Page:American Historical Review, Vol. 23.djvu/31

Rh of empire, it worked as a unit with a good measure of efficiency and responsibility. In Stuart days the increased membership, averaging thirty-five under the earlier and forty-five under the later kings, made the council an unwieldy body at a time when it was subjected to the pressure of an expanding business. To meet this situation, to insure care and despatch in the transaction of affairs, the committee system was adopted. A division of labor was even more necessary in the Restoration era to enable the council to keep pace and cope with the manifold problems and interests brought into play by the rapid and striking expansion of empire. In May, 1660, within two months after his return from exile, Charles II. appointed a "Committee for Foreign Plantations" to deal with exigent colonial questions, and such a committee continued to be one of the important standing divisions of the council. Also from time to time temporary committees were named to handle oversea problems of special note and difficulty. These committees were charged with the duties of originating, hearing, planning, deciding, and reporting to the king and council for final action.

This arrangement involved the grave danger that the council's circle of interests, filled with the numerous and undifferentiated concerns of domestic, foreign, and imperial issues, would prove altogether too vast and complex to permit a full and intelligent conduct of all. The danger was rooted in the very nature of the pre-Restoration period, when the conflict of rival groups distracted the state and left the ruling authorities little time available for imperial guidance. During the confusion of the Puritan experiments in government the administration of colonies and commerce was conducted in a cumbersome. indifferent, and amateur manner.