t no Order of Councill be henceforth any time
issued out by the Clerks of the Councill till the same have been
first perused by the Reporter of each Committee respectively.[32]

There is very little evidence to show that the Committee of the Council
for Trade and Plantations played any very conspicuous part in regulating
either trade or plantations during the years from 1668 to 1675, though
a number of petitions were referred to it. Its most important report
was that recommending the restoration of the province of Maine to the
grandson of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, but even that matter was taken out
of its hands by the further reference of the Gorges' petition to the
Committee for Foreign Affairs. In 1668, it dealt with the restitution
of Surinam to the Dutch and the settlement of Lord Willoughby's claims;
with relief for Barbadoes after the disastrous fire which destroyed
St. Michaels in April of that year; with the equipment of Sir Tobias
Bridges' regiment in the same island; and with the liberty granted to
certain Dutch ships of trading to New York despite the Navigation Act.
In 1669, it considered a few petitions and reported on Gorges' memorial.
After 1670 it did little, as far as actual evidence of its activity is
concerned, but it is entirely clear that it had to transact a great deal
more business than is recorded either in the Register or in the Colonial
Papers.[33] Many of the questions that were referred to the Select
Council of Trade and the Select Council of Trade and Plantations were
first passed upon by this committee or were referred to it after the
report from the separate body had come in. Furthermore, we know that
in the case of this committee, as of similar committees of the Privy
Council after 1696, many questions were never allowed to pass out of its
hands, except as they were reported to the Council itself. Though not
conspicuous, it was potentially active and quite ready in 1675 to take
up the burden of colonial control that the King placed upon it.[34]

Even before it had begun the reorganization of its committee system, the
Privy Council made known its decision to revive the system of separate
and select councils which had probably been in abeyance since 1665.
On September 23, 1667, it ordered its Committee for Trade and Foreign
Plantations to take into consideration the advisability of revoking
the commissions of the two councils of 1660,--which councils must,
therefore, have been deemed