y one from whom information might
be extracted. The main work was performed by the subcommittees, their
reports were reviewed by the committee itself, and, if approved, were
sent to the Council of State, which based upon them recommendations to
Parliament.[23] After April 15, 1653, we hear no more of this committee.
There is some reason to think that the duties entrusted to it were
deemed too extensive and a division between trade, plantations, and
foreign affairs was planned, but no definite record of such a separation
of functions is to be found. A Council Committee of Foreign Affairs was
appointed, probably before June, 1653, reappointed on July 27, and again
reappointed August 16, but no committees of trade and of plantations
appear. Very likely the Council of State, with the assistance of the
committees on Scottish and Irish affairs, admiralty, navy, and customs,
and a few special committees and commissioners, assumed control of
plantation affairs. The interests of industry and trade may have been
looked after by the Committee on Trade and Corporations appointed by the
Barebones Parliament, July 20, 1653, "to meet at Whitehall in the place
where the Council of Trade did sit."[24] Several times during the year
this committee proposed the establishment of a separate council of trade
to take the place of the former Council, to which proposition Parliament
agreed, but nothing was done, and the Parliamentary Committee of Trade
and Corporations seems to have been the only official body that existed
during the year 1653 for the advancement of trade and industry.[25]

On December 29, 1653, the Protector's Council made known its purpose
of taking "all care to protect and encourage navigation and trade,"
and in March, 1654, we meet with a reference to a committee of the
Council appointed for trade and corporations. As this body was organized
for continuous sitting, with a clerk, doorkeeper, and messenger, and
as a second reference to it appears under date August 21, 1654, the
probabilities are in favor of its existence as a regular committee
during the year 1654.[26] That it was an important committee is
doubtful, for we meet with practically no references to its work, and
when in January, 1655, the project of a select trade committee was
brought forward it was referred for consideration and report, not to
this committee, but to Desborough of the Council and the Admiralty
Committee.

The events of the years 1654 and 1655 ma