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 circumstances 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 Massachusetts 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 petitions embodying their grievances. On December 19, 1632, the Council listened to the reading of these petitions 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 assistance 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 "principal 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 petitioner 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, Coke and Windebank. Later the Earl of Sterling was added.20 Five constituted 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 surreptitiously 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 Massachusetts charter, and the growth of Independency in that colony, it was in origin a coercive, not an inquisitory, body, in the same class 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 Massachusetts 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 petitions 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 Massachusetts 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 circumstances 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