to accept the offer of fishmongers to raise busses and money; 8, to require the master and wardens of the company, and, 9, to encourage private persons to do the same; 10, to bring over Dutchmen to teach the English the art of curing, salting, and marking fish, and of making casks. It was then decided, "after a long and solemne debate of the whole matter," nemine contradicente, "that there being no disadvantage in a corporation But many great Advantages, powers and Immunities that cannot be had by Commission That the best way of advancing & encouraging the Fishing Trade is by way of [a] Corporation." To this corporation were to be granted "the sole power of Lycensing the Eating and killing of flesh in Lent," the power to make by-laws, to dispose of "guifts that are or shalbee given for carrying on of this Trade," to administer oaths, to constitute officers, to exercise coercion in case of contempt against orders, to fine and in some cases to imprison, to send for papers, persons, books, etc. The corporation was to be universal, perpetual, and a joint stock company.[23] As a result of the report of the Council a charter of incorporation was issued to the Duke of York and thirty-six others, forming the Governor and Company of the Royal Fishery of Great Britain and Ireland, and George Duke, "late Secretary to the Committee of Trade," was recommended by the King as its secretary.[24]

This account of the debate in the Council upon the fishery question is important not only because it gives an interesting glimpse of the Council at work, and the only glimpse that we have at any length of its procedure, but because it illustrates a phase of mercantilism in the making. It shows, also, the intensity of the rivalry that existed between England and Holland, and furnishes an admirable example of one of the causes of that rivalry, the Dutch predominance in the fishing business.[25] The Council frequently appealed to the methods employed by the Dutch as a sufficient argument to support its contention, and when objections were raised against the universal corporation it answered, "You destroy the essence of a Corporation by lymitting it, And if you lymitt it, no man will venture their Stocke, and the mayne reason why the Dutch employ not only their Stocke but their whole families in the fisheries, is because their corporation is perpetual."

How much longer the Council of Trade continued its sessions it is impossible to say. Its last recorded action is a report, dated July, 1664, which contained its opinion upon the question of trade with Scotland, a matter soon to be taken up by the higher authorities. It is probable that, as in the case of the Council of Plantations, its sessions were suspended because of the plague and the fire and were not resumed. Its commission was not revoked and it certainly had a nominal existence until 1667. That it had no actual existence in April, 1665, seems likely from a letter sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury at that time, begging that the King appoint a council of trade to find out the cause of the decay in the coal trade.[26] By the summer of 1665 trade was reported dead and money scarce and to the plague was ascribed "an infinite interruption to the whole trade of the Nation." The fire and the Dutch war completed the demoralization of commerce and in 1666 the plantations were deemed in great want of necessaries on account of the obstructions of trade by the war. Though in that year many questions arose that might naturally have been referred to such a council had it been in session, no such references appear among the records. The advancement of trade was looked after by the Privy Council and its trade committee, and particularly by the Committee of Trade appointed by Parliament. The latter body had been named as early as March, 1664, to investigate the export of wool, wool-fells, and fullers' earth. A few weeks later it was entrusted with the duty of inquiring into the reasons for the general decay of trade. As this function was conferred on the Parliamentary Committee at a time when the Select Council was still holding its sessions, it is reasonable to suppose that the work of the latter body had not proved satisfactory. There is some slight evidence to show that the meetings of the Council were at this time but little attended and that its members were not working in harmony.[27] The Parliamentary Committee, acting as a Council of Trade, ordered representatives from all the merchant companies to prepare an account of the causes of obstruction in their different branches, and when the latter, among other obstacles, named the Dutch as the chief enemies of English trade, resolved that the wrongs inflicted by the Dutch were the greatest obstructions to foreign trade, and recommended that the King should seek redress. Other causes were considered and debated.[28]

An excellent idea of procedure can be obtained from studying the history of trade relations with Scotland during this decade. Immediately after the passage of the Navigation Act of 1660, the Scots petitioned that the Act might be dispensed with for Scotland, and special deputies were sent from the Scottish to the English Parliament to prevent, if possible, the extension of the Act to their country. The matter was referred to the Customs Commissioners and to the Privy Council, and the latter appointed a special committee to investigate it. Both of these bodies reported that the grant of such liberties to the Scots would frustrate the object of the Act, and gave elaborate reasons for this opinion.[29] As an act of retaliation the Scottish Parliament laid heavy impositions upon English goods, and English merchants in 1664 petitioned Parliament for relief. Parliament recommended the appointment of referees on both sides and in July, 1664, the Privy Council placed the matter in the hands of Southampton, Ashley, and Secretary Bennet. This committee laid the question before the Council of Trade, which suggested a compromise, whereby duties on both sides should be reduced to 5 per cent., the Scots should have the benefits of the Act of Navigation but no intercourse with foreign plantations, and should not buy any more foreign built ships. As a result of these and further negotiations Parliament passed an act in 1667,[30] "for settling freedom and intercourse of trade between England and Scotland," and under the terms of that act commissioners were appointed to meet with commissioners for Scotland in the Inner Star Chamber to negotiate a freedom of trade between the two countries. The commissioners duly met on January 13, 1668, and the papers recording their negotiations are full and explicit. The whole question of the relations between England and Scotland since the union, both political and economic, was investigated with great care; papers were searched for, records examined, memorials and petitions received, and various conditions of trade inquired into. The commissioners frequently disagreed and harmony was by no means always attained, resulting in delays in drafting the treaty and the eventual failure of the negotiations. In October the Scottish commissioners returned to Edinburgh, and the conditions remained as before.[31]

The fall of Clarendon, at the end of the year 1667, led to important changes in the organization of the government, and the widespread demoralization in trade demanded an improvement of the system of trade and plantation control. The year 1668 is significant as the starting point for a number of attempted remedies in matters of finance and trade supervision. We have no opportunity here to examine the political aspects of these changes or to determine how far they were effected in the interest of mere political control. Suffice it to say that too many conditions of the reign of Charles II have been attributed to extravagance and political intrigue, and too few to an honest desire on the part of those concerned to restore the realm to a condition of solvency and prosperity. Heavily burdened with debt at the outset of the reign, distracted by plague, fire, and foreign war during the years from 1665 to 1668, the kingdom needed the services of all its statesmen, and even the most selfish politician must have realized the need of reorganization. Acting upon a suggestion which Clarendon himself had made to the King, the Privy Council in 1667 began by strengthening its own committee system, and on January 31, 1668, established four standing committees—for foreign affairs, military affairs, trade and plantations, and petitions and grievances. These committees had almost the character of state departments, though they had no final authority of their own, all orders emanating from the Privy Council only. They became, however, more independent than had been previous committees by virtue of the fact that no order was to be issued by the Council until it had been "first perused by the Reporter of each Committee respectively," The following is a copy of the regulations:

His Ma^tie among other the important parts of his Affairs having taken into his princely consideration the way & method of managing matters at the Council Board, And reflecting that his Councills would have more reputation if they were put into a more settled & established course, Hath thought it fit to appoint certaine Standing Comitties of the Council for several Businesses together with regular days & places for their assembling in such sort as followeth: