on. That it came to an end in May seems to be borne out
by the fact that the officers of the board were paid only to May 27, but
this statement is rendered uncertain by the further fact that on June 26
Portsmouth petitioned the committee to be made a free port and that the
petition was brought in by one of the members of the committee for
America, Capt. Limbrey.[35] The question cannot be exactly settled.
Though the committee was by no means a nominal body, it accomplished
little, and certainly did not meet the situation that confronted the
trade and navigation of the kingdom.

After the appointment of this select Trade Committee, no standing
committee of the Council was created. Questions of trade were looked
after either by the Council itself, that of May, 1659, being especially
instructed to "advance trade and promote the good of our foreign
plantations and to encourage fishing,"[36] by an occasional special
committee, by the Trade Committee until the summer of 1657, or by the
committees of Parliament. Of Parliamentary committees there were two:
one a select committee of fifty members, appointed October 20, 1656, to
which were added all the merchants of the House and all members that
served for the port towns;[37] and a grand committee of the whole House
for trade, appointed February 2, 1658, which sat weekly and was invested
with the same powers as the committee of 1656 had had.[38] But except
that the first committee adopted some of the recommendations of the
Trade Committee, there is nothing to show that these committees took any
prominent part in the advancement of the interest in behalf of which
they had been created.

From 1654 to 1660 the welfare of the plantations lay chiefly in the
hands of the Protector's Council and the Council of State, and their
system of control was in many respects similar to that which had been
adopted during the earlier period of the Interregnum. At first all
plantation questions were referred to committees of the Council
appointed temporarily to consider some particular matter. From December
29, 1653, to the close of the year 1659 some fifty cases were referred
to about thirty committees, of which twenty were appointed for the
special purpose in hand. Many matters were referred to such standing
committees as the Admiralty Committee, Customs Committee, etc.; others
to the judges of admiralty, commissioners of customs, and the like,
while petitions and communications regarding affair