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32 to share £400 a year; William Blathwayt was continued "as a very fit person" to be assistant to the secretary at a yearly salary of £150; and three clerks were employed at £50 a year each. The committee sat in the Council Chamber, Whitehall, attended by the secretary, a messenger, and assistant at £50 a year, the two keepers of the chamber and the underkeeper of council records at two shillings a day each. A plantation office was opened in 1676 in two rooms leased in Scotland Yard at £30 a year, and in 1678 two more were added, doubling the rent, to meet the demands of a growing business. They were altered and equipped for office purposes at a cost of £170, and £20 a year was allowed for an officekeeper and charwoman. By 1677 the salary list reached about £980 a year and the average annual outlay for salaries, rent, stationery, fuel, light, postage, and fees, as the items of usual expense, was about £1145. The committee was quite conscious of the fact that trade and plantation affairs were now administered with better results at a lower cost than formerly, and this seemed to justify the abolition of special boards of paid experts.

It is obvious that semi-annual, and occasional quarterly, changes in the secretaryship were little likely to secure continuity and stability of practice. The Lords of Trade were well aware of this defect when Blathwayt was made assistant. Waiting until he had shown himself fitted for the place, the committee in 1677 expressed satisfaction with his "ability, diligence, and fidelity" and he received £100 a year additional salary as permanent assistant. In a few years the clerks of the council enjoyed the fruits of the secretary's office as a sinecure and Blathwayt's abiding presence made him the chief man of all work. He was a young man of about twenty-six when he began, in the humble position of assistant, the career in the colonial service which, successfully weathering all political vicissitudes, lasted through a generation. He inherited a familiarity and interest in the colonial sphere as a nephew of Thomas Povey, the prominent London merchant, whose political and commercial connections at home and in the colonies were intimate and influential. Southwell remained a force in the colonial