(1) Privy Council Register, James I, Vol. V, p. 173; repeated p. 618.
(2) P.C.R., Charles I. Vol. V, p. 106.
(3) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. IX, p. 291.
(4) Cal. State Papers, Colonial, 1574–1660, p. 170, § 78.
(5) Rymer, Fœdera XVII. pp. 410–414.
(6) Public Record Office, Chancery, Crown Dockets, 4, p. 280, June 26, 1622.
(7) P.C.R., James I, Vol. VI, pp. 333, 365–368, July, 1624.
(8) Analytical Index to the Series of Records known as Remembrancia preserved among the Archives of the City of London, 1579–1644, p. 526.
(9) Cal. State Papers, Domestic, 1625–1649, pp. 4, 84.
(10) Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1625–1649, pp. 225, 522, §§ 19, 20, p. 495.
(11) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. II, Pt. I, p. 68.
(12) P.C.R., Charles I, Vols. V, p. 10; VI, p. 7; X., p. 3; XII, p. 1; XV, p. 1.
(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.
(14) Historical MSS. Commission, Report XV. Manuscripts of the Duke of Portland, VIII, pp. 2–3.
(15) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 44, 62, 63, 64, 130; Virginia Magazine, VIII, pp. 29, 33–46, 149.
(16) Bradford, pp. 352–355; P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. VIII, pp. 346–347; Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, p. 158.
(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.
(18) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 184, 200, 251, 259.
(19) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1675–1676, § 193.
(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.
(21) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 9, 140, 151, 158, 211, 258.
(22) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1600, p. 129.
(23) Cal. State Papers, Col., pp. 197–198, 207.
(24) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. XV, p. 300.
(25) Virginia Magazine, X, p. 428; XI, p. 46.
(26) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. XV, p. 508.
(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."
(28) P.C.R., Charles I, Vols. XV, p. 343; XVI, pp. 542–543.
(29) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. XVI, p. 558; Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, p. 301.
(30) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1675–1676, § 190.
(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.
(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.
(33) This is, of course, the well-known Williams patent of 1644. Rhode Island, Colonial Records, I, pp. 143–146.
(34) Osgood, The Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, III, pp. 110–112.
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 tracehere 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,1and 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.2This 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 questionsunder debate.3In 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 "heardcertain 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.5On 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.6But 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 customsdues 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."7Evidently the Council of Trade favored the establishmentof 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.8But 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.9Evidently 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.10The period was one of transition from a monopolizedto 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.11February 12, 1650, a second council was elected, of which twenty were new members and the remaining twenty-one taken over from the former body.12On November 24, 1651, a third council was chosen under the sameconditions.13The same was true of the fourth council of November 24, 1652.14Many 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.15Two 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 theInstrument of Government.16This 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 inThe Humble Petition and Advicewas 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, 1659.17This body contained ten members not of Parliament and lasted until December 31, when a new Council of State waschosen for three months; but on February 21 the council was suspended, and two days afterward the tenth and last council was chosen.18On 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.20During the early part of this period it depended to a considerable extent on committees, either of merchants andothers 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.21This 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 aplantation in South America.22This 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.23After 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."24Several 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 1654.26That 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 tradeinto 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. Evenwhile 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.27If 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."28Thecommittee 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, 1655,29a 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, WilliamWheeler, 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.30Such 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 andregulated, 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;31and 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 entitledTrading 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,32Spanish 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, dissolutepersons," 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, butthere 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.35The 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,"36by 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;37and 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.38But 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 respectssimilar 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 membershipwas 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 1656.39But 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,40and 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 thefitness 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.41These 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 bya 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.