ne plantations.

12. You are to consider how
the transportation of such
things may be best restreined
and prevented, as are either
forbiddenby the Lawe,
or may be inconvenient,
or of disadvantage by being
transported out of these our
Kingdomes and dominions.[10]

The councils thus commissioned and instructed soon met for organization
and business, the Council for Plantations holding its preliminary
session December 10, 1660, in the Star Chamber, and all remaining
meetings in the Inner Court of Wards; the Council for Trade meeting,
first, in Mercer's Hall, near Old Jewry, afterwards in certain rooms in
Whitehall, still later in a rented house which was consumed in the great
fire, and, after 1667, in Exeter House, Strand. Philip Frowde became the
clerical secretary of the Plantation Council and George Duke secretary
of the Council of Trade, a position that he seems to have lost in 1663
but to have resumed again before 1667. The meetings were attended
chiefly by the non-conciliar members, for it was usually the rule that
privy councillors were to be present only when some special business
required their cooeperation. Both councils were organized in much the
same manner, with a number, at least seven, of inferior officers,
clerks, messengers, and servants, and in both cases journals of
proceedings and entry books containing copies of documents, patents,
charters, petitions, and reports were kept.[11] Whether minutes were
taken of the meetings of the subcommittees is doubtful; no such papers
have anywhere been found.

The Council for Plantations had a continuous existence from December 10,
1660, when the preliminary meeting was held, probably until the spring
of 1665, though August 24, 1664, is the date of its last recorded
sitting. During that time it shared in the extraordinary activity which
characterized the early years of the Restoration and represents, as far
as such activity can represent any one person, the enthusiasm of the
Earl of Clarendon. There was not an important phase of colonial life and
government, not a colonial claim or dispute, that was n