BRITISH COMMITTEES, COMMISSIONS, AND COUNCILS OF TRADE AND PLANTATIONS, 1622–1675.
CHAPTER I.
Control of Trade and Plantations Under James I and Charles I.
In considering the subject which forms the chief topic of this paper, we are not primarily concerned with the question of settlement, intimately related though it be to the larger problem of colonial control. We are interested rather in the early history of the various commissions, councils, committees, and boards appointed at one time or another in the middle of the seventeenth century for the supervision and management of trade, domestic, foreign, and colonial, and for the general oversight of the colonies whose increase was furthered, particularly after 1650, in largest part for commercial purposes. The coupling of the terms "trade" and "foreign plantations" was due to the prevailing economic theory which viewed the colonies not so much as markets for British exports or as territories for the receipt of a surplus British population—for Great Britain had at that time no surplus population and manufactured but few commodities for export—but rather as sources of such raw materials as could not be produced at home, and of such tropical products as could not be obtained otherwise than from the East and West Indies. The two interests were not, however, finally consolidated in the hands of a single board until 1672, after which date they were not separated until the final abolition of the old Board of Trade in 1782. It is, therefore, to the period before 1675 that we shall chiefly direct our attention, in the hope of throwing some light upon a phase of British colonial control that has hitherto remained somewhat obscure. Familiar as are many of the facts connected with the early history of Great Britain's management of trade and the colonies, it is nevertheless true that no attempt has been made to trace in detail the various experiments undertaken by the authorities in England in the interest of trade and the plantations during the years before 1675. Many of the details are, and will always remain, unknown, nevertheless it is possible to make some additions to our knowledge of a subject which is more or less intimately related to our early colonial history.
At the beginning of colonization the control of all matters relating to trade and the plantations lay in the hands of the king and his council, forming the executive branch of the government. Parliament had not yet begun to legislate for the colonies, and in matters of trade and commerce the parliaments of James I accomplished much less than had those of Elizabeth. "In the time of James I," says Dr. Prothero, "it was more essential to assert constitutional principles and to maintain parliamentary rights than to pass new laws or to create new institutions." Thus the Privy Council became the controlling factor in all matters that concerned the colonies and it acted in the main without reference or delegation to others, since the practice of appointing advisory boards or deliberative committees, though not unknown, was at first employed only as an occasional expedient. The councils of James I were called upon to deal with a wide variety of colonial business—letters, petitions, complaints and reports from private individuals, such as merchants, captains of ships voyaging to the colonies, seamen, prisoners, and the like, from officials in England, merchant companies, church organizations, and colonial governments, notably the governor and council and assembly of Virginia. To all these communications the Council replied either by issuing orders which were always mandatory, or by sending letters which often contained information and advice as well as instructions. It dealt with the Virginia Company in London and sent letters, both before and after the dissolution of the company, to the governor and council in Virginia, and in all these letters trade played an important part. For example, the order of October 24, 1621, which forbade the colony to export tobacco and other commodities to foreign countries, declared that such a privilege as an open trade on the part of the colony was desirable "neither in policy nor for the honor of the state (that being but a colony derived from hence)," and that it could not be suffered "for that it may be a loss unto his Majesty in his customs, if not the hazarding of the trade which in future times is well hoped may be of much profit, use, and importance to the Commonalty."[1] Similarly the Council issued a license to Lord Baltimore to export provisions for the relief of his colony at Avalon,[2] ordered that the Ark and the Dove, containing Calvert and the settlers of Maryland, be held back at Tilbury until the oaths of allegiance had been taken,[3] and instructed the governor and company of Virginia to give friendly assistance to Baltimore's undertaking.[4]
Of the employment of committees or special commissions to inquire into questions either commercial or colonial there is no evidence before the year 1622. A few months after the dissolution of the third Stuart parliament, James I issued a proclamation for the encouragement of trade, and directed a special commission not composed of privy councillors to inquire into the decay of the clothing trade and to report to the Privy Council such remedial measures as seemed best adapted to increase the wealth and prosperity of the realm.[5] At the same time he caused a commission to be issued to the Lord Keeper, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord President of the Council and others "to collect and cause a true survey to be taken in writing of the names, qualities, professions, and places of habitation of such strangers as do reside within the realm of England and use any retailing trade or handicraft trade and do reform the abuses therein according to the statutes now in force."[6] The commissioners of trade duly met, during the years 1622 and 1623, summoned persons to appear before them, and reported to the Council. Their report was afterward presented to the King sitting with the Council at Wansted, "was allowed and approved of, and commandment was given to enter it in the Register of Counsell causes and to remain as an act of Counsell by order of the Lord President."[7] There is evidence also to show that the commission issued orders on its own account, for in June, 1623, the Mayor and Aldermen of the city of London wrote two letters to the commission expressing their approval of its orders and sending petitions presented to them by citizens of London.[8]
On April 15, 1625, less than three weeks after the death of James I, a warrant was issued by his successor for a commission of trade, the duties of which were of broader and more general character than were those of the previous body.[9] The first record of its meeting is dated January 18, 1626, but it is probable that then the commission had been for some time in existence, though the exact date when its commission was issued is not known. The text of both commission and instructions are among the Domestic Papers.[10] The board was to advance the exportations of home manufactures and to repress the "ungainful importation of foreign commodities." Looked upon as a subcommittee of the Privy Council, but having none of the privy councillors among its members, it was required to sit every week and to consider all questions that might be referred to it for examination and report. The fact that a complaint against the patent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges was referred to it shows that it was qualified to deal not only with questions of trade but also with plantation affairs.[11] At about the same time a committee of the Council was appointed to take into consideration a special question of trade and to make report to the Council. Neither of these bodies appears to have had more than a temporary existence, although the commission sat for some time and accomplished no inconsiderable amount of work.