II 
THE LORDS COMMITTEE OF 
TRADE AND PLANTATIONS 
During the long stretch of years from March, 1674/5, to April, 1696, the 
Lords Committee of Trade and Plantations established its authority over 
colonial causes brought to the Privy Council on appeal, and in so doing fixed 
the foundations upon which the eighteenth-century system was erected. This 
was a formative period, during which it was sought to adapt old precedents 
to a nearly new situation of some complexity—both legally and politically. We 
propose to consider the problems of these two decades in the following order. 
In the first place, we shall describe the constitution of the Lords Committee 
and the scope of its jurisdiction; secondly, we shall examine how appellate 
jurisdiction over the chartered colonies was asserted and how the companion 
policy with regard to the institution and regulation of appeals from the royal 
provinces was launched. We shall next give some account of established conciliar 
procedure for Jersey and Guernsey appeals at the date when the hearing 
of colonial and Channel Islands appeals was merged into the same body. And 
finally we shall describe and analyze the procedure evolved for colonial appeals 
upon the analogy of the Channel Islands experience. 
The March 12, 1674/5, Order in Council committed to the Committee of 
Trade and Foreign Plantations all matters under the cognizance of the late 
Council of Trade and Foreign Plantations. 1 This new committee had twentyone 
members, but nine thereof were directed to have immediate care of matters 
as "formerly conversant and acquainted therewith." Changes consequent 
upon administrative reform or succession of rulers before 1696 had no important 
effect upon the constitution or the functions of this Committee. From 
the 1679 reorganization of the Privy Council there emerged a Committee for 
Trade and Plantations, which still consisted of twenty-two members. 2 During 
the remaining years of the reign of Charles II eleven other persons were 
named to the Committee. 3 After the accession of James II the Committee for 
1 3 Doc. Rel. Col. Hist. N.Y., 229-30. We have 
already noted (supra, p. 68) that cognizance 
of appeals in general was not committed to the 
late Council. 
2 1 APC, Col., p. 819; cj. supra, p. 65. No 
great change in Committee personnel was 
effected by the attempted reform; see R. P. 
Bieber, The Lords of Trade and Plantations, 
1675-96 (1919), 25. 
3 1 APC, Col, p. 820; 2 ibid., #1, 170. Five 
of these later appointees had been members of 
the earlier Committee (Bieber, op. cit., 25).