British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations , 1622-1675 - novelonlinefull.com
You’re read light novel British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations , 1622-1675 Part 1 online at NovelOnlineFull.com. Please use the follow button to get notification about the latest chapter next time when you visit NovelOnlineFull.com. Use F11 button to read novel in full-screen(PC only). Drop by anytime you want to read free – fast – latest novel. It’s great if you could leave a comment, share your opinion about the new chapters, new novel with others on the internet. We’ll do our best to bring you the finest, latest novel everyday. Enjoy
British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622-1675.
by Charles M. Andrews.
CHAPTER I.
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. .h.i.therto 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.
At the beginning of colonization the control of all matters relating to trade and the plantations lay in the hands of the king and his council, forming the executive branch of the government. Parliament had not yet begun to legislate for the colonies, and in matters of trade and commerce the parliaments of James I accomplished much less than had those of Elizabeth. "In the time of James I," says Dr.
Prothero, "it was more essential to a.s.sert const.i.tutional principles and to maintain parliamentary rights than to pa.s.s new laws or to create new inst.i.tutions." Thus the Privy Council became the controlling factor in all matters that concerned the colonies and it acted in the main without reference or delegation to others, since the practice of appointing advisory boards or deliberative committees, though not unknown, was at first employed only as an occasional expedient. The councils of James I were called upon to deal with a wide variety of colonial business--letters, pet.i.tions, complaints and reports from private individuals, such as merchants, captains of ships voyaging to the colonies, seamen, prisoners, and the like, from officials in England, merchant companies, church organizations, and colonial governments, notably the governor and council and a.s.sembly of Virginia.
To all these communications the Council replied either by issuing orders which were always mandatory, or by sending letters which often contained information and advice as well as instructions. It dealt with the Virginia Company in London and sent letters, both before and after the dissolution of the company, to the governor and council in Virginia, and in all these letters trade played an important part. For example, the order of October 24, 1621, which forbade the colony to export tobacco and other commodities to foreign countries, declared that such a privilege as an open trade on the part of the colony was desirable "neither in policy nor for the honor of the state (that being but a colony derived from hence)," and that it could not be suffered "for that it may be a loss unto his Majesty in his customs, if not the hazarding of the trade which in future times is well hoped may be of much profit, use, and importance to the Commonalty."[1] Similarly the Council issued a license to Lord Baltimore to export provisions for the relief of his colony at Avalon,[2] ordered that the _Ark_ and the _Dove_, containing Calvert and the settlers of Maryland, be held back at Tilbury until the oaths of allegiance had been taken,[3] and instructed the governor and company of Virginia to give friendly a.s.sistance to Baltimore's undertaking.[4]
Of the employment of committees or special commissions to inquire into questions either commercial or colonial there is no evidence before the year 1622. A few months after the dissolution of the third Stuart parliament, James I issued a proclamation for the encouragement of trade, and directed a special commission not composed of privy councillors to inquire into the decay of the clothing trade and to report to the Privy Council such remedial measures as seemed best adapted to increase the wealth and prosperity of the realm.[5] At the same time he caused a commission to be issued to the Lord Keeper, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord President of the Council and others "to collect and cause a true survey to be taken in writing of the names, qualities, professions, and places of habitation of such strangers as do reside within the realm of England and use any retailing trade or handicraft trade and do reform the abuses therein according to the statutes now in force."[6] The commissioners of trade duly met, during the years 1622 and 1623, summoned persons to appear before them, and reported to the Council. Their report was afterward presented to the King sitting with the Council at Wansted, "was allowed and approved of, and commandment was given to enter it in the Register of Counsell causes and to remain as an act of Counsell by order of the Lord President."[7] There is evidence also to show that the commission issued orders on its own account, for in June, 1623, the Mayor and Aldermen of the city of London wrote two letters to the commission expressing their approval of its orders and sending pet.i.tions presented to them by citizens of London.[8]
On April 15, 1625, less than three weeks after the death of James I, a warrant was issued by his successor for a commission of trade, the duties of which were of broader and more general character than were those of the previous body.[9] The first record of its meeting is dated January 18, 1626, but it is probable that then the commission had been for some time in existence, though the exact date when its commission was issued is not known. The text of both commission and instructions are among the Domestic Papers.[10] The board was to advance the exportations of home manufactures and to repress the "ungainful importation of foreign commodities." Looked upon as a subcommittee of the Privy Council, but having none of the privy councillors among its members, it was required to sit every week and to consider all questions that might be referred to it for examination and report. The fact that a complaint against the patent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges was referred to it shows that it was qualified to deal not only with questions of trade but also with plantation affairs.[11] At about the same time a committee of the Council was appointed to take into consideration a special question of trade and to make report to the Council. Neither of these bodies appears to have had more than a temporary existence, although the commission sat for some time and accomplished no inconsiderable amount of work.
The first Privy Council committee of trade that had any claim to permanency was that appointed in March, 1630, consisting at first of thirteen members, the Lord Keeper, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord President, the Lord Privy Seal, Earl Marshall, the Lord Steward, Earl of Dorset, Earl of Holland, Earl of Carlisle, Lord Dorchester, the Vice-Chamberlain, Sir Henry Cottington and Mr. Secretary c.o.ke. This committee was to meet on Friday mornings. The same committee, with the omission of one member, was appointed the next year to meet on Tuesdays in the afternoon. In 1634 the membership was reduced to nine, but in 1636, 1638 and 1639, by the addition of the Lord Treasurer, the number was raised to ten, as follows: the Lord President, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Keeper, the Lord Privy Seal, Earl Marshall, Earl of Dorset, Lord Cottington, Mr. Comptroller, Mr. Secretary c.o.ke and Mr. Secretary Windebank. The meetings were again held on Fridays, though on special occasions the committee was warned to meet on other days by order of the Council, and on one occasion at least a.s.sembled at Hampton Court.[12]
To this committee were referred all matters of trade which came to the attention of the Council during the ten years, from 1630 to 1640. Notes of its meetings between 1631 and 1637 were kept by Secretaries c.o.ke and Windebank and show the extent and variety of its activities. Except for the garbling of tobacco it does not appear to have concerned itself with plantation affairs.[13] As the King was generally present at its meetings, it possessed executive as well as advisory powers, not only making reports to the Council, but also drafting regulations and issuing orders on its own account. Occasionally it appointed special committees to examine into certain trade difficulties, and on September 21, 1638, and again on February 3, 1639, we find notice of a separate board of commissioners for trade const.i.tuted under the great seal to inquire into the decay of the clothing industry. This board sat for two years and made an elaborate report to the Privy Council on June 9, 1640.[14]
Though committees for trade, ordnance, foreign affairs, and Ireland had a more or less continuous existence during the period after 1630, no similar committee for plantations was created during this decade.
Temporary commissions and committees of the Council had been, however, frequently appointed. In 1623 and 1624 several sets of commissioners for Virginia were named "to inquire into the true state of Virginia and the Somers Islands plantations," "to resolve upon the well settling of the colony of Virginia," "and to advise on a fit patent for the Virginia Company." In 1631 a commission of twenty-three persons, of whom four const.i.tuted a quorum, was created, partly from within and partly from without the Privy Council, "to advise upon some course for establishing the advancement of the plantations of Virginia."[15] Similar commissions were appointed to meet special exigencies in the careers of other plantations, Somers Islands, Caribbee Islands, etc. In 1632, we meet with a committee forming the first committee of the Council appointed for the plantations, quite distinct in functions and membership from the committee for trade and somewhat broader in scope than the commissions mentioned above. The circ.u.mstances of its appointment were these: In the year 1632 complaints began to come in to the Privy Council regarding the conduct of the colony of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. Thomas Morton and Philip Ratcliffe had been banished from that colony and sent back to England. Sir Christopher Gardiner, also, after a period of troubled relations with the authorities there, had taken ship for England. These men, acting in conjunction with Gorges and Mason, whose claims had already been before the Council, presented pet.i.tions embodying their grievances. On December 19, 1632, the Council listened to the reading of these pet.i.tions and to the presentation of a "relation" drawn up by Gardiner. After long debate "upon the whole carriage of the plantation of that country," it appointed a committee of twelve members, called the Committee on the New England Plantations, with the Archbishop of York at its head, "to examine how the patents for the said plantations have been granted." This committee had power to call "to their a.s.sistance such other persons as they shall think fit," "to examine the truth of the aforesaid information or any other information as shall be presented to them and shall make report thereof to this board and of the true state of the said plantations." The committee deliberated on the "New England Case," summoned many of the "princ.i.p.al adventurers in that plantation"
before it, listened to the complainants, and reported favorably to the colony. The essential features of its report were embodied in an order in council, dated January 19, 1633.[16] This committee, still called the Committee for New England, was reappointed in December, 1633, with a slight change of membership, Laud, who had been made primate the August before, taking the place of the Archbishop of York as chairman. But this committee was soon overshadowed by the greater commission to come.[17]
The first separate commission, though, in reality, a committee of the Privy Council, appointed to concern itself with all the plantations, was created by Charles I, April 28, 1634. It was officially styled the Commission for Foreign Plantations; one pet.i.tioner called it "the Lords Commissioners for Plantations in General," and another "the learned Commissioners appointed by the King to examine and rectify all complaints from the plantations." It is probable that the term "Committee of Foreign Plantations" was occasionally applied to it, as there is nothing to show that the committee of 1633 remained in existence after April, 1634.[18] Recommissioned, April 10, 1636, it continued to sit as an active body certainly as late as August, 1641, and possibly longer,[19] though there is no formal record of its discontinuance. Its original membership was as follows: William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury; Richard Neile, Archbishop of York; Sir Thomas Coventry, the Lord Keeper; Earl of Portland, the Lord Treasurer, Earl of Manchester, the Lord Privy Seal, Earl of Arundel, the Earl Marshall, Earl of Dorset, Lord Cottington, Sir Thomas Edmondes, the Master Treasurer, Sir Henry Vane, the Master Comptroller, and the secretaries, c.o.ke and Windebank. Later the Earl of Sterling was added.[20] Five const.i.tuted a quorum. The powers granted to the commission were extensive and almost royal in character: to make laws and orders for the government of the English colonies in foreign parts; to impose penalties and imprisonment for offenses in ecclesiastical matters; to remove governors and require an account of their government; to appoint judges and magistrates, and to establish courts, both civil and ecclesiastical; to hear and determine all manner of complaints from the colonies; to have power over all charters and patents, and to revoke those surrept.i.tiously or unduly obtained. Such powers clearly show that the commission was designed as an instrument for enforcing the royal will in the colonies, and furnishes no precedent for the later councils and boards of trade and foreign plantations. Called into being probably because of the continued emigration of Puritans to New England, the complaints against the Ma.s.sachusetts charter, and the growth of Independency in that colony, it was in origin a coercive, not an inquisitory, body, in the same cla.s.s with the courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, and the Councils of Wales and the North. Unlike these bodies, it proved practically impotent, and there is nothing to show that it took any active part in the attempt to repeal the Ma.s.sachusetts charter or in any important particular exercised the powers granted to it. It did not remove or appoint a governor, establish a court, or grant or revoke a charter. It received pet.i.tions either directly or from the Privy Council and made recommendations, but it never attempted to establish uniformity in New England or to bring the New England colonies more directly under the authority of the Crown. Whether it was the failure of the attempt to vacate the Ma.s.sachusetts charter, or the poverty of the King, or the approach of civil war that prevented the enforcement of the royal policy, we cannot say, but the fact remains that the Laud commission played a comparatively inconspicuous part during the seven years of its existence and has gained a prominence in the history of our subject out of all proportion to its importance.
More directly connected with the commercial and colonial interests of the realm were the subcommittees which the Privy Council used during these years and earlier as advisory and inquisitory bodies. In addition to committees of its own, the Privy Council called on various outside persons known to be familiar with the circ.u.mstances of a particular case or experts in the general subject involved, and entrusted to them the consideration of important matters that had been called to its attention. As we have already seen, such a subcommittee on trade had been appointed in 1625, and after 1630 we meet with many references to individuals or groups of experts. The attorney general was called upon to examine complaints regarding New England and Maryland in 1632 and 1635; the Chancellor of London was requested to examine the parties in a controversy over a living in St. Christopher in 1637; many commercial questions were referred to special bodies of merchants or others holding official positions. In 1631 a complaint regarding interlopers in Canada was referred to a committee of three, Sir William Becher, clerk of the Council; Serj. (Wm.) Berkeley, afterward governor of Virginia, and Edward Nicholas, afterward clerk of the Council, and a new committee in which Sir William Alexander and Robert Charlton took the place of Becher and Nicholas was appointed in 1632.[21] Berkeley, Alexander, and Charlton were known as the Commissioners for the Gulf and River of Canada and parts adjacent, and were all directly interested in Canadian trade.[22] These committees received references from the Council, summoned witnesses and examined them, and made reports to the Council.
Similarly, the dispute between Va.s.sall and Kingswell was referred on March 10, 1635, to Edward Nicholas and Sir Abraham Dawes for examination and report, and because it was an intricate matter, consumed considerable time and required a second report.[23] Again a case regarding the Virginia tobacco trade was referred to the body known as the "Commissioners of Tobacco to the Lords of the Privy Council,"
appointed as early as 1634 and itself a subcommittee having to do with tobacco licenses, customs, and trade. The members were Lord Goring, Sir Abraham Dawes, John Jacob, and Edmund Peisley. The first specific references to "subcommittees," _eo nomine_, are of date May 23, May 25, and June 27, 1638. The last named reference mentions the receipt by the Privy Council of a "certificate" or report from Sir John Wolstenholme and Sir Abraham Dawes "unto whom their lordships had formerly referred the hearing and examining of complaints by John Michael in the Laconia case."[24] As the earlier reference of May 23 had to do with the estate of Sir Thomas Gates and that of May 25 to a Virginia matter, it is evident that this particular subcommittee had been appointed some time before May 23, 1638, and that the only thing new about it was the term "subcommittee" as applied to such a body. This conjecture seems reasonable when we note that Wolstenholme and Dawes had already served on the commission for Virginia and were thoroughly conversant with plantation affairs, while Dawes was also a member of the tobacco commission and had served on the committee in the Kingswell-Va.s.sall case. An examination of later "subcommittees" shows that many of the same men continued to be utilized by the Council in their capacity as experts. Lord Goring, John Jacob, Sir Abraham Dawes, with Sir William Becher and Edward Nicholas, clerks of the Council, and Edward Sandys, brother of Sir Edwin Sandys, and a councillor of Virginia under Governor Wyatt, formed the subcommittee to whom, on July 15, was referred the complaint of Samuel Mathews against Governor Harvey. When the same matter was referred again to a subcommittee on October 24, Sir Dudley Carleton, formerly one of the commissioners for Virginia, and Thomas Meautys, clerk of the Council, were subst.i.tuted for Dawes and Nicholas.[25] These committees were instructed "to call the parties before them, to examine the matter, and find out the truth, and then to make certificate to their lordships of the true state of things and their opinion thereof."[26] Similar references continued to be made during the year 1639, on January 4, February 22, March 8,[27] June 12, 16, July 17, 26, 28, August 28, and the evidence seems to show that the committee, though frequently changing its membership, was considered a body sitting regularly and continuously. The certificate of July 9, 1638, in answer to the reference of June 16, was signed by Sir William Becher, Thomas Meautys, Sir Francis Wyatt, and Abraham Williams; that of July 23 by Becher, Dawes, Jacob, and Williams. After August 28 we hear no more of the subcommittee. Whether this is due to a failure of the Register to enter further references and certificates or to the actual cessation of its labors, we cannot say. The committee was always appointed by the Council, and always reported to that body. Frequently its certificates are entered at length in the Register.[28] The pet.i.tion upon which it acted was sometimes sent directly to itself, frequently to the Privy Council, which referred it to the subcommittee, and but rarely to the Commissioners for Foreign Plantations.[29] The committee was limited in its scope to no one colony. It reported on matters in England, New Hampshire, Ma.s.sachusetts, Somers Islands, and Virginia.
It dealt with secular business and ecclesiastical questions, and on one occasion at least was required to examine and approve the instructions issued to a colonial governor.[30] It does not appear ever to have acted except by order of the Privy Council, and was never in any sense of the word a subcommittee of the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, although in reporting to the Council it was reporting to those who composed that commission.[31]
From 1640 to 1642 plantation business was managed by the Privy Council with the aid of occasional committees of its own appointed to consider special questions. The term "subcommittee," as we have seen, does not appear to have been used after 1639,[32] but commissions authorizing experts to make inquiry and report are referred to, and committees of the Council took into consideration questions of trade and the plantations. During the year from July 5, 1642, to June, 1643, no measures relating to the colonies appear to have been taken, for civil war was in full swing. In 1643, Parliament a.s.sumed to itself the functions of King and Council and became the executive head of the kingdom. Among the earliest acts was the appointment of a parliamentary commission of eighteen members, November 24, 1643, authorized to control plantation affairs. At its head was Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, and among its members were Philip, Earl of Pembroke, Edward, Earl of Manchester, William, Viscount Say and Seale, Philip, Lord Wharton, and such well known Puritan commoners as Sir Arthur Haslerigg, John Pym, Sir Harry Vane, Junior, Oliver Cromwell, Samuel Va.s.sall, and others. Four members const.i.tuted a quorum. The powers granted to this commission were extensive, though as far as phraseology goes, less complete than those granted to the commission of 1634. The commissioners were to have "power and authority to provide for, order, and dispose all things which they shall from time to time find most fit and advantageous to the well governing, securing, and strengthening, and preserving" of "all those islands and other plantations, inhabited, planted, or belonging to any of his Majesty's the King of England's subjects." They were authorized to call to their a.s.sistance any inhabitants of the plantations or owners of land in America who might be within twenty miles of their place of meeting; to make use of all records, books, and papers which concerned any of the colonies; to appoint governors and officers for governing the plantations; to remove any of the officials so appointed and to put others in their places; and, when they deemed fit, to a.s.sign as much of their authority and power to such persons as they should deem suitable for better governing and preserving of the plantations from open violence and private disturbance and destruction.
In the exercise of these powers the commissioners never embraced the full opportunity offered to them by their charter. They did appoint one governor, Sir Thomas Warner, governor of the Caribbee Islands.
They granted to the inhabitants of Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport a patent of incorporation and conferred upon the patentees authority "to rule themselves by such form of civil government as by voluntary consent of all or the greater part of them they should find most suitable to their estate or condition.[33] They also endeavored to make a grant of the Narragansett country to Ma.s.sachusetts, at the special request of Ma.s.sachusetts' agents in 1643, but failed, partly because they had no certain authority to grant land and partly because the only clause of their commission which seemed to give such authority required the consent of a majority, and the agents could obtain but nine signatures to the grant. Even these activities on the part of the board lasted but little over a year, and after 1644 the commissioners played a more or less pa.s.sive role. They continued to sit but their only recorded interest in colonial affairs concerned New England. From 1645 to 1648 they became involved in the controversy over the Narragansett country, and in the attempt of Ma.s.sachusetts to thwart her enemies, the Gortonists and the Presbyterians.[34] Whether the commission continued to sit after the execution of the King is uncertain; there are no further references to its existence. That many of its members remained influential in colonial affairs is evident from the fact that at least seven of the commissioners became members of the Council of State, appointed February 13, 1649: Philip, Earl of Pembroke (died 1650); Sir Arthur Haslerigg, Sir Harry Vane, the younger; Oliver Cromwell, Dennis Bond, Miles Corbet, and Cornelius Holland. Haslerigg was a conspicuous leader in colonial as well as other matters during the entire period of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate; Vane became president of the new board of trade created in August, 1650, was at the head of the Committee of the Admiralty, which often had colonial matters referred to it, and served frequently on plantation committees from 1649 to 1659; while Bond, Corbet, and Holland, though never very active, were members of one general and a few special committees that concerned themselves with trade and plantations. Thus the spirit of the Independent wing of the old commission continued to influence the policy of the government in the early years of the Commonwealth period. The Council of State, appointed by act of the Rump Parliament, was given full authority to provide for England's trade at home and abroad and to regulate the affairs of the plantations. Though its membership underwent yearly changes and its composition and members were altered many times before 1660, its policy and machinery of control remained constant except as far as they were affected by the greater power which the Council gained in the face of the growing weakness of Parliament.
[Footnote 1: Privy Council Register, James I, Vol. V, p. 173; repeated p. 618.]
[Footnote 2: P.C.R., Charles I. Vol. V, p. 106.]
[Footnote 3: P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. IX, p. 291.]
[Footnote 4: Cal. State Papers, Colonial, 1574-1660, p. 170, -- 78.]
[Footnote 5: Rymer, Foedera XVII. pp. 410-414.]
[Footnote 6: Public Record Office, Chancery, Crown Dockets, 4, p. 280, June 26, 1622.]
[Footnote 7: P.C.R., James I, Vol. VI, pp. 333, 365-368, July, 1624.]
[Footnote 8: a.n.a.lytical Index to the Series of Records known as Remembrancia preserved among the Archives of the City of London, 1579-1644, p. 526.]
[Footnote 9: Cal. State Papers, Domestic, 1625-1649, pp. 4, 84.]
[Footnote 10: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1625-1649, pp. 225, 522, ---- 19, 20, p. 495.]
[Footnote 11: P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. II, Pt. I, p. 68.]
[Footnote 12: P.C.R., Charles I, Vols. V, p. 10; VI, p. 7; X., p. 3; XII, p. 1; XV, p. 1.]
[Footnote 13: Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1629-1631, p. 526; 1634-1635, pp. 453, 472, 513, 584; 1635, pp. 30, 515, 548, 598; 1635-1636, pp. 44, 231; 1636-1637, p. 402; 1637, pp. 47; 1637-1638, p. 410.
The secretaries' notes will be found as follows: c.o.ke, 1629-1631, pp.
526, 535; Windebank, 1634-1635, pp. 500, 513; 1635, pp. 11-12, 29, 502, 536; 1635-1636, pp. 291-292, 428-429, 551-552; 1636-1637, pp. 402; 1637, p. 47.]
[Footnote 14: Historical MSS. Commission, Report XV. Ma.n.u.scripts of the Duke of Portland, VIII, pp. 2-3.]
[Footnote 15: Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574-1660, pp. 44, 62, 63, 64, 130; Virginia Magazine, VIII, pp. 29, 33-46, 149.]
[Footnote 16: Bradford, pp. 352-355; P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. VIII, pp.
346-347; Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574-1660, p. 158.]
[Footnote 17: P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. IX, p. 1. The order in Council of July 3, 1633, regarding Virginia and Lord Baltimore, is headed "Lords Commissioners for Foreign Plantations." It is evident, however, that this body is not a separate board of commissioners but the Privy Council sitting as a committee of the whole for plantations. The membership does not agree with that of the committee of 1632, that committee did not sit in the Star Chamber, and such a committee could not issue an order which the Privy Council alone could send out. There was no separate commission of this kind in July, 1633, as Tyler, England in America, pp. 122-123 (Amer. Nation Series, IV) seems to think.]
[Footnote 18: Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574-1660, pp. 184, 200, 251, 259.]
[Footnote 19: Cal. State Papers, Col., 1675-1676, -- 193.]
[Footnote 20: P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. X, p. 1; XII, p. 1; XV, p. 1; Cal.
State Papers, Col., 1574-1660, pp. 177, 232.]
[Footnote 21: Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574-1660, pp. 9, 140, 151, 158, 211, 258.]
[Footnote 22: Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574-1600, p. 129.]
[Footnote 23: Cal. State Papers, Col., pp. 197-198, 207.]
[Footnote 24: P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. XV, p. 300.]
[Footnote 25: Virginia Magazine, X, p. 428; XI, p. 46.]
[Footnote 26: P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. XV, p. 508.]