North's implication that the Council was a contrivance of the enemies of the King to effect a prohibition of trade with France which the government wished to keep open seems deserving of little credence. In the past, facts regarding this Council and its work have not been complete, and even a full list of its members has been wanting. Even now the commission and instructions, which, after considerable delay, were issued on October 20, 1668, have eluded discovery, and we can present little more than the terms of the docket as entered in the books of the Crown Office. The docket reads: "A Commission with instructions annexed establishing a Counsell of Trade, for Keeping a control and super-inspection of his Majesty's Trade and Commerce." From another source we learn that the Council was to take into consideration "the Conditions of your Majtyes Plantations abroad, in order to the improvement of Trade and increase of Navigation, and for the further encouragement of yor Majtyes Subjects in their Trade and Commerce both at home and abroad."[36] A second commission was issued on April 13, 1669, "directed to the same persons in the same form & with the same powers and instructions ... with a confirmation of all Acts done in pursuance of the said late commission in election of officers and otherwise."[37] The clerical secretary was Peter du Moulin, though Dr. Benjamin Worsley seems to have had some official position on the board. The members of the Council were as follows: Duke of York, Prince Rupert, Lord Keeper, Lord Privy Seal, Duke of Buckingham, Duke of Albemarle, Duke of Ormond, Earl of Bridgewater, Earl of Ossory, Earl of Anglesey, Earl of Carlisle, Earl of Craven, Earl of Lauderdale, Lord Arlington, Lord Berkeley of Stratton, Lord Holles, Lord Ashley, Sir Thomas Clifford, Sir George Carteret, Sir John Trevor, Sir William Morrice, Sir William Coventry, Sir Thomas Osborne, Sir Thomas Littleton, Sir Henry Blount, Sir George Downing, Sir Andrew Riccard, Sir William Thompson, Silas Titus, William Garroway, Henry Slingsby, Thomas Grey, John Birch, William Love, Esq., Benjamin Worsley, Doctor of Physic; John Buckworth, Thomas Papillion, John Page, Josiah Child, Thomas Tyte, Benjamin Albyn, and John Shorter. In 1669 were added the Earl of Devonshire, Earl of Sandwich, Viscount Halifax, and George, Lord Berkeley, making forty-six members in all.[38] This is an extraordinary body of men to be engaged in pulling the wool over the eyes of the King, and though Professor Ashley is inclined to view North's account with approval, we doubt if it will stand the test of examination. Professor Ashley's further belief that from this Council emanated the document called "A Scheme of Trade," is capable of satisfactory disproof, since but few of the signers of that document were members of the Council and the date when it was issued, November 29, 1674, was after the Council as a separate body had been abolished.[39]
The Council lasted from 1668 to 1672 and during that time it did nothing, so far as we can discover, either for or against the trade with France. It considered the granting of patents, foreign trade with Piedmont and elsewhere, the export of wool, disputes among the merchant companies, dispensations from the operation of the Navigation Act, and a few matters relating to home industry, particularly as regards abuses in the baize trade. It took into consideration the order in Council of October 23, 1667, permitting the Dutch to send three or more ships yearly for seven years to trade from Holland to New York, and reported so strongly against it that the Privy Council revoked the order.[40] More important still, it took up the whole question of the operation of the navigation acts in the colonies, called upon the merchants and the farmers of the customs for information, and made a careful report to the Privy Council, which the latter, on January 20,1669, embodied in the following order:
"His Matie this day taking into consideration the great importance the Trade of his severall plantations is to his Matie & his Kingdome, and being informed that severall Governments of the sd Plantations have been wanting to their duty in the following particulars, viz:
1. That Governors have not taken the oath enjoined by law,
2. That shipps have been permitted to trade to and from the Plantations not qualified according to law,
3. That there has been omission in taking Bond and Security and returning those Bonds according as directed by the severall Acts of Parliament.
For redresse it is ordered, that the Farmers of the Customs do and are hereby required (at their owne charge) to send over and make choice of upon the place & from time to time commissionate & maynteyne one or more persons in each Plantation (whom his Matie shall approve & authorize) to administer the usual oaths to the severall Governors, that no vessels be admitted to trade there till said officer has the perusal of the passes and certificates and certifies that they may trade there, and that no Bond or security be admitted without the allowance of said officer,
That letters be written to all said Governors to take said oaths before said officer and also to give them countenance and assistance,
That Directions be given to the Commanders of his Maties ships and to any merchant shipps to arrest any ship trading to His Maties Plantations contrary to the law."[41]