ne." In October of that year, possibly through Noell's influence, he
became a member of the committee for America, and from that time was
a conspicuous leader among those interested in plantation affairs.
As chairman and secretary of the committee, he took a prominent part
in all correspondence, and was familiar with the chief men in all the
colonies. He exchanged letters with Searle, of Barbadoes, D'Oyley,
of Jamaica, Temple, of Nova Scotia, Digges, at one time governor of
Virginia, Russell, of Nevis, Major Byam, of Surinam, Col. Osborn, of
Montserrat, General Brayne, in command of one of the expeditions to
Jamaica, and particularly with Lord Willoughby of Parham, with whom he
stood on terms of intimate friendship and over whose policy he exercised
considerable control. He was proposed at this time as agent in London
for Virginia, but the suggestion does not appear to have been acted on.
His brother Richard was commissary of musters and major of militia in
Jamaica, and his brother William, the black sheep of the family, who
had married a wife far too good for him, as Povey once wrote her, was
provost marshal in Barbadoes and in charge of Noell's interests there,
bringing that merchant nothing but "discontent and damage," and causing
Thomas Povey a great deal of trouble and expense. The colonial
appointments of these brothers were obtained entirely through the
influence of Noell and Povey in England. The disordered and uncertain
political situation in England in 1659 and the unsettled state of
affairs in both Jamaica and Barbadoes at the same time cost Povey great
anxiety and a part of his own and his wife's fortune, and he echoed
the complaint, widespread at the time, of the decay of trade and the
insecurity of all commercial ventures. We may not doubt that Povey,
as well as Noell, was ready to welcome the return of the King.[2]

Though Noell and Povey were intimate friends and had been engaged in
common trading enterprises for a number of years, we have no definite
knowledge of their earlier undertakings, beyond the fact that with Capt.
Watts and Capt. Aldherne, whom Povey met by accident at Noell's house,
they were particularly concerned in developing the Barbadoes and Jamaica
trade. In the years 1657 and 1658, when Noell was "swol'n into a much
greater person by being a farmer of the customs and excise," we meet
with two enterprises, one for a West India Company, promoted by Lord
Willoughby, Noell, Povey, and Watts,