and was never in any sense of
the word a subcommittee of the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations,
although in reporting to the Council it was reporting to those who
composed that commission.[31]

From 1640 to 1642 plantation business was managed by the Privy Council
with the aid of occasional committees of its own appointed to consider
special questions. The term "subcommittee," as we have seen, does not
appear to have been used after 1639,[32] but commissions authorizing
experts to make inquiry and report are referred to, and committees
of the Council took into consideration questions of trade and the
plantations. During the year from July 5, 1642, to June, 1643, no
measures relating to the colonies appear to have been taken, for
civil war was in full swing. In 1643, Parliament assumed to itself
the functions of King and Council and became the executive head of the
kingdom. Among the earliest acts was the appointment of a parliamentary
commission of eighteen members, November 24, 1643, authorized to control
plantation affairs. At its head was Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick,
and among its members were Philip, Earl of Pembroke, Edward, Earl of
Manchester, William, Viscount Say and Seale, Philip, Lord Wharton, and
such well known Puritan commoners as Sir Arthur Haslerigg, John Pym, Sir
Harry Vane, Junior, Oliver Cromwell, Samuel Vassall, and others. Four
members constituted a quorum. The powers granted to this commission were
extensive, though as far as phraseology goes, less complete than those
granted to the commission of 1634. The commissioners were to have "power
and authority to provide for, order, and dispose all things which they
shall from time to time find most fit and advantageous to the well
governing, securing, and strengthening, and preserving" of "all those
islands and other plantations, inhabited, planted, or belonging to any
of his Majesty's the King of England's subjects." They were authorized
to call to their assistance any inhabitants of the plantations or owners
of land in America who might be within twenty miles of their place of
meeting; to make use of all records, books, and papers which concerned
any of the colonies; to appoint governors and officers for governing
the plantations; to remove any of the officials so appointed and to put
others in their places; and, when they deemed fit, to assign as much of
their authority and power to such persons as they should deem suitable
for better governing an