Trade and Plantations was revived and ordered to meet as before. 4 Under this 
ruler the Committee tended to become a committee of the whole Council; in 
January, 1687/8, it was ordered that the whole Council be a standing Committee 
for Trade and Plantations. 5 Following the deposition of the last Stuart, 
a Committee for Trade and Foreign Plantations was appointed, in February, 
1688/9, consisting of twelve members. 6 The Committee as thus constituted 
continued to function until replaced in 1696 by the Board of Trade and the 
Committee for Hearing Appeals from the Plantations. But it must not be forgotten 
that all these committees were conciliar derivatives —their decisions 
gained force only through Orders in Council issued by the Council Board itself. 
Although we are primarily concerned with the judicial function of the 
Lords Committee during this period, the limits of our interest should not 
obscure the inclusiveness of the Committee jurisdiction in colonial administration. 
In addition to handling appeals from various colonies, the Committee 
reviewed colonial legislation, although such review process did not attain the 
importance and the frequency that marked eighteenth-century review. Complaints 
were entertained against the actions of colonial officials. Commissions 
and instructions were drawn up for issuance to colonial executives. Correspondence 
was maintained with the colonies, and information relating thereto 
assembled. The Lords Committee was instrumental in the execution of various 
governmental policies, such as the extension of royal control to chartered 
colonies. It also participated in the administration of acts of Parliament extending 
to the colonies, viz., the Acts of Trade. It passed upon foreign treaties, 
especially clauses relating to trade. Complaints of depredations by foreign 
privateers and applications for maritime passes were handled by it. In the 
domestic field, the Lords Committee considered such matters as coinage, tolls, 
fires, lighthouses, and the affairs of companies such as the weavers. The fisheries 
were another prominent object of the Committee's attention. 7 
It should not be thought that the Lords Committee operated entirely alone 
in this extensive field of trade and colonial administration. In some cases the 
Privy Council did not rely upon the Committee, but acted without or regardless 
of previous Committee consideration. The secretaries of state acted as 
4PC 2/71/17 (February 20, 1684/5). It appears 
that only twelve members o£ the Committee 
under Charles were members of the 
Privy Council appointed by James II on February 
18, 1684/5; see 5 APC, Col, pp. 647-49. 
5 PC 2/72/585. On July 23, 1686, the Committee 
had forty-one members (Bieber, op. cit., 
26, note); the same number were enumerated 
as a standing committee in the January, 
1687/8, Order in Council. 
6 PC 2/73/8. Of the original twelve members, 
eight had been on the Committee at some previous 
period; five of the six subsequently appointed 
had never attended before. Bieber, op. 
cit., 27, note. 
7 For some discussion of the scope of Committee 
action see 1 Osgood, The American 
Colonies in the Eighteenth Century (1924), 
116 et seq.; Bieber, op. cit., c. v.