in a report regarding the proposed
establishment of a registry office, and the other in the form of an
endorsement upon a letter from Lord Willoughby which says: "Ref^{d} to
the Council, Feb. 24," that is February 24, 1665. It seems probable,
therefore, that the Council was sitting as late as February-March
of that year.[15] Probably its meetings were broken up by the plague
which started in London about that time, in the westernmost parish,
St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and lasted until the end of October. Whether
the Council resumed its sessions after the plague had subsided it is
almost impossible to say. No definite record exists of its meetings or
work. Some of its members had died, Sir Martin Noell in October, 1665,
and Sir Nicholas Crispe the next year; others had left England, Lord
Willoughby, Capts. Watts and Kendall, and possibly Sir James Draxe;
while others had accepted posts that took them away from London, as in
the case of Capt. Middleton, who became commissioner of the navy at
Portsmouth. Certainly Povey could have had very little to do with the
affairs of a council in London in 1664-1666, when as surveyor-general of
the victualling department he was required to be frequently at Plymouth
and to spend a considerable amount of time travelling about England.[16]
Yet there is nothing to show that its commission was revoked, and
an order of the Privy Council, September 23, 1667, to which further
reference will be made below, reads as if the Council were in existence
at that time. If so, it must have been merely a nominal body.

After 1665, and until 1670, plantation affairs seem to have been
controlled entirely by the Privy Council and its committees, which
proved themselves capable and vigorous bodies. Before 1666, besides
the Committee for Foreign Plantations, which has already been noticed,
other committees were appointed as occasion arose,--committees for
Jamaica, for Jamaica and Algiers, for the Guinea trade, for the Royal
Company, for fishing in Newfoundland, for Jersey and Guernsey, and
for New England. Committees for Trade and for hearing appeals from
the Plantations also existed. On December 7, 1666, after the plague
had subsided and the great fire had spent itself, the Privy Council
reappointed its plantation committee, which now entered upon a career of
greatly increased activity.[17] At the same time the Council made use of
its other committees, particularly the "Committee for the Affaires of
New Engla