Under this order Edward Digges, former governor of Virginia and a London merchant well known to us, was appointed by the farmers of the customs as a fit person to execute for the colony of Virginia the articles and instructions contained in this order. No other appointments, however, appear to have been made at this time.[42]
After 1670 activities of the Council of Trade, as far as they are recorded, are very few. It considered the trade of the Eastland Company, provided for a supply of coal for London at reasonable rates, and discussed a few minor petitions, but as compared with its contemporary, the Council for Foreign Plantations, it accomplished little.[43]
([1]) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1514–1660, pp. 482, 483; P.C.R., Charles II, Vol. II, p. 63; New York Colonial Docts., III, p. 30.
([2]) P.C.R., Charles II, Vol. II, p. 37; Bodleian, Rawlinson A., 117, No. 20.
([3]) Professor Osgood thinks that a part of Noell's fortune was made in the slave trade. Beyond the fact that he was a member of the Royal African Company, I cannot find any evidence whatever to prove this statement. Noell certainly was not a slave trader before 1660.