sat for two years and
made an elaborate report to the Privy Council on June 9, 1640.[14]

Though committees for trade, ordnance, foreign affairs, and Ireland
had a more or less continuous existence during the period after 1630,
no similar committee for plantations was created during this decade.
Temporary commissions and committees of the Council had been, however,
frequently appointed. In 1623 and 1624 several sets of commissioners for
Virginia were named "to inquire into the true state of Virginia and the
Somers Islands plantations," "to resolve upon the well settling of the
colony of Virginia," "and to advise on a fit patent for the Virginia
Company." In 1631 a commission of twenty-three persons, of whom four
constituted a quorum, was created, partly from within and partly from
without the Privy Council, "to advise upon some course for establishing
the advancement of the plantations of Virginia."[15] Similar commissions
were appointed to meet special exigencies in the careers of other
plantations, Somers Islands, Caribbee Islands, etc. In 1632, we meet
with a committee forming the first committee of the Council appointed
for the plantations, quite distinct in functions and membership
from the committee for trade and somewhat broader in scope than the
commissions mentioned above. The circumstances of its appointment were
these: In the year 1632 complaints began to come in to the Privy Council
regarding the conduct of the colony of Massachusetts Bay. Thomas Morton
and Philip Ratcliffe had been banished from that colony and sent back
to England. Sir Christopher Gardiner, also, after a period of troubled
relations with the authorities there, had taken ship for England. These
men, acting in conjunction with Gorges and Mason, whose claims had
already been before the Council, presented petitions embodying their
grievances. On December 19, 1632, the Council listened to the reading
of these petitions and to the presentation of a "relation" drawn up by
Gardiner. After long debate "upon the whole carriage of the plantation
of that country," it appointed a committee of twelve members, called the
Committee on the New England Plantations, with the Archbishop of York at
its head, "to examine how the patents for the said plantations have been
granted." This committee had power to call "to their assistance such
other persons as they shall think fit," "to examine the truth of the
aforesaid information or any other information as shall