British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622-1675. Charles McLean Andrews

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