British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622-1675. Charles McLean Andrews

551–552; 1636–1637, pp. 402; 1637, p. 47.

      (14) Historical MSS. Commission, Report XV. Manuscripts of the Duke of Portland, VIII, pp. 2–3.

      (15) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 44, 62, 63, 64, 130; Virginia Magazine, VIII, pp. 29, 33–46, 149.

      (16) Bradford, pp. 352–355; P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. VIII, pp. 346–347; Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, p. 158.

      (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.

      (18) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 184, 200, 251, 259.

      (19) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1675–1676, § 193.

      (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.

      (21) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, pp. 9, 140, 151, 158, 211, 258.

      (22) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1600, p. 129.

      (23) Cal. State Papers, Col., pp. 197–198, 207.

      (24) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. XV, p. 300.

      (25) Virginia Magazine, X, p. 428; XI, p. 46.

      (26) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. XV, p. 508.

      (27) "Att Whitehall, 8th of March, 1638(9)

      Their Lordships do pray and require the subcommittee for foreign plantations to consider of this petition at their next meeting and to make report to their Lordships of their opinion concerning the same.

      Will. Becher."

      (28) P.C.R., Charles I, Vols. XV, p. 343; XVI, pp. 542–543.

      (29) P.C.R., Charles I, Vol. XVI, p. 558; Cal. State Papers, Col., 1574–1660, p. 301.

      (30) Cal. State Papers, Col., 1675–1676, § 190.

      (31) The commissioners frequently formed a majority of those present at a Privy Council meeting. For example, in 1638, the Council wrote a letter to the governor of Virgina. This letter was signed by eleven councillors, of whom eight were members of the Commission. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the different capacities in which Archbishop Laud acted. A series of minutes drawn up by him in 1638 of the subjects upon which he had prepared reports to the King notes the following: concerning the six plantations, grants of offices in reversion, new patent offices and monopolies, the execution of the King's former directions, and trade and commerce. In making these reports Archbishop Laud acted as president of the Council, president of the Commission for Foreign Plantations, president of the committee for Foreign Affairs, High Commission Court, etc.

      (32) The term "subcommittee" is used by petitioners as late as August, 1640 (Cal. Col., 1574–1660, p. 314), but no references and reports of so late a date are to be found in the Calendar or the Register.

      (33) This is, of course, the well-known Williams patent of 1644. Rhode Island, Colonial Records, I, pp. 143–146.

      (34) Osgood, The Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, III, pp. 110–112.