British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622-1675

by Charles McLean Andrews

The Council was also beginning to exercise another important function in receiving from the Privy Council copies of laws passed in the colonies upon the character of which its opinion was desired, and in being called upon by the Privy Council or the Secretary of State to make recommendations as to fit persons to hold colonial offices. In this particular, the most responsible task of the Council lay in the selection and instruction of special commissioners, who in accordance with many earlier precedents were vested with authority to go to the colonies for the settlement of difficult questions there. Three such commissions were set on foot by the Council of Plantations: that appointed to bring to an end the dispute with the French at St. Christopher; that appointed to treat with the Dutch regarding the English subjects at Surinam; and that designed for New England, which was to be openly commissioned to settle boundary disputes, but to be secretly instructed to inform the Council of the condition of the New England colonies, "and whether they were of such power as to be able to resist his Majesty and declare for themselves as independent of the Crown." No commissioners were, however, sent until the time of Edward Randolph.[8]

A large amount of time was consumed by the Council in considering the petitions and memorials of private persons, who had some grounds of complaint against one or other of the colonial governments. Among these the charges of Mason and Gorges against Massachusetts hold prominent place, but other complainants were none the less insistent; Capt. Archibald Henderson, of Antigua, who had been imprisoned by Governor Wheeler for alleged seditious practices; the owners of the ship James, of Belfast, which had been seized by Wheeler as a "stranger-built" trading contrary to the Navigation Acts; the owners of the logwood ship William and Nicholas, also seized by Wheeler on suspicion that it had obtained its lading in violation of the treaty of 1670 with Spain; owners of the Peter, of London, seized by the Spaniards in violation of the same treaty; Jamaica planters who claimed that Spain had broken the clause of the treaty relating to logwood cutting at Campeachy; one Mark Gabry, exporter of wool; merchants in Jamaica complaining of the number of Jews there and their engrossment of trade; inhabitants of Easthampton, Southampton, and Southold in Long Island in regard to their whale fishery and their relations with the Dutch at New Amsterdam; the government of Virginia against the Arlington and Culpeper grant. The Council also discussed many other matters, all more or less closely bound up with the welfare of the plantations and of plantation trade, such as the despatch of their letters and orders; the proper time for the sailing of merchant ships in order that advantage might be taken of companies or convoys; the sugar question in the West Indies, notably Barbadoes, that perennial cause of dispute from the point of view of customs and impositions; the enticing or spiriting away of young people from England to go as servants to the plantations, a grievance almost as old as the plantations themselves and one which Ashley had made a special subject of inquiry with the result that Parliament passed an Act, March 18, 1670, making "spiriting" a capital offence; the fisheries and the abuses in the Newfoundland trade; privateering, especially in relation to the act of Governor Modyford in commissioning Capt. Morgan to cruise against the Spaniards and to capture Panama; the slave trade and the relations of the plantations with the Royal African Company; and lastly, in obedience to the fourth article of its additional instructions, the proper supplying of the West India colonies with such commodities as silk, galls, spices, senna and other dyeing materials, in order to see whether or not such things could be obtained from the plantations, a subject upon which Dr. Worsley, who had already experimented with senna, was deemed an authority.

The efficiency of the Council of Foreign Plantations and the inefficiency of the Council of Trade during the same period may well have led to the belief that the work would be better done if the functions of the latter were transferred to the former body. The death of the Earl of Sandwich, who lost his life in the naval engagement of Southwold Bay with De Ruyter, May 28, 1672, may have hastened this conclusion, and the need of economy, especially manifest in this year, 1672, may have been a further influence. Whatever the causes, as early as the summer of 1672 the decision was reached, undoubtedly through the advice of Lord Ashley, now the Earl of Shaftesbury, to reconstitute the Council, and to issue a new patent which should cover trade as well as foreign plantations. Evelyn says that the old Council met at Shaftesbury's house on September 1, 1672, to consider the draft of the new commission. The form of the commission having been approved, the warrant was issued to the attorney general on September 16 to prepare the bill for the King's signature, and on the twenty-seventh the Council was duly commissioned by writ of privy seal. The membership remained the same as before, with the single exception that the Earl of Shaftesbury took the place of the Earl of Sandwich as the president of the board, with Lord Culpeper as vice-president. When in December of the same year Sir John Finch was appointed ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, in place of Sir Daniel Harvey, deceased, Sir William Hickman was constituted a member of the Council in his stead. As in the case of the former Council, the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, and the chief officers of state were authorized to attend and vote but without pay. To their number were now added the Duke of Ormond, George, Viscount Halifax; Sir Thomas Osborne, and Sir Robert Long, all of whom, except Long, had been members of the Council of Trade, while Halifax, who had just returned from an important mission to France and was rapidly rising to power, had been a member of the committee of the House of Lords, appointed in October, 1669, to consider the improvement of trade. Sandwich and Shaftesbury had both been on the same committee, and it is not unlikely that the latter was responsible for the remarkable report made by this committee to the Lords that "some relaxation in ecclesiastical matters will be a means of improving the trade of this kingdom."[9]

According to its commission, the Council of Trade and Plantations was "to take care of the welfare of our said Colonies and Plantations and of the Trade and Navigation of these our Kingdomes and of our said colonies and plantations," and was to be a council of advice to the King "in and for all the affairs which do or may any way concern the navigation, commerce, or trade, as well domestic as foreign of these our kingdoms and our said foreign colonies and plantations." Five were to constitute a quorum of which the president or vice-president or one of the unsalaried members should always be one. The salary of the president was raised to £800, that of the vice-president was made £700, while that of the other salaried members remained as before, £500. No treasurer or secretary is named in the commission, but Dr. Worsley held these offices until in September, 1673, he was discharged and John Locke took his place. In all other respects the commission of 1672 reproduces that of 1670.

The most noteworthy difference between the two councils is to be found in the instructions, which for the Council of 1672 form a very comprehensive and intelligent statement of the essentials of plantation control. The draft was undoubtedly written by Shaftesbury and Locke, for a preliminary sketch is to be found among the Shaftesbury Papers; the preliminary meeting for the consideration and approval of the articles was held at Shaftesbury's residence, Exeter House; and the essential portions of the document are all to be found embodied in one form or another in the instructions and suggestions sent to the planters in the Bahamas and Carolina, colonies which for two years had been a kind of experimental station for Shaftesbury's and Locke's ideas. All the later commissions and instructions were based in the main on the principles laid down in these documents, and neither the Lords of Trade from 1675 to 1696 nor the Board of Trade from 1696 to 1782 ever in any important particular passed the limits herein defined. Probably the instructions of 1672 became from this time forward the precedent and guide for those who in later years were called upon to shape the powers vested in the boards of trade and plantations. It frequently happened, of course, that orders in Council directed the attention of the boards to matters which needed special examination, but in the main it may be said that Povey first and Shaftesbury afterward mapped out the lines to be followed by future commissions in their control of plantation affairs. This fact gives to the work of these men a peculiar interest and value.

By the terms of the instructions of 1672, the Council was to consider first of all the trade of the kingdom and of the plantations in the following particulars: the increase and improvement of raw commodities for use at home, the promotion of manufactures, the betterment of the fishing trade at home and abroad, the opening of rivers, ports, and harbors, the proper distribution of trade and manufactures, the obstacles that lay in the way of English trade as compared with those confronting the trade of other nations, and all abuses of trade and manufactures in the kingdom. It was to inquire into the best methods of increasing the sale and export of native commodities and manufactures, of encouraging the importation of foreign goods at the cheapest rates, of building ships for the carrying of such bulky articles as masts and timber, of extending correspondence with the great commercial centers abroad, and of opening free ports where foreign commodities might be landed and stored with small charge if designed for reëxportation. It was also to take into special consideration the advantages of a more open and free trade than that of companies and corporations, and to encourage inventions and improvements designed to improve any art, trade, or manufacture or to secure and promote trade and navigation.

So far as the plantations were concerned, the Council was to inquire into the general state of the colonies, and to obtain full information regarding councils, assemblies, courts of judicature, courts of admiralty, legislative and executive powers, statutes, laws and ordinances, militia, fortifications, arms, and ammunition. It was to learn all it could about boundaries, lands, mines, staple products, and manufactures; to determine whether or not nutmegs, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and other spices would grow if planted; to inform itself regarding rivers, harbors, and fishing banks; and to estimate how many planters and parishes there were, how many whites and blacks yearly arrived, and how many people died each year. It was to learn the number of ships trading to the plantations, to discover the obstacles to trade and how they could be removed, the advantages and how they could be increased; it was to concern itself with export and import dues, public revenues, measures taken for the instruction of the people and the maintenance of the ministry. It was especially instructed to keep in frequent correspondence with the governors, to urge upon them the necessity of maintaining peace with their neighbors, the Indians and others, of taking the Indians under their protection and of guarding their persons, goods, and possessions according to law. Furthermore, it was to procure copies of all necessary documents, to purchase maps, plats, and charts when needed, to study those portions of treaties made with other countries that related to peace and commerce, and to determine how far those articles had been upheld and performed. And lastly, it was to consider the practice of other countries in matters of trade, commerce, and the colonies, and to see how far such practices might be of value to England.

The Council had its first meeting on October 13, at Essex House, and there the commission was read and the oaths were taken. Soon after, it took up its abode at Villier's House in King's Street near Whitehall, which it rented of the Duchess of Cleveland for £200 a year. There it had a council chamber, an office for the clerks, two messengers, a porter, a maid, and a chamber keeper, all of whom were paid out of the £1,000 allowed for contingent expenses. We have record of seventy-six meetings held between October 13, 1672, and December 22, 1674, a period of twenty-six months; but it is quite certain that more meetings than this were held, inasmuch as the session-days were every Wednesday and Friday at ten in the morning.[10] So far as the plantations were concerned the Council did little more than continue the work of its predecessor, the Council of 1670, but in addition it concerned itself with a large number of questions that had to do with domestic and foreign as well as with colonial trade. The most important of these related to the petition of the English consul at Venice that his consulage be levied on goods and not on ships, a matter that aroused prolonged debate; to the petition of the Gambia adventurers against the importation by the East India Company of the dyeing wood called "sanders" which, because cheaper, was taking the place of their redwood from Africa; to the ordinances issued in Sweden against the English "privileges" concerning naval stores; to the exportation of wool from England, a matter already dealt with in an Act of Parliament; and to the treatment of merchants at the hands of the Spaniards, regarding which a number of petitions had been received by the board. A few new petitions were taken into consideration from traders and others in the plantations, notably those of the Jew Rabba Couty, whose ship had been seized at Jamaica on the ground that he was a foreigner; of William Helyar, whose woodland in Jamaica had been seized by Governor Lynch; of John Rodney and his wife Frances, whose plantation in Nevis had been seized by Governor Russell, a case destined to drag on for nearly two years.

In recommending the appointment of governors and other officials, passing upon colonial laws, scrutinizing nominations as of colonial councillors, corresponding with the governors, organizing an efficient system of communication and supervision in all matters touching trade and commerce, and in making reports to the King in Council,—in short, in the control and management of colonial affairs, the Council of 1672 placed the British colonial policy on a broader and more comprehensive foundation than had hitherto been laid and inaugurated a more thorough system of colonial control than had been established by any of its predecessors. It is doubtful if even the Lords of Trade or the Board of Trade surpassed the Councils of 1670 and 1672 in enthusiasm, loyalty, or dispatch of business.