Page:American Historical Review, Vol. 23.djvu/50

40 The incapacities of imperial administration were keenly discussed within and without the doors of Parliament. There was hardly a session of the legislature in which the miscarriages of the navy and the losses of the merchants were not the subjects of loud complaint. The House of Commons, smarting under the severe injuries to the economic and maritime interests of the nation and incited to action by the influence of the merchants, closely examined into the whole matter, and, as Bishop Burnet records, "when all the errors, with relation to the protection of our trade, were set out and much aggravated, a motion was made to create by act of parliament, a council of trade". On December 12, 1695, the very day on which this decision was reached, the king countered it by announcing his purpose to establish by royal authority a council composed of "some of the Greatest Quality, and others of Lesser Rank, and acquainted with trade". Thus was the constitutional issue joined. The attempt of the Commons to erect a council,, not only drawn from the legislature but clothed by it with powers of administration, raised the significant question, "how far the government should continue on its ancient bottom of monarchy, as to the executive part, or how far it should turn to a commonwealth". Embraced in the movement were the efforts of the unprivileged merchants, persisting through many years, to break down the political and commercial dominance of the monopolistic London companies in favor of a more open trade and free ports. Bristol and the outports, unconcerned by what authority a council was established, royal or parliamentary, worked to secure one so modelled that it should be representative and non-partizan as well as expert.