British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622-1675

by Charles McLean Andrews

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.