nd determine all manner of complaints from the colonies;
to have power over all charters and patents, and to revoke those
surreptitiously or unduly obtained. Such powers clearly show that the
commission was designed as an instrument for enforcing the royal will
in the colonies, and furnishes no precedent for the later councils and
boards of trade and foreign plantations. Called into being probably
because of the continued emigration of Puritans to New England, the
complaints against the Massachusetts charter, and the growth of
Independency in that colony, it was in origin a coercive, not an
inquisitory, body, in the same class with the courts of Star Chamber and
High Commission, and the Councils of Wales and the North. Unlike these
bodies, it proved practically impotent, and there is nothing to show
that it took any active part in the attempt to repeal the Massachusetts
charter or in any important particular exercised the powers granted
to it. It did not remove or appoint a governor, establish a court, or
grant or revoke a charter. It received petitions either directly or
from the Privy Council and made recommendations, but it never attempted
to establish uniformity in New England or to bring the New England
colonies more directly under the authority of the Crown. Whether it was
the failure of the attempt to vacate the Massachusetts charter, or the
poverty of the King, or the approach of civil war that prevented the
enforcement of the royal policy, we cannot say, but the fact remains
that the Laud commission played a comparatively inconspicuous part
during the seven years of its existence and has gained a prominence in
the history of our subject out of all proportion to its importance.

More directly connected with the commercial and colonial interests of
the realm were the subcommittees which the Privy Council used during
these years and earlier as advisory and inquisitory bodies. In addition
to committees of its own, the Privy Council called on various outside
persons known to be familiar with the circumstances of a particular
case or experts in the general subject involved, and entrusted to
them the consideration of important matters that had been called to its
attention. As we have already seen, such a subcommittee on trade had
been appointed in 1625, and after 1630 we meet with many references to
individuals or groups of experts. The attorney general was called upon
to examine complaints regarding New England and Ma