"Whether an Affaire of such a nature and consequence may be transacted in diverse peices and by diverse Councells, and how a proper Result cann be instantly arise out of such a kind of management.
"Whether a Councill constituted of fitt Persons Solely sett apart to the busyness of America be not the likeliest means of advancing his Highness Interest there and of bringing them continually to a certain account and readiness whensoever his Highness or his Privie Councill shall have occasion to looke into any particular thereof.
"Whether it be not a prudentiall thing to draw all the Islands, Colonies, and Dominions of America under one and the same management here."[7]
That the men who drafted these queries were mainly responsible for the creation of the select council of 1656, at first known as the Committee for Jamaica and afterwards as the Committee for his Highness Affairs in America, we can hardly doubt, for the constitution and work of that committee represents very nearly the ideas that Povey and Noell had expressed up to this time. It is not to be wondered at that Povey should have been the chairman, secretary, and most active member of this committee after his appointment in 1657.
Two other propositions or overtures appear among Povey's papers that belong to the period of the Protectorate, and were written probably the one in 1656, known as the "Propositions concerning the West India Councill," and the other, known as "Overtures touching the West Indies," before August, 1657.[8] In the first of these the number of the council was to be ten, in the second it was not to exceed six. The "Propositions" repeat in the main the points already quoted, including the recommendation that it should be the business of the council "to consider of the reducing all Colonies and Plantations to a more certaine, civill, and uniform waie of Governmt and distribution of publick justice." The "Overtures" are much more elaborate, though frequently containing the identical phrases of the first "Overture," with many new paragraphs which seem to show the same spirit of hostility for Spain that is exhibited in the formation of the West India Company. Indeed this document is an outcome of the same movement which led to the formation of that company. Some of the more important sections are as follows:
"To render what we already possess, and all that depends upon it, to be a foundation and Inducemt for future undertakings; by gathering reasonable assistances from thence, and by mingling and interweaving of Interest, and letting it appear that such Persons and Collonies shall have the more of the Indulgencie of the State as shall merit most in what they shall in any way be readier to do, or contribut to the service of the whole; for hereafter they may be considered as one embodied Commonwealth whose head and centre is here.
"That every Governour shall have his Commission reviewed, and that all be reviewed in one form, wth such clauses and provisions as shalbee held necessary for the promotion of his Highness other public affairs, and that as soone as order can be conveniently taken therein the several Governours to be paid their allowances from hence (though upon their own accounts), that their dependencie bee immediately and altogether from his Highness....
"That all prudentiall means be applyed to for the rendering these Dominions useful to England, and England helpful to them; and that the severall Peices and Colonies bee drawn and disposed into a more certaine, civill, and uniforme waie of Government and distribution of Publick Justice. And that such Collonies as are the Proprietie of particular Persons or of Corporations may be reduced as neare as cann bee to the same method and proportion wth the rest wth as little dissatisfaction or injurie to the persons concerned as may bee.
"That a continual correspondence bee so settled and ordered ... that so each place wthin itself and all of them being as it were made up into one Commonwealth may be regulated accordingly upon comon and equal Principles."
These proposals are followed by a series of propositions designed to further the enterprise of the merchants and to aid in the defeat of the Spaniards, whereby "those oppressed People (who are wthheld from Trade though to their extreme suffering and disadvantage)" may be released "from the Tyranny [of Spain] now upon them."