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 Vassall 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-Vassall 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 substituted 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 petition 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, Massachusetts, 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 assumed 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 Vassall, and others. Four members constituted a quorum. The powers granted to this commission were