I. ORGANIZATION AND PERSONNEL OF THE BOARD OF TRADE
Colonial Administration prior to IÔQÔ
The first half of the seventeenth century had been a period of beginnings and experiments in colonial administration. The planters on the continent of America had not been numerous enough nor wealthy enough to invite very serious attention from the British government until after the great Puritan migration was well under way. What little control there was came from the Privy Council; but in 1634, Archbishop Laud was delegated to head a commission for foreign plantations with almost royal powers over political, judicial, and ecclesiastical affairs in the colonies. This commission seems to have been created as a result of the steady Puritan emigration to New England with the object of enforcing the royal will beyond the sea, but it accomplished practically nothing and came to an end when Parliament seized control of the central government. 1
The periods of the Civil War, Commonwealth, and Protectorate produced no new organs of colonial administration; in fact the colonies were left pretty much to their own devices. What control was exer-
1 Andrews, Charles McL. British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622-1675, chap. 1 ; Osgood, Herbert L. American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, vol. iii, chap. 1 ; Egerton, Hugh E. Short History of British Colonial Policy, 74.