Control of Trade and Plantations During the Interregnum.
The earliest separate council to be established during the period from
1650 to 1660 was that appointed by act of Parliament, August, 1650,
known as the Commission or Council of Trade, of which Sir Harry Vane
was president and Benjamin Worsley, a London merchant and "doctor of
physic," already becoming known as an expert on plantation affairs,
was secretary. This body was specially instructed by Parliament to
consider, not only domestic and foreign trade, the trading companies,
manufactures, free ports, customs, excise, statistics, coinage and
exchange, and fisheries, but also the plantations and the best means
of promoting their welfare and rendering them useful to England.
"They are to take into their consideration," so runs article 12 of the
instructions, "the English plantations in America or elsewhere, and
to advise how these plantations may best be managed and made most
useful for the Commonwealth, and how the commodities thereof may be so
multiplied and improved as (if it be possible) those plantations alone
may supply the Commonwealth of England with whatsoever it necessarily
wants." These statesmanlike and comprehensive instructions are notable
in the history of the development of England's commercial and colonial
program. Free from the limitations which characterize the instructions
given to the earlier commissions, they stand with the Parliamentary
ordinance of October, 1650, and the Navigation Act of 1651, as forming
the first definite expression of England's commercial policy. Inadequate
though the immediate results were to be, we cannot call that policy
"drifting" which could shape with so much intelligence the functions
of a board of trade and plantations. There is no trace here of the
coercive and politico-ecclesiastical purpose of the Laud Commission, or
of the partisan policy in the interests of the Puritans that the Warwick
Commission was instructed to carry out. Here we have the first attempt
to establish a legitimate control of commercial and colonial affairs,
and to these instructions may be traced the beginnings of a policy which
had the prosperity and wealth of England exclusively at heart.
Of the history of this board but little has been hitherto known and
its importance has been singularly neglected. It was more than a merely
advisory body, like the later councils and boards of trade, for it had
the power to issue orders of its own. It sat in Whitehall, received
information, papers,[1] and orders from the Council of State, and
reported to that higher authority, which approved or disapproved of
its recommendations. To it the Council instructed traders and others
to refer their petitions, and itself referred numbers of similar papers
that came into its hands.[2] This board took into consideration the
various questions touched upon in its instructions, especially those
concerning fisheries (Greenland), manufactures, navigation, commerce,
trade (with Guinea, Spain, Canary Islands, etc.), the poor, the trading
companies (especially the East India and Guinea companies), the merchant
companies (chiefly of London), and freedom of trade. During the first
year of its existence it was an active body and could say on November
20, 1651, that it had made seven reports to the Council of State and
seven to Parliament, that it had its opinions on six subjects ready
to be reported, and eight other questions under debate.[3] In two
particulars a fuller consideration of its work is desirable.
The Council of Trade devoted a considerable amount of time to regulating
the buying and selling of wool, and to settling the difficulties that
had arisen among the curriers, fellmongers, staplers, and clothiers
of London and elsewhere regarding their trade privileges. Late in the
spring of 1651 petitions and statements of grievance had been sent
both to the Council of Trade and to the Common Council of London by
the "freemen of the city trading in wool," for redress of grievances
practiced by the Society of Staplers. Shortly afterward, May 13,
apparently in answer to the complaint of the freemen of London, the
fellmongers of Coventry petitioned the Council of Trade, begging that
body not to interfere with its ancient privileges. Taking the matter
into consideration, the Council, on May 14, issued an order requiring
the companies to present their expedients and grievances, and appointed
a committee of two expert wool staplers, members of the Staplers
Company, to meet with the other companies and draft a certificate of
their proper and ancient rights. The Common Council, on the same day,
ordered its committee of trade, or any five of them, to attend the
Council of Trade and assist the "Company of Upholders," the committee
presenting the original complaint, in its attempt to obtain a redress
of grievances according to the plan already placed before the Common
Council. These efforts were not very successful, for the wool growers
refused to meet the committee of staplers appointed by the Council of
Trade, and the fellmongers and clothiers could not reach an agreement
with the staplers as to the latter's ancient privileges. Consequently,
the Council of Trade, on June 11, issued a second order requiring the
committee of trade of the Common Council to report on "the foundation
and nature of the Staple and the privileges pretended to by that
Society." This committee "heard certain of the principal staplers and
perused the acts and records produced by them in defence of the same,"
and reported to the Council of Trade on June 26 that, in its opinion,
the Company of Staplers had become an unnecessary and useless Society,
and were the principal cause for the dearness of wool, the badness of
cloth, and the general decay of the woolen trade.[4]
The trouble seems to have been that the fellmongers and staplers
were deemed useless middlemen between the growers and the clothiers,
and injurious to the clothing industry because of their abuses. The
controversy was carried before the Council of State and its committees,
and both fellmongers and staplers argued long and forcibly in defence
of their trade.[5] On November 3, 1652, the two societies presented an
answer to the particular order of the Council of Trade which declared
them unnecessary and disadvantageous, denied the charges, and prayed
that they might enjoy their trade as before. Even as late as April 16,
1653, the fellmongers petitioned for leave to produce wool-growers and
clothiers to certify the necessity of their trade.[6] But fellmongers
and staplers as factors in English trade and industry were beginning
to pass away by the middle of the seventeenth century.
The second important question that came before the Council was no less
significant in its relation to the growth of British trade than was the
decay of the Societies of Fellmongers and Staplers. It concerned the
breaking down of the privileges of the merchant companies in general,
and the establishment of free ports and free trade in England--that is,
free trade controlled and ordered by the state. To this end, the Council
appointed a committee of eleven merchants to whom it gave elaborate
directions to report on the feasibility of setting apart four free ports
to which foreign commodities might be imported without paying customs
dues if again exported. These merchants met and drew up a report dated
April 26, 1651, and again on May 26 of the same year expressed further
opinions on the advisability of the "opening of free ports for trade."
"Trade being the basis and well-being of a Commonwealth, the way to
obtain it is to make it a free trade and not to bind up ingenious
spirits by exemptions and privileges which are granted to some
particular companies." In addition to the home merchants, the Council
of Trade presented its queries to the merchant strangers and to the
Committee for the Affairs of Trinity House, all of whom returned
answers. It also made public its desire to consider the appointment of
"convenient ports for the free trade in the Commonwealth," and as early
as May 22 a number of the out-ports, Dover, Plymouth, the Isle of Wight,
Barnstaple, Bideford, Appledore, and Southampton petitioned that they be
recognized as free landing places. The period was one of rivalry between
London and the out-ports, and the latter believed that the various acts
of 1650 and 1651 were in the interest of the London merchants only.
"Yet thus much that act seems to have on it only a London stamp and
a contentment to subject the whole nation to them, for most of the
out-ports are not capable of the foreign trade to Indies and Turkey. The
Londoners having the sole trade do set what price they please upon their
commodities, knowing the country cannot have them nowhere but by them,
whereby not only the out-ports are undone but the country brought to the
devotion of the city. But a great abuse is here, for the city are not
contented with this act but only so far as it serves their own turns,
for they procure (upon some pretexts or other) particular licenses for
many prohibited commodities contrary to that act, as namely for the
importation of French wines and free both of custom and excise tax,
and for the importation of whale oil and skins so as either directly or
indirectly they will have the whole trade themselves."[7] Evidently the
Council of Trade favored the establishment of a freer trade as against
the monopoly of the merchant companies, believing, it may be, that
London did monopolize trade and that it was "no good state of a body
to have a fat head and lean members." The city authorities, apparently
alarmed at the favorable action of the Council, took immediate action.
On June 19, 1651, the Court of Aldermen instructed Alderman Fowke, one
of its most influential members, in case the Council of Trade came to
an agreement favorable to free trade, to move for a reconsideration in
order that London might have a hearing before the matter was finally
settled.[8] But the hearing, if had, could not have been successful in
altering the determination of the Council, for a few months later, on
December 5, 1651, the Common Council of London, probably convinced that
the Council of Trade was in earnest in its policy and alarmed at the
prospect of losing its trading privileges, ordered its committee of
trade to prepare a petition to Parliament, the Council of State, or the
Council of Trade, asking that London be made a free port. The petition
was duly drawn up and approved by the Common Council, which ordered its
committee "to maintain" it before the Council of Trade.[9] Evidently the
matter went no further. The Council of Trade continued its sittings and
debated and reported on a number of petitions "complaining of abuses and
deceits" in trade, but after 1652 it plays but an inconspicuous part.
Even before that date many questions before it were taken over by the
Council of State and referred to its own committees. Fellmongers and
staplers defended their cause before the higher body and the free trade
difficulty continued to be agitated, at least as far as concerned the
Turkey trade and the Greenland fishing, by the Council committee after
it had passed out of the hands of the lesser body.[10] The period was
one of transition from a monopolized to an open trade, and consequently
to many trade everywhere appeared to be in decay. Remedies were sought
through the intervention of the state and the passing of laws, but the
early period of the Commonwealth was not favorable to a successful
carrying out of so promising an experiment. On October 3, 1653, trade
was reported from Holland as "somewhat dead" and the Council of Trade,
which the Dutch at first feared might be "very prejudicial" to their
state, was declared "only nominal," so that the Dutch hoped that in time
those of London would "forget that they ever were merchants." In fact,
however, the Council of Trade had come to an end more than four months
before this report was made.
That the Council of Trade, notwithstanding its carefully worded
instructions, had no part in looking after the affairs of the colonies
is probably due to the activity of the Council of State, which itself
exercised the functions of a board of trade and plantations. According
to article 5 of the Act of February 13, 1649, appointing a Council
of State, it was to use all good ways and means for the securing,
advancement, and encouragement of the trade of England and Ireland
and the dominions to them belonging, and to promote the good of all
foreign plantations and factories belonging to the Commonwealth.
It was also empowered "to appoint committees of any person or persons
for examinations, receiving of informations, and preparing of business
for [its] debates or resolutions." The members chosen February 14, 1649,
were forty-one in number and were to hold office for one year.[11]
February 12, 1650, a second council was elected, of which twenty were
new members and the remaining twenty-one taken over from the former
body.[12] On November 24, 1651, a third council was chosen under the
same conditions.[13] The same was true of the fourth council of
November 24, 1652.[14] Many of the "new" members were generally old
members dropped for a year or more. On July 9 and 14, 1653, the number
of members was reduced to thirty-one, and this council was designed to
last only until the following November.[15] Two councils, the fifth
and sixth were, therefore, elected in the same year, each composed of
fifteen old and fifteen new members. The sixth council, elected November
1, 1653, was chosen for six months, but after six weeks was supplanted
by the body known as the Protector's Council, elected December 16,
1653, under the provisions of the _Instrument of Government_.[16]
This council was to consist of not more than twenty-one nor less than
thirteen members, and according to the method of election provided for
in that instrument, was practically controlled by Cromwell himself. The
membership varied from time to time, rarely numbering more than sixteen,
with an average attendance of about ten. Cromwell was frequently absent
from its meetings, but the council, though designed constitutionally to
be a check upon his powers, was in reality his ally and answerable to
him alone, particularly after the dissolution of Parliament in January,
1655. The council provided for in _The Humble Petition and Advice_ was
but a continuation of the Protector's Council, so that from December,
1653, until May, 1659, the Protector's Council, representing Cromwell
policy and interest, continued to exist. After the abdication of Richard
Cromwell and the restoration of the Rump Parliament, the Protector's
Council came to an end, and a new council, the eighth, was chosen on May
13, 14, 15, 1659.[17] This body contained ten members not of Parliament
and lasted until December 31, when a new Council of State was chosen
for three months; but on February 21 the council was suspended, and two
days afterward the tenth and last council was chosen.[18] On May 21,
1660, this council was declared "not in being," and formally came to
an end on May 27, when Charles II, who had had his Privy Council more
or less continuously since 1649, named at Canterbury Monck, Southampton,
Morrice, and Ashley as privy councillors. The first meeting at Whitehall
was held May 31.[19]
The Council of State itself acted as a board of trade and plantations
and directly transacted a large amount of business in the interest of
manufactures, trade, commerce, and the colonies. It initiated important
measures, received petitions, remonstrances, and complaints, either at
first hand or through Parliament, from which it also received special
orders, entered into debate upon all questions arising therefrom,
summoned before it any one who might be able to furnish information
or to offer advice, and then drew up its reply, embodied in an order
despatched to government officials, private individuals, adventurers,
merchant and trading companies, colonial governments in particular
or in general. For example, it ordered letters to be written to the
plantations, giving them notice of the change of government in 1649,
sending them papers necessary for their information, and requiring them
to be obedient if they expected the protection which the Republic was
prepared to extend to them. Until March 2, 1650, it does not appear to
have organized itself especially for this purpose, but on that date it
authorized the whole council, or any five members, to sit as a special
committee for trade and plantations, and on February 18 and December 2,
1651, repeated the same order.[20] During the early part of this period
it depended to a considerable extent on committees, either of merchants
and others outside the council, men already engaged in trade with the
plantations, such as Worsley, Maurice Thompson (afterward governor of
the East India Company), Lenoyre, Allen, Martin Noell, and others,
or of councillors forming committees of trade (sitting in the Horse
Chamber in Whitehall), of plantations, of the admiralty, of the navy,
of examinations, of Scottish and Irish affairs, and of prisoners, to
whom many questions were referred and upon whose reports the Council
acted. It also appointed special committees to take into consideration
particular questions relating to individual plantations, Barbadoes,
Somers Islands, Bermudas, New England, Newfoundland, Virginia. Of all
these committees none appears to have been more active, as far as the
plantations were concerned, than the Committee of the Admiralty, before
whom came a large amount of colonial business, which was transacted
with the cooeperation of Dr. Walker, of Doctors Commons, advocate for
the Republic, and David Budd, the proctor of the Court of Admiralty.
An important departure was introduced on December 17, 1651, when a
standing committee of the Council was created, consisting of fifteen
members, to concern itself with trade and foreign affairs. This
committee took the place of that which had formerly sat in the Horse
Chamber in Whitehall, and renewed consideration of all questions which
had been referred to that body. It was organized, as were all the
Council committees, with its own clerk, doorkeeper, and messenger, and
as recommissioned on May 4, 1652, and again on December 2, 1652, when
the membership was raised to twenty-one and the plantations were brought
within the scope of its business, became a very independent and active
body until its demise in April, 1653. Its members were Cromwell, Lords
Whitelocke, Bradshaw, and Lisle, Sir Arthur Haslerigg, Sir Harry Vane,
Sir William Masham, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Colonels Walton, Purefoy,
Morley, Sidney, and Thomson, Major Lister, Messrs. Bond, Scott, Love,
Challoner, Strickland, Gurdon, and Alleyn.[21] This committee, to which
new members were frequently added, sat in the Horse Chamber at Whitehall
and took cognizance of a great variety of commercial and colonial
business. It considered the question of free trade versus monopolies
and during the summer of 1652, after the Council of Trade had fallen
into disfavor, debated at length the desirability of opening the Turkey
trade as freely to adventurers as was that of Portugal and Spain. It
listened to a number of forcible papers presented in the interest of
free trade in opposition to trade in the hands of companies; it dealt
with the operation of the Navigation Act of 1651 and rendered decisions
regarding penalties, exemptions, licenses, and the disposal of prizes
and prize goods; it devoted a large amount of time to plantation
business; and, for the time being, probably supplanted consideration
of these matters by the Council of State, and rendered unnecessary the
appointment of any other committee on colonial affairs. Except for the
Admiralty Committee and one or two other committees to which special
matters were referred, as concerning Newfoundland, there appears to
have been no other subordinate body actually in charge of affairs in
America between December 17, 1651, and April 15, 1653. The period was
an important and critical one, and the committee must have had before
it business connected with nearly every one of the colonies in America.
The Council of State referred to it petitions, etc., from and relating
to Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Haven, Rhode Island, Newfoundland,
Maryland and Virginia, Barbadoes, Nevis, Providence Island, and the
Caribbee Islands in general. It dealt with the proposed attack on
the Dutch at New Amsterdam, losses of merchant ships, privateer's
commissions and letters of marque; the Greenland and Newfoundland
fisheries, naval stores, and land disputes. It drafted bills and
governors' commissions, considered vacancies in the colonies, and
received applications for office, and, in one case, promoted the
founding of a plantation in South America.[22] This business was
performed to a considerable extent through subcommittees, many of
which met in the little Horse Chamber and acted in all particulars as
regular committees. On one occasion, the entire committee was appointed
a subcommittee, and very frequently the committee met for no other
purpose than to hear the report of a subcommittee. These subcommittees,
which were generally composed of councillors, referred matters to
outside persons, merchants, judges, and doctors of civil law, while
the committee itself called before it merchants, officials, members
of other committees, and indeed any one from whom information might
be extracted. The main work was performed by the subcommittees, their
reports were reviewed by the committee itself, and, if approved, were
sent to the Council of State, which based upon them recommendations to
Parliament.[23] After April 15, 1653, we hear no more of this committee.
There is some reason to think that the duties entrusted to it were
deemed too extensive and a division between trade, plantations, and
foreign affairs was planned, but no definite record of such a separation
of functions is to be found. A Council Committee of Foreign Affairs was
appointed, probably before June, 1653, reappointed on July 27, and again
reappointed August 16, but no committees of trade and of plantations
appear. Very likely the Council of State, with the assistance of the
committees on Scottish and Irish affairs, admiralty, navy, and customs,
and a few special committees and commissioners, assumed control of
plantation affairs. The interests of industry and trade may have been
looked after by the Committee on Trade and Corporations appointed by the
Barebones Parliament, July 20, 1653, "to meet at Whitehall in the place
where the Council of Trade did sit."[24] Several times during the year
this committee proposed the establishment of a separate council of trade
to take the place of the former Council, to which proposition Parliament
agreed, but nothing was done, and the Parliamentary Committee of Trade
and Corporations seems to have been the only official body that existed
during the year 1653 for the advancement of trade and industry.[25]
On December 29, 1653, the Protector's Council made known its purpose
of taking "all care to protect and encourage navigation and trade,"
and in March, 1654, we meet with a reference to a committee of the
Council appointed for trade and corporations. As this body was organized
for continuous sitting, with a clerk, doorkeeper, and messenger, and
as a second reference to it appears under date August 21, 1654, the
probabilities are in favor of its existence as a regular committee
during the year 1654.[26] That it was an important committee is
doubtful, for we meet with practically no references to its work, and
when in January, 1655, the project of a select trade committee was
brought forward it was referred for consideration and report, not to
this committee, but to Desborough of the Council and the Admiralty
Committee.
The events of the years 1654 and 1655 mark something of an era in the
history of trade and commerce, not because the capture of Jamaica had
any very conspicuous effect upon Cromwell's own policy or upon the
commercial activities of the higher authorities, but because it opened
a larger world and larger opportunities to the merchants and traders of
London who were at this time seeking openings for trading ventures in
all parts of the world. To better their fortunes many men accompanied
the expedition under Penn and Venables, and the merchants at home were
seized with something of the spirit of the Elizabethans in planning,
not only to increase commerce and swell their own fortunes, but also
to drive the Spaniard from the southwestern waters of the Atlantic
and extend British control and British trade into regions heretofore
wholly in the hands of Spain. Barbadoes, Jamaica, Florida, Virginia,
New England, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland became a world of great
opportunities, and with plans for the expansion of trade went plans for
naval and military activity. If the merchants of the period had had
their way, a systematic and orderly policy of colonial control in the
interest of British power and profit would have been inaugurated during
the second period of the Interregnum, but circumstances do not appear
to have been propitious, and the disturbed political order during the
years 1658 and 1659 led not only to a cessation of activity as far
as the government was concerned but also to decay of trade, shrinking
of profits, decrease of fortunes, and widespread discouragement.
Furthermore, there is nothing to show that Cromwell himself ever rose
to a statesmanlike conception of colonial control and administration.
He was thoroughly interested in those matters, was personally influenced
by the London merchants, frequently called on the most conspicuous of
them for advice, placed them on committees and councils established for
purposes of trade, and was always open to their suggestions. But while
he was willing to act upon their opinions and recommendations in many
respects, he never seems to have grasped the essentials of a large
and comprehensive plan of colonial control, and it is not possible
to discover in what he actually accomplished any broadminded idea of
uniting the colonies under an efficient management for the purpose of
laying the foundations of an empire. His expedients, interesting and
practical as many of them were, do not seem to be a part of any large or
well-formed plan. Whether he would ever have risen to a higher level of
statesmanship in these respects we cannot say, but he never found time
to give proper attention to the suggestions of the merchants or to the
demands of trade and commerce.
That he took a great interest in the industrial and commercial
development of England is evident from one of his earliest efforts to
provide for its proper control. Even while the fleet was on its way
to the West Indies, the Council of State instructed Desborough and
the Admiralty Committee, January 29, 1655, to consider "of some fit
merchants to be a trade committee." There is some reason to think
that this instruction was in response to a paper drawn up by certain
merchants of London in 1654, entitled, "An Essaie or Overture for the
regulating the Affairs of his Highness in the West Indies," drafted
after the expedition had sailed and with the confident expectation of
conquest in mind.[27] If the original suggestion did not come from the
merchants, we may not doubt that in the promotion of the plan they
exercised considerable influence. In 1655, Martin Noell and Thomas Povey
sent a petition to the Protector regarding trade, and suggested that
there be appointed "some able persons to consider what more may be done
in order to those affairs and a general satisfaction for the fixing the
whole trade of England." They wished that a competent number of persons,
of good reputation, prudent and well skilled in their professions and
qualifications should be "selected and set apart" for the "care of his
Highness Affairs in the West Indies." The number was to be not less than
seven, and these not to be "of the same but of a mixt qualification,"
constituting a select council subordinate only to the Protector and the
Council. After careful attention to the fitness of a large number of
prominent individuals, a committee of twenty was named on July 12, 1655.
If the "Overture" was responsible for the decision to name a select
council, its influence went no further, for except that merchants were
placed as members, there is no likeness between the plan as finally
worked out and that formulated by the merchants. Indeed, Povey himself
later expressed his dissatisfaction in saying that "that committee which
[we] so earnestly prest should be settled will not tend in any degree
to what we proposed, the constitution of it being not proportionable
to what was desired."[28] The committee of twenty was soon expanded into
a much larger and more imposing body, possibly due to the receipt of the
news of the capture of Jamaica and the decision announced in Cromwell's
proclamation of August to hold the island. On November 11, 1655,[29]
a board, made up of officers of state, gentlemen, and merchants, was
commissioned a "Committee and Standing Council for the advancing and
regulating the Trade and Navigation of the Commonwealth," generally
shortened to "Trade and Navigation Committee," or simply "Trade
Committee." Its membership, instead of being seven, was over seventy,
and it was thus a dignified though unwieldy body. At its head was
Richard Cromwell and its members were as follows: Montague, Sydenham,
Wolseley, Pickering, and Jones of the Protector's Council; Lord Chief
Justice St. John and Justices Glynn, Steele, and Hale; Sir Henry Blount,
Sir John Hobart, Sir Gilbert Gerard, gentlemen of distinction; Sir
Bulstrode Whitelocke and Sir Thomas Widdrington, sergeants-at-law; Col.
John Fiennes and John Lisle, commissioners of the Great Seal; the four
Treasury Commissioners; Col. Richard Norton, governor of Portsmouth;
Capt. Hatsell, navy commissioner of Plymouth; Stone and Foxcroft, excise
commissioners; Martin Noell, London merchant and farmer of the customs;
Upton, customs commissioner; Bond, Wright, Thompson, Ashurst, Peirpont,
Crew, and Berry, London merchants; and Tichborne, Grove, Pack (Lord
Mayor), and Riccards, aldermen of London; Bonner, of Newcastle; Dunne,
of Yarmouth; Cullen, of Dover; Jackson, of Bristol; Toll, of Lyme;
Legay, of Southampton; Snow, of Exeter; and Drake, of Sussex. At various
times, and probably for various purposes, the following members were
added between December 12, 1655, and June 19,1656: Secretary Thurloe,
William Wheeler, Edmund Waller, Francis Dincke, of Hull; George Downing,
at that time major general and scoutmaster; Alderman Ireton, of London;
Col. William Purefoy; Godfrey Boseville; Edward Laurence; John St.
Barbe, of Hampshire, [Lord] John Claypoole, Master of the Horse, and
Cromwell's son-in-law; John Barnard; Sir John Reynolds; Col. Arthur
Hill; George Berkeley; Capt. Thomas Whitegreane; Thomas Ford, of Exeter;
Francis St. John; Henry Wright; Col. John Jones, Alderman Frederick,
sheriff of London; Richard Ford, the well-known merchant of London;
Mayor Nehemiah Bourne; Charles Howard; Robert Berwick; John Blaxton,
town clerk of Newcastle; Col. Richard Ingoldsby; Edmund Thomas;
Thomas Banks, and Christopher Lister. Thus the Trade Committee, composed
of members from all parts of England, represented a wide range of
interests. Furthermore, any member of the Protector's Council could come
to the meetings of the committee and vote.[30] Such a body would have
been very unmanageable but for the fact that seven constituted a quorum
and business was generally transacted by a small number of the members.
The instructions were prepared by Thurloe after a scrutiny of those
of the former Council of Trade, and bore little resemblance to the
recommendations of the "Overture," because they were designed to cover
a far wider range of interests than were considered by the merchants.
The "Overture" was planned only for a plantation council. The Trade
Committee was invested with power and authority to consider by what
means the traffic and navigation of the Republic might best be promoted
and regulated, to receive propositions for the benefit of these
interests, to send for the officers of the excise, the customs, and the
mint, or such other persons of experience as they should deem capable of
giving advice on these subjects, to examine the books and papers of the
Council of Trade of 1650, and all other public papers as might afford
the members information. When finally its reports were ready for the
Council of State, that body reserved to itself all power to reject or
accept such orders as it deemed proper and fitting.
The Trade Committee met for the first time on December 27, 1655, in the
Painted Chamber at Westminster. Authorized to appoint officers, it chose
William Seaman secretary, two clerks, an usher, and two messengers at
a yearly salary of L280, with L50 for contingent expenses;[31] and from
the entries of the payments ordered to be made to these men for their
services, we infer that the board sat from December 27, 1655, until
May 27, 1657, exactly a year and a half. During this time it probably
accumulated a considerable number of books and papers, though such are
not now known to exist. Proposals, petitions, complaints, and pamphlets,
such, for example, as that entitled _Trading Governed by the State_, a
protest against the commercial dominance of London, were laid before it,
and it took into its own hands many of the problems that had agitated
the former board. It discussed foreign trade, particularly with Holland,
and the questions of Swedish copper,[32] Spanish wines, and Irish linen;
home manufactures, among which are mentioned swords and rapier blades,
madder-dyed silk, needle making, and knitting with frameworks; and
domestic concerns, such as the preservation of timber. It made a number
of recommendations regarding "the exportation of several commodities of
the breed, growth, and manufacture of the Commonwealth," "the limiting
and settling the prices of wines," "vagrants and wandering, idle,
dissolute persons," and the "giving license for transporting fish in
foreign bottoms." These recommendations were drafted by the Trade
Committee, or by one of its subcommittees, and after adoption were
reported to the Council of State and by it referred to its own committee
appointed to receive reports from the Trade Committee. When approved by
the Council of State, the recommendations were sent to Parliament and
there referred to the large Parliamentary committee of trade of fifty
members, appointed October 20, 1656. That committee drafted bills which
were based on these recommendations and which later were passed as acts
of Parliament and received the consent of the Protector. For example,
the recommendation regarding exports, noted above, became a law November
27, 1656.[33]
Under the head of "navigation and trade" came the commercial interests
of the plantations, and though there existed during this year, 1656,
other machinery for regulating plantation affairs, a number of questions
were referred from the Council to the Trade Committee that were strictly
in the line of plantation development. These questions concerned customs
duties on goods exported to Barbadoes, the political quarrels in
Antigua which threatened to bring ruin on that plantation and the
remedies therefor, the pilchard fishery off Newfoundland, and finally
the controversy between Maryland and Virginia which had already been
referred to a special committee of the Council. Upon all these questions
the Trade Committee reported to the Council; its recommendations and
findings were debated in that body or further referred to one of its own
committees or to the outside committee for America, and finally embodied
in an order regulating the matter in question.[34]
Of the activity of the Trade Committee during the few months of the year
1657, when it continued its sessions, scarcely any evidence appears.
There is a very slight reason to believe that it took up the question of
free ports, but there is nothing to show that it accomplished anything
in that direction. That it came to an end in May seems to be borne out
by the fact that the officers of the board were paid only to May 27, but
this statement is rendered uncertain by the further fact that on June 26
Portsmouth petitioned the committee to be made a free port and that the
petition was brought in by one of the members of the committee for
America, Capt. Limbrey.[35] The question cannot be exactly settled.
Though the committee was by no means a nominal body, it accomplished
little, and certainly did not meet the situation that confronted the
trade and navigation of the kingdom.
After the appointment of this select Trade Committee, no standing
committee of the Council was created. Questions of trade were looked
after either by the Council itself, that of May, 1659, being especially
instructed to "advance trade and promote the good of our foreign
plantations and to encourage fishing,"[36] by an occasional special
committee, by the Trade Committee until the summer of 1657, or by the
committees of Parliament. Of Parliamentary committees there were two:
one a select committee of fifty members, appointed October 20, 1656, to
which were added all the merchants of the House and all members that
served for the port towns;[37] and a grand committee of the whole House
for trade, appointed February 2, 1658, which sat weekly and was invested
with the same powers as the committee of 1656 had had.[38] But except
that the first committee adopted some of the recommendations of the
Trade Committee, there is nothing to show that these committees took any
prominent part in the advancement of the interest in behalf of which
they had been created.
From 1654 to 1660 the welfare of the plantations lay chiefly in the
hands of the Protector's Council and the Council of State, and their
system of control was in many respects similar to that which had been
adopted during the earlier period of the Interregnum. At first all
plantation questions were referred to committees of the Council
appointed temporarily to consider some particular matter. From December
29, 1653, to the close of the year 1659 some fifty cases were referred
to about thirty committees, of which twenty were appointed for the
special purpose in hand. Many matters were referred to such standing
committees as the Admiralty Committee, Customs Committee, etc.; others
to the judges of admiralty, commissioners of customs, and the like,
while petitions and communications regarding affairs in Jamaica, New
England, Virginia, Antigua, Somers Islands, Newfoundland, and Nevis,
regarding the transporting of horses, mining of saltpeter, payments of
salaries, indemnities, and trade, and regarding personal claims, such as
those of Lord Baltimore, William Franklin, De La Tour, and others, were
referred to committees composed of from two to eight members of the
Council, whose services in this particular ended with the presentation
of their report. Sometimes a question would be referred to the whole
Council or to a "committee," with the names unspecified, or to "any
three of the Council." The burden of serving upon these occasional
committees fell upon a comparatively small number of councillors:
Ashley, Montague, Strickland, Wolseley, Fiennes, Jones, Sydenham, Lisle,
and Mulgrave. One or more of these names appear on the list of every
special committee appointed except that to which Lord Baltimore's case
was referred, consisting of the sergeants-at-law, Lords Whitelocke and
Widdrington. During 1654 the committees for Virginia and Barbadoes, to
which were referred other colonial matters, came to be known as the
"committee for plantations," but it is doubtful if this was deemed in
any sense a standing committee.
When the affairs of Jamaica became exigent after the summer of 1655
a committee of the Council was appointed to carry out the terms of
Cromwell's proclamation and to report the needs of the colony. Though
the membership was generally changed this committee continued to be
reappointed as one question after another arose which demanded the
attention of the Council. It reported on the equipment of tools,
clothing, medicaments and other necessaries, on the transporting of
persons from Ireland and colonies in America, on the distribution of
lands in the island, and on various matters presented to the Council
in letters and petitions from officers and others there or in England.
After 1656 this committee, which continued to exist certainly until
the middle of April, 1660, played a more or less secondary part, doing
little more than consider the various colonial matters, whether relating
to Jamaica or to other colonies, that were taken up by the select or
outside committee appointed by Cromwell in 1656.
The employment of expert advisers in the Jamaica business was rendered
necessary by the financial questions involved, and in December Robert
Bowes, Francis Hodges and Richard Creed were called upon to assist a
committee of Council appointed May 10, 1655, in determining the amounts
due the wives and assignees of the officers and soldiers in Jamaica.
Creed was dropped and Sydenham and Fillingham were added in 1656.[39]
But a more important step was soon taken. On July 15,1656, Cromwell
appointed a standing committee of officers and London merchants to
take general cognizance of all matters that concerned "his Highness
in Jamaica and the West Indies." The following were the members: Col.
Edward Salmon, an admiralty commissioner and intimately interested in
the Jamaica expedition; Col. Tobias Bridges, one of Cromwell's major
generals, afterwards serving in Flanders, who was to play an important
part in proclaiming Richard Cromwell Protector; Lieutenant Colonel
Miller, of Col. Barkstead's regiment, and Lieutenant Colonel Mills;
Capt. Limbrey, London merchant and Jamaican planter, who had lived in
Jamaica and made a map of the island, and as commander of merchant
vessels had made many trips across the Atlantic; Capt. Thomas Aldherne,
also a London merchant and sea captain, the chief victualler of the
navy, and an enterprising adventurer in trade; Capt. John Thompson, sea
captain and London merchant; Capt. Stephen Winthrop, sea captain and
London merchant; Richard Sydenham, and Robert Bowes, already mentioned
as commissioners for Jamaica,[40] and lastly Martin Noell, London
merchant, and Thomas Povey, regarding whom a fuller account is given
below. Povey, who was not appointed a member until October, 1657,
apparently became chairman and secretary, while Francis Hodges was
clerical secretary. Except for Tobias Bridges, the military members had
little share in the business of the committee, the most prominent part
being taken by Noell, Bridges, Winthrop, Bowes, Sydenham, and Povey.
As far as the records show, Salmon, Miller, Aldherne, Thompson, and
White never signed a report, while Mills and Limbrey signed but one.
The committee seems to have sat at first in Grocer's Hall, afterward
in Treasury Chambers, where its members discussed and investigated
all questions that came before them with care and thoroughness.
Their instructions authorized them to maintain a correspondence
with the colonies, obtaining such infromation and advice as seemed
essential; to receive all addresses relating thereunto, whether from
persons in America or elsewhere; to consider and consult thereof and
prepare such advices and answers thereupon as should be judged meet
for the advantage of the community. Their earliest business concerned
itself with Jamaica, its revenues, finances, expenses of expeditions
thither, arrears due the officers and soldiers, their wives and
assignees, individual claims, want of ministers, and other similar
questions. But as addresses came in from other colonies the scope of
their activity was broadened until it included at one time or another
nearly all the American colonies. The committee reported on the
constitution, governing powers, fortifications, militia of Somers
Islands (Bermudas) and on the fitness of Sayle to be governor there;
on the controversy between Virginia and Maryland and on the organization
and government of the former colony; on the petition of the Long
Islanders and others in New England, and on complaints against
Massachusetts Bay; on the revenue, government, and admiralty system
of Barbadoes; on questions of governor and arrears of salary in
Nevis and Tortugas; on the desirability of continuing the plantation
in Newfoundland; and lastly on the important subject of ship insurance,
upon which Capt. Limbrey presented a very remarkable paper.[41] These
reports were sent sometimes to the Protector, sometimes to the Council
of State, and sometimes to the committee of the Council on the affairs
of America. While the latter committee, under the name of "Committee for
Foreign Plantations" continued until the return of the King, the select
committee for America does not appear to have lasted as a whole after
the final dissolution of the Rump Parliament, March 16, 1660. Thomas
Povey alone seems to have been the committee from March to May, and on
April 9 and May 11 made two reports on matters referred to him by the
Council committee regarding Jamaica and Newfoundland. As Charles II had
been recalled to his own in England before the last report was sent in,
the machinery created under Cromwell for the plantations remained in
existence after the government set up by him had passed away.[42]
Any account of the system appointed for the control of trade and
plantations during the Interregnum is bound to be something of a tangle,
not because the system itself was a complicated one, but because its
simplicity is clouded by a bewildering mass of details. Occasional
committees of Parliament, the Council as a board of trade and
plantations, committees of the Council, and select councils and
committees do not form a very confusing body of material out of which
to fashion a system of colonial control. Yet, despite this fact, the
management of the colonies during the Interregnum was without unity or
simplicity. Control was exercised by no single or continuous organ and
according to no clearly defined or consistent plan. Colonial questions
seemed to lie in many different hands and to be met in as many different
ways. Delays were frequent and there can be little doubt that many
important matters were laid aside and pigeon-holed. When an important
colonial difficulty had to pass from subcommittee to committee, from
committee to Council, and sometimes from Council to Parliamentary
committee and thence to Parliament, we can easily believe that in the
excess of machinery there would be entailed a decrease of despatch and
efficiency. Indeed, during the Interregnum colonial business was not
well managed and there were many to whom colonial trade was of great
importance, who realized this fact. Merchants of London after 1655
became dissatisfied with the way the plantations were managed and
desired a reorganization which should bring about order, improve
administration, economize expenditure, elevate justice, and effect
speedily and fairly a settlement of colonial disputes. They doubted
whether a Council, "busyed and filled with a multitude of affairs,"
was able to accomplish these results and they refused to believe that
affairs of such a nature should be transacted "in diverse pieces and
by diverse councils." The remedy of these men was carefully thought
out and carefully expressed and though it was undoubtedly listened
to by Cromwell, it never received more than an imperfect application.
To these men and their proposals we must pay careful attention for
therein we shall find the connecting link between the Protectorate
and the Restoration as far as matters of trade and the plantations
are concerned.
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: Among others, The Advancement of Merchandize or certain
propositions for the improvement of the trade of this Commonwealth,
humbly presented to the Right Honorable the Council of State by Thomas
Viollet, of London, Goldsmith, 1651. This rare pamphlet was drawn up
by Viollet when connected with the Mint in the Tower and sent to the
Council of State, evidently in manuscript form. Most of the papers
composing this pamphlet were transmitted by the Council of State to
the Council of Trade. For Viollet see Cal. State Papers, Domestic,
1650-1651, 1659-1660.]
[Footnote 2: The Council of Trade accumulated in this and other ways a
considerable mass of books and papers, but this material for its history
has entirely disappeared.]
[Footnote 3: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1650, p. 399; 1651, pp. 16, 29,
38, 107, 230; 1651-1652, pp. 87. The first suggestion of this committee
was as early as January 1650, Commons' Journal, VI, p. 347.]
[Footnote 4: Guildhall, Journal of the Proceedings of the Common
Council, Vol. 41, ff. 45, 55; Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1651, pp. 198,
247-249, 270-271; Inderwick, The Interregnum, ch. II.]
[Footnote 5: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1651-1652, pp. 470-472, 479-481.]
[Footnote 6: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1652-1653, p. 282.]
[Footnote 7: British Museum, Add. MSS., 5138, f. 145.]
[Footnote 8: Guildhall, Repertories of the Court of Aldermen, 61, p.
152^{b}.]
[Footnote 9: Guildhall, Journal of the Proceedings of the Common
Council, Vol. 41, pp. 67^{b}, 68.]
[Footnote 10: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1651-1652, pp. 232, 235. The
question was as to whether or not the Turkey trade could best be carried
on by a company "as now," or by free trade, as in the case of Portugal
and Spain. Able arguments in favor of free trade were brought forward,
and when later the question of a monopoly of the Greenland whale fishing
came up, the Council of State admitted free adventurers to a share in
the business. Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1653-1654, p. 379; 1654, p. 16.]
[Footnote 11: Commons' Journal, VI, p. 140.]
[Footnote 12: Commons' Journal, VI, p. 361.]
[Footnote 13: Commons' Journal, VII, p. 41.]
[Footnote 14: Commons' Journal, VII, p. 220.]
[Footnote 15: Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 283, 284, 285.]
[Footnote 16: Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 343-344; Cal. State Papers,
Dom., 1653-1654, pp. 297-298.]
[Footnote 17: Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 652, 654, 655; Cal. State
Papers, Dom., 1658-1659, p. 349.]
[Footnote 18: Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 800, 849.]
[Footnote 19: P.C.R., Charles II, Vol. I, May 3/13, 1649--September
28, 1660. Meetings of Privy Councils during the Interregnum were held at
Castle Elizabeth, St. Hillary, Breda (1649-1650), Bruges (1656, 1658),
Brussels (1659), Breda (1660), Canterbury (May 27, 1660), Whitehall (May
31, 1660).]
[Footnote 20: Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574-1660, pp. 335, 352, 366;
Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1651-1652, p. 43.]
[Footnote 21: Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574-1660, p. 394; Cal. State
Papers, Dom., 1651-1652, pp. 67, 232, 235, 426; 1652-1653, pp. 18-27.]
[Footnote 22: Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574-1660, pp. 373-402,
_passim_.]
[Footnote 23: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1651-1652, pp. 266, 350, 396,
472; 1652-1653, pp. 18, 27, 160, 171.]
[Footnote 24: Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 19, 287. On May 6, 1653,
a new commission of trade was proposed by the Council of State but
no appointments are given. Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1653-1654,
pp. 310, 344.]
[Footnote 25: Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 308, 319, 341, 375.]
[Footnote 26: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1654, pp. 61, 285, 316.]
[Footnote 27: Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 11411, ff. 11^{b}-12^{b}.]
[Footnote 28: That such an outcome was anticipated is evident from the
concluding words of the "Overture." "If his Highness shall think fit
to constitute a council for the general Trade of these Nations and the
several Interests relating thereunto, these seaven may properly be of
that number, the employment being of the same nature and therefore
will rather informe then divert them who ought indeed to be busyed or
conversant in no other Affaires than the matters of Trade."]
[Footnote 29: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655, pp. 27, 133, 240.]
[Footnote 30: Thurloe, State Papers, IV, p. 177; British Museum, Add.
MSS., 12438, iii; Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655, p. 240, 1655-1656, pp.
1, 2, 54, 73, 100, 114, 115, 141, 156, 162, 188, 252, 275, 297, 327,
382. "We might speak also of the famed 'Committee of Trade' which has
now begun its sessions 'in the old House of Lords.' An Assembly of
Dignitaries, Chief Merchants, Political Economists, convened by summons
of his Highness; consulting zealously how the Trade of this country
may be improved. A great concernment of this commonwealth 'which his
Highness is eagerly set upon.' They consulted of 'Swedish copperas' and
such like; doing faithfully what they could." Cromwell's Letters and
Speeches, II, p. 202.]
[Footnote 31: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655-1656, p. 113; 1656-1657,
p. 556; 1657-1658, pp. 308, 589; 1657-1658, p. 69.]
[Footnote 32: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655-1656, p. 318.]
[Footnote 33: Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 442, 452, 460.]
[Footnote 34: Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574-1660, pp. 436, 439, 440 (2),
441, 443, 447, 453.]
[Footnote 35: Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 12438, iii.]
[Footnote 36: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1658-1659, p. 349.]
[Footnote 37: Commons' Journal, VII, pp. 442, 452.]
[Footnote 38: Commons' Journal, VII, p. 596.]
[Footnote 39: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655-1656, pp. 46, 65, 318, 351.]
[Footnote 40: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1657-1658, pp. 51, 66.]
[Footnote 41: Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574, 1660, pp. 445, 447, 448,
449, 450, 452, 453, 455, 456, 458, 459, 460, 461, 464, 465, 468, 470,
477; Brit. Mus. Egerton, 2395, ff. 123, 136, 142, 148-151, 157; Add.
MSS., 18986, f. 258.]
[Footnote 42: Note to the report of May 11, 1660, is as follows: "By
order of the Councill of State sitting and taking care of the government
in the interval between the suppression of the Rump of the Parliament
and the return of his Majesty which was not many days before the date of
this report." Egerton MSS., 2395, f. 263. Probably the recall not the
actual landing at Dover is meant.]