([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.