CHAPTER IV.

Committees and Councils Under the Restoration.

Charles II landed at Dover on May 25, 1660 and on the twenty-seventh named at Canterbury four men, General Monck, the Earl of Southampton, William Morrice, and Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who took oath as privy councillors. Others who had been members of the Council on foreign soil or were added during the month following the return of the King swelled the number to more than twenty. The first meeting of the Privy Council was held on May 31, and it was inevitable that during the ensuing weeks many petitions concerning the various claims and controversies which had been agitating merchants and planters during the previous years and had been reported on by the Committee for America should have been brought to the attention of the Council. Such matters as appointments to governorships and other offices, the political disturbances in Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica, the titles to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Barbadoes, became at once living issues. Many of the petitions were from the London merchants, and we may not doubt that the personal influence of those whose names have been already mentioned was brought to bear upon the members of the Council. It became necessary, therefore, for the King and his advisers to make early provision for the proper consideration of colonial business in order that the colonies might be placed in a position of greater security and in order that the West Indian and American trade, from which the King and his Chancellor expected important additions to the royal revenue, might be encouraged and extended. Among the petitions received in June, 1660, were two from rival groups of merchants interested in the governorship and trade of the island of Nevis. One of these petitions desired the confirmation of the appointment of Col. Philip Ward as governor of Nevis; the other the reappointment of the former governor, Russell. This was the first difficult question that had yet arisen, for Berkeley's return to Virginia was a foregone conclusion, while the condition and settlement of Nova Scotia, Barbadoes and Jamaica were to be of importance later. Acting on these petitions regarding Nevis, only the second of which is entered in the Privy Council Register, the King in Council appointed on July 4, 1660, a committee, known as "The Right Honorable the Lords appointed a Committee of this Board for Trade and Plantations." The members were Edward Montague, Earl of Manchester, the Lord Chamberlain; Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, the Lord Treasurer; Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester; William Fiennes, Lord Say and Seale; John Lord Robartes; Denzil Holles, Arthur Annesley, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, and the Secretaries of State, Sir Edward Nicholas and Sir William Morrice. The committee was instructed to meet on every Monday and Thursday at three o'clock in the afternoon, "to review, heare, examine, and deliberate upon any petitions, propositions, memorials, or other addresses, which shall be presented or brought in by any person or persons concerning the plantations, as well in the Continent as Islands of America, and from time to time make their report to this board of their proceedings."[1]

It is evident from the wording of these instructions that the committee was designed to be a continuous one and to carry on the work of the former committee for foreign plantations of the Council of State. There is no essential difference between these committees, except that one represented a commonwealth and the other a monarchy. We pass from the one arrangement to the other with very little jar, and with much less sense of a break in the continuity than when we pass from the system under the Republic to that under the Protectorate. The Privy Council committee had all the essential features of a standing committee and, after the experiment with separate and select councils had proved unsatisfactory, it assumed entire control of trade and plantation affairs in 1675, a control which it exercised until 1696. Though an occasional change was made in its membership and some reorganization was effected in 1668, the Lords of Trade of July 4, 1660, commissioned with plenary powers by patent under the great seal, became the Lords of Trade of February 9, 1675.

From 1660 to 1675 this committee of the Privy Council played no insignificant part although, after the creation of the councils, it was bound to be limited in the actual work that it performed. During the four months after its appointment it was the only body that had to do with trade and plantations except the Privy Council, which occasionally sat as a committee of the whole for plantation affairs. During the summer the committee considered with care and a due regard for all aspects of the case the claims of various persons to the government of Barbadoes. Despite the opposition of Modyford, who had been commissioned governor by the Council of State the April before, and John Colleton, one of the Council of Barbadoes, and despite the efforts of Alderman Riccard and other merchants of London, Francis Lord Willoughby was restored to the government under the claims of the Earl of Carlisle. At the same time the claims of the Kirks, Elliott, and Sterling to Nova Scotia were examined and eventually decided in favor of Col. Temple, the governor there. Willoughby immediately appointed Capt. Watts governor of the Caribbee Islands, himself, through his deputy, took the governorship of Barbadoes, Modyford became governor of Jamaica, Berkeley of Virginia, and Russell of Nevis. It is at least worthy of recall that Willoughby, Watts, Temple, and Russell were all within the circle of Povey's friends, that Povey and Noell both petitioned the King for Russell's reappointment, and that Temple wrote Povey begging him to exert his influence in his (Temple's) behalf, lest he lose the governorship. Povey was certainly in high favor with the monarchy; in 1660 he was appointed treasurer to the Duke of York and Master of Requests to his Majesty in Extraordinary June 22, 1660,[2] and during the years that followed he held office after office and with all the skill of a politician continued to find offices for his kinsmen. William Blathwayt, of later fame, was his nephew. Noell was no less honored; he became a member of the Royal Company of Merchants, the Royal African Company, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, and was finally knighted in 1663 and died in 1665.[3] As we shall see, both men became very active in the affairs of the plantations, and it is more than likely that the opinions of the King in Council were not infrequently shaped by their suggestions and advice.

How early the decision was reached to create separate councils of trade and foreign plantations it is impossible to say. Some time between May and August, 1660, Povey must have planned to recast his "Overtures" and to present them for the consideration of the King. At first he endeavored to adapt those of 1657 to the new situation by substituting "Foreign Plantations" for the "West Indies," "Matie" for "Highness," and "his Maties Privie Councill" for "the great Councill"; but he finally decided to present a new draft, in which, however, he retained many of the essential clauses of the former paper. Whether the recommendations of Povey as presented in the "Overtures" influenced Lord Clarendon to recommend such councils to the King we cannot say; it is more likely that the practice adopted under the Protectorate had already commended itself to the Chancellor, who was beginning to show that interest in the plantations which characterizes the early years of his administration. That he should have consulted Noell and Povey and other London merchants is to be expected of the man who for at least five years kept up a close correspondence with Maverick of New England, Ludwell of Virginia, and D'Oyley, Littleton, and Modyford in the West Indies,[4] and who was constantly urging upon the King the importance of the plantations as sources of revenue and the great financial possibilities that lay in the improvement of trade. On August 17, 1660, the King in Council drafted a letter to "Our very good Lord the Lord Maior of the Citty of London & to the Court of Aldermen of the said City," reading as follows:

"After our hearty commendations these are to acquaint you, That his Majesty having this day taken into his princely consideration how necessary it is for the good of this kingdom, that Trade and Commerce with foreign parts, be with all due care, incouraged and maintayned, And for the better settling thereof declared his gracious intention to appoint a Committee of understanding able persons, to take into their particular consideration all things conducible thereunto; We do by his Mats special command and in order to the better carrying on of this truly royal, profitable, and advantageous designe, desire you to give notice hereof unto the Turkey Merchants, the Merchant Adventurers, the East India, Greenland, and Eastland Companys, and likewise to the unincorporated Traders, for Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, and the West India Plantations; Willing them out of their respective societies to present unto his Majesty the names of fower of their most knowing active men (of whom, when his Majesty shall have chosen two and unto this number of merchants added some other able and well experienced persons, dignified also with the presence and assistance of some of his Majesty's Privy Council) All those to be by his Matie appointed constituted and authoried by commission under the Great Seal as a Standing Committee, to enquire into and rectify all things tending to the Advancement of Trade and Commerce; That so by their prudent and faithful council and advice, his Matie may (now in this conjuncture, whilst most Foraigne Princes and Potentates doe, upon his Maties most happy establishment upon his throne, seek to renew their former Allyances with this Crowne), insert into the several Treatyes, such Articles & Clauses as may render this Nation more prosperous and flourishing in Trade and Commerce. Thus by prudence, care, & industry improving those great advantages to the highest point of felicity, which by its admirable situation Nature seems to have indulged to this his Majesty's kingdom. So we bid you heartily farewell."[5]

This letter was signed by Chancellor Hyde, Earl of Southampton, George Monck, Earl of Albemarle, Lord Say and Seale, Earl of Manchester, Lord Robartes, Arthur Annesley, and Secretary Morrice, who probably formed a special committee appointed to draft it. Some time within the month the answer of the Aldermen must have been received, for on September 19 the Council ordered the attorney general "to make a draught of a commission for establishing a Councell of Trade according to the grounds layed" in the letter of the seventeenth of August, "upon the perusal whereof at the Board his Matie will insert the names of the said Counsell." It is more than likely that the project for the second council, that of plantations, went forward pari passu with the Council for Trade and that the letter to the Mayor and Aldermen served a double purpose. At any rate that must have been the understanding among those interested at the time, for on September 26, one Norwich, Captain of the Guards, who had been in Clarendon's employ, sent in a memorial to the Chancellor begging that the King employ him "in his customs and committees of trade and forraign plantations."[6] The matter of drafting the commissions must have taken some time, for they are not mentioned as ready for the addition of names before the last week in October. The business of making up the lists of members must have been a difficult and tedious matter. Many lists exist among the Domestic Papers which contain changes, erasures and additions, drafts and corrected drafts, which show how much pains Clarendon and the others took to make the membership of the Council of Trade satisfactory. A suggested list was first drawn up containing the names of privy councillors, country gentlemen, customers, merchants, traders, the navy officers, gentlemen versed in affairs, and doctors of civil law. With this list was considered another containing the names of the persons nominated by the different merchant companies. Other lists seem also to have been presented.[7] Probably in much the same way the list of the members of the Council for Foreign Plantations was made up, but more slowly.

The commissions were both ready by October 25 and on November 7 had reached the Crown Office (Chancery), ready to pass the great seal. The commission for the Council of Trade passed the great seal on that day and is dated November 7, 1660; but the commission for the Council for Foreign Plantations was held back that the names of other members might be added and it became necessary to have a new bill passed and duly engrossed three weeks later.[8] Therefore the commission for the Council for Foreign Plantations is dated December 1, 1660.

An analysis of the membership of these two councils and of the membership of the Royal African Company, created soon after, shows many points of interest. The Council of Trade consisted of sixty-two members, that of Foreign Plantations of forty-eight,[9] and that of the African Company of sixty-six. Twenty-eight members are common to the first two bodies, eleven are common to the Council of Trade and the Royal African Company, and eight are common to all three groups. These eight are John Lord Berkeley of Stratton; Sir George Carteret, Sir Nicholas Crispe, Sir Andrew Riccard, Sir John Shaw, Thomas Povey, Martin Noell, and John Colleton. The other members common to the two councils are Lord Clarendon, the Earl of Southampton, Earl of Manchester, Earl of Marlborough, Earl of Portland, Lord Robartes, Francis Lord Willoughby, Denzil Holles, Sir Edward Nicholas, Sir William Morrice, Arthur Annesley, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, William Coventry, Daniel O'Neale, Sir James Draxe, Edward Waller, Edward Digges, William Williams, Thomas Kendall, and John Lewis; while among the other members of the Council for Foreign Plantations are such well-known men as Sir William Berkeley, Capt. John Limbrey, Col. Edward Waldrond, Capt. Thomas Middleton, Capt. William Watts, and Capt. Alexander Howe. Thus the merchants, sea-captains, and planters, men thoroughly familiar with the questions of trade and plantations and intimately connected with the plantations themselves are members of the Council of Plantations and sometimes of that of Trade also. It is significant that among the four London merchants common to all three groups should be found the names of Noell and Povey. Their associates, Crispe and Riccard, were persons well known in the history of London trade, and probably the four names represent the four most influential men among the merchants of London who supported the King. When we turn to the work of these councils we shall see that Povey and Noell were active members also.