coercive and politico-ecclesiastical purpose of the Laud Commission, or
of the partisan policy in the interests of the Puritans that the Warwick
Commission was instructed to carry out. Here we have the first attempt
to establish a legitimate control of commercial and colonial affairs,
and to these instructions may be traced the beginnings of a policy which
had the prosperity and wealth of England exclusively at heart.

Of the history of this board but little has been hitherto known and
its importance has been singularly neglected. It was more than a merely
advisory body, like the later councils and boards of trade, for it had
the power to issue orders of its own. It sat in Whitehall, received
information, papers,[1] and orders from the Council of State, and
reported to that higher authority, which approved or disapproved of
its recommendations. To it the Council instructed traders and others
to refer their petitions, and itself referred numbers of similar papers
that came into its hands.[2] This board took into consideration the
various questions touched upon in its instructions, especially those
concerning fisheries (Greenland), manufactures, navigation, commerce,
trade (with Guinea, Spain, Canary Islands, etc.), the poor, the trading
companies (especially the East India and Guinea companies), the merchant
companies (chiefly of London), and freedom of trade. During the first
year of its existence it was an active body and could say on November
20, 1651, that it had made seven reports to the Council of State and
seven to Parliament, that it had its opinions on six subjects ready
to be reported, and eight other questions under debate.[3] In two
particulars a fuller consideration of its work is desirable.

The Council of Trade devoted a considerable amount of time to regulating
the buying and selling of wool, and to settling the difficulties that
had arisen among the curriers, fellmongers, staplers, and clothiers
of London and elsewhere regarding their trade privileges. Late in the
spring of 1651 petitions and statements of grievance had been sent
both to the Council of Trade and to the Common Council of London by
the "freemen of the city trading in wool," for redress of grievances
practiced by the Society of Staplers. Shortly afterward, May 13,
apparently in answer to the complaint of the freemen of London, the
fellmongers of Coventry petitioned the Council of Trade, begging that
body not to interfere with its ancient