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

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Authors: Andrews, Charles McLean, 1863-1943 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2010 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Great Britain -- Colonies -- Administration -- History -- 19th century; Great Britain. Board of Trade -- Antecedents; Great Britain -- Commercial policy -- History -- 17th century; Great Britain -- Colonies -- Administration -- History -- 17th century Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 53,150

Reading time 232 min

Text sections 8

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Andrews traces the shifting bodies that governed English trade and colonies from 1622 to 1675, using council records and merchant proposals to show how ad hoc committees, parliamentary inquiries, and Privy Council subcommittees competed for control before the Board of Trade was established.

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CONTROL OF TRADE AND PLANTATIONS UNDER JAMES I AND CHARLES I.

Before 1622, Privy Council the sole authority 10 Commission of Trade, 1622-1623 11 Commission of Trade, 1625-1626 12 Privy Council Committee of Trade, 1630-1640 13 Temporary Plantation Commissions, 1630-1633 14 Laud Commission for Plantations, 1634-1641 14 Subcommittees for Plantations, 1632-1639 17 Privy Council in control, 1640-1642 21 Parliamentary Commission for Plantations, 1643-1648 21

CONTROL OF TRADE AND PLANTATIONS DURING THE INTERREGNUM.

The Council of Trade, 1650-1653 24 Plantation Affairs controlled by the Council of State, 1649-1651 30 Standing Committee of the Council for Plantations, 1651-April, 1653 33 Plantation Affairs controlled by the Council of State, April-Dec., 1653 35 Trade controlled by Council of State and Parliamentary Committees, Dec., 1653-June, 1655 36 Importance of the years 1654-1655 36 The great Trade Committee, 1655-1657 38 Parliamentary Committees of Trade, 1656-1658 43 Plantation Affairs controlled by Protector's Council and Council of the State, 1653-1660 43 Special Council Committees for Plantations, 1653-1659 44 Council Committee for Jamaica and Foreign Plantations, 1655-1660 44 Select Committee for Jamaica, known later as Committee for America, 1655-1660 45 Inadequacy of Control during the Interregnum 47

THE PROPOSALS OF THE MERCHANTS: NOELL AND POVEY.

Career of Martin Noell 49 Career of Thomas Povey 51 Enterprises of the Merchants, 1657-1659 53 Proposals of Noell and Povey 55 "Overtures" of 1654 55 "Queries" of 1656 58 Additional Proposals, 1656, 1657 58

COMMITTEES AND COUNCILS UNDER THE RESTORATION.

Plantation Committee of Privy Council, June 4, 1660 61 Work of Privy Council Committee 63 Appointment of Select Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1660 64 Membership of these Councils 67 Comparison of Povey's "Overtures" with the Instructions for Council for Foreign Plantations 68 Comparison of Povey's "First Draft" with Instructions for Council of Trade 71 Work of Council for Foreign Plantations, 1660-1665 74 Control of Plantation Affairs, 1665-1670 79 Work of Council of Trade, 1660-1664 80 Parliamentary Committee of Trade, 1664 85 Commission for English-Scottish Trade, 1667-1668 86 Reorganization of Committees of the Privy Council, 1668 87 Work of Privy Council Committee for Foreign Plantations, 1668-1670 90 New Select Council of Trade, 1668-1672 91

THE PLANTATION COUNCILS OF 1670 AND 1672.

Influence of Ashley and Locke 96 Revival of Council for Foreign Plantations, 1670-1672 97 Membership 97 Commission and Instructions 99 Meetings and Work 101 Select Council of Trade and Foreign Plantations, 1672-1674 106 Membership 106 Commission and Instructions 107 Meetings and Work 109 Causes of the Revocation of the Commission of Select Council, 1674 111 Later History of Plantation Control, 1675-1782 112

I. Instructions, Board of Trade, 1650 115 II. Instructions, Council for Foreign Plantations, 1670-1672 117 Additional Instructions for the Same 124 III. Draft of Instructions, Council of Trade and Foreign Plantations, 1672-1674 127 IV. Heads of Business; Councils of 1670 and 1672 133

BRITISH COMMITTEES, COMMISSIONS, AND COUNCILS OF TRADE AND PLANTATIONS, 1622-1675.

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.

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Charles M. Andrews’s study of English commercial and colonial administration from 1622 to 1675 is built on a close reading of council minutes, merchant petitions, and parliamentary records. Rather than assuming a steady evolution toward the later Board of Trade, Andrews emphasizes the provisional, overlapping, and often rival bodies that claimed authority over trade and plantations. The excerpts show him weighing evidence of attendance, jurisdictional disputes, and the influence of individual merchants such as Martin Noell and Thomas Povey.

Andrews’s method is to compare institutional forms—commissions, councils, committees—against the actual work they performed. He notes, for example, that the Select Council of Trade was still meeting when Parliament appointed its own trade committee in 1664, and he infers from sparse records that the council’s sessions were “but little attended.” Such observations ground the narrative in documentary gaps and procedural friction.

Institutional Overlap and Rivalry

Andrews repeatedly highlights how multiple bodies claimed jurisdiction over the same matters. During the Interregnum, the Council of State, parliamentary committees, and the Protector’s council all handled plantation affairs, often without clear demarcation. After the Restoration, the Privy Council’s plantation committee (appointed June 4, 1660) coexisted with the Select Councils of Trade and Plantations created later that year. Andrews shows that the Privy Council’s trade committee and a separate parliamentary committee both investigated the decay of trade in 1664–1665, with the latter ordering merchant companies to report on obstructions. The result was not streamlined governance but a tangle of competing authorities.

Andrews uses the Scottish trade negotiations of the 1660s to illustrate how a single issue—whether the Navigation Act of 1660 should apply to Scotland—passed through the Customs Commissioners, the Privy Council, a special committee, the Council of Trade, and finally a joint commission. The process reveals the layered, iterative nature of policy-making, where each body added its own report or recommendation.

Merchant Proposals as Administrative Catalysts

Andrews devotes a chapter to the proposals of merchants Martin Noell and Thomas Povey, whose “Overtures” of 1654 and “Queries” of 1656 directly shaped the instructions for the Restoration councils. He compares Povey’s draft with the actual instructions for the Council of Trade, showing how merchant ideas were translated—or diluted—into official language. The excerpts mention that Noell and Povey were themselves active in colonial ventures, and their proposals aimed at creating a permanent body to oversee trade and plantations.

Andrews does not treat these merchants as disinterested reformers; he notes their personal stakes and the enterprises they promoted between 1657 and 1659. By tracing how their proposals moved from private memoranda to royal instructions, he demonstrates that administrative change often originated outside formal government, driven by commercial interests seeking stability and coordination.

Evidence of Dysfunction: Attendance, Plague, and War

Andrews’s account is punctuated by signs that these councils and committees struggled to function. He records that by the summer of 1665 trade was “reported dead and money scarce,” and the plague caused “an infinite interruption to the whole trade of the Nation.” The fire of 1666 and the Dutch war further demoralized commerce. In this context, the Council of Trade appears to have been ineffective: Andrews finds “no such references” to its activity in 1666, despite many questions that might have been referred to it.

He also cites “slight evidence” that the council’s meetings were poorly attended and its members not working in harmony. This kind of detail—drawn from gaps in the record rather than from explicit statements—is characteristic of Andrews’s approach. He builds a picture of administrative weakness not from polemic but from the absence of expected documentation and from the proliferation of alternative bodies that stepped into the void.

Readers should note that Andrews’s evidence is drawn almost entirely from official records—council registers, parliamentary journals, and merchant papers—and that his conclusions are cautious, often hedged with phrases like “there is some slight evidence to show.” The book is less a narrative of policy than a forensic reconstruction of how early modern English government actually worked, with all its overlaps, failures, and ad hoc adjustments. Those interested in the origins of the British imperial bureaucracy will find here a meticulous account of the institutional experiments that preceded the more familiar Board of Trade.

For years I've watched the committees in Andrews’s study jostle for dominance, a quiet, bureaucratic scuffle. There’s a warmer, more personal shuffle in Half a Century — Reading Notes, where the author’s own marginalia trace a life’s steady parliament of thoughts. Both are records of endless deliberations, yet each finds its own quiet, lasting order.