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.