Page:American Historical Review, Vol. 23.djvu/45

Rh to throw the labors of the council upon an active inner group. But after 1675 the committee system was altered. The naming of certain persons to the plantation committee did not at all signify a select and definite membership. The records plainly show that any member of the council was free to attend and take part and that there were very few of a numerous body who did not come to one session at least. This procedure became general and it meant that the whole council had become the one standing committee for all purposes. In 1688 James II. ordered the whole council to be a standing committee for plantations, and in 1694 William III. directed that "Upon summoning Committees all the Lords of the Councell are to have notice". Substitution of the cumbrous whole for its parts seemed to restore the council to its older position of dignity and to silence the repeated charge of government by a secret inner ring, but it detracted from the unity and accountability inherent in small select groups. The quorum of the committee, at first fixed at five, was soon reduced to three to expedite business, and for twenty years the average attendance per session was about six, occasionally running to ten, or even fifteen at one time. There was not merely the danger of an erratic attendance and a fluctuating complexion of opinion from day to day, when everybody's business was likely to be nobody's, but also the danger that, if there were but one committee of the whole council for all purposes, its time and thought would be absorbed by the most striking and exigent needs to the neglect of other matters. Although these imperfections existed, they worked no great injury to the force and leadership in imperial control prior