d meet
for the advantage of the community. Their earliest business concerned
itself with Jamaica, its revenues, finances, expenses of expeditions
thither, arrears due the officers and soldiers, their wives and
assignees, individual claims, want of ministers, and other similar
questions. But as addresses came in from other colonies the scope of
their activity was broadened until it included at one time or another
nearly all the American colonies. The committee reported on the
constitution, governing powers, fortifications, militia of Somers
Islands (Bermudas) and on the fitness of Sayle to be governor there;
on the controversy between Virginia and Maryland and on the organization
and government of the former colony; on the petition of the Long
Islanders and others in New England, and on complaints against
Massachusetts Bay; on the revenue, government, and admiralty system
of Barbadoes; on questions of governor and arrears of salary in
Nevis and Tortugas; on the desirability of continuing the plantation
in Newfoundland; and lastly on the important subject of ship insurance,
upon which Capt. Limbrey presented a very remarkable paper.[41] These
reports were sent sometimes to the Protector, sometimes to the Council
of State, and sometimes to the committee of the Council on the affairs
of America. While the latter committee, under the name of "Committee for
Foreign Plantations" continued until the return of the King, the select
committee for America does not appear to have lasted as a whole after
the final dissolution of the Rump Parliament, March 16, 1660. Thomas
Povey alone seems to have been the committee from March to May, and on
April 9 and May 11 made two reports on matters referred to him by the
Council committee regarding Jamaica and Newfoundland. As Charles II had
been recalled to his own in England before the last report was sent in,
the machinery created under Cromwell for the plantations remained in
existence after the government set up by him had passed away.[42]

Any account of the system appointed for the control of trade and
plantations during the Interregnum is bound to be something of a tangle,
not because the system itself was a complicated one, but because its
simplicity is clouded by a bewildering mass of details. Occasional
committees of Parliament, the Council as a board of trade and
plantations, committees of the Council, and select councils and
committees do not form a very confusing body of material