Commissioners of Trade and Plantations

Manuscript volume containing a report [to the House of Lords] by the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, 16 Dec 1703, on the state of trade.

In 1695 William III appointed a new Committee of the Privy Council by the name of 'the Lords Commissioners for promoting the Trade of our Kingdom and for inspecting and improving our plantations in America and elsewhere'. The main concern of these 'Lords of Trade' was the American colonies, and following the American War of Independence they were abolished (1782), their responsibilities being assumed by the Privy Council and the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

Single item.

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Part of the Goldsmith's Library of Economic Literature, initially collected by Herbert Somerton Foxwell and presented by the Goldsmith's Company to the University of London in 1903.

Collection level description.

Manuscript folio. Bound in half-morocco.

Compiled by Sarah Smith as part of the RSLP AIM25 Project.

Copies may be made, subject to the condition of the original. Copying must be undertaken by the Palaeography Room staff, who will need a minimum of 24 hours to process requests.

The manuscript is stamped 'W Sotheran and Co, 196 Strand, London'. It was bought by Herbert Somerton Foxwell from Puttick in 1892.

University of London MS 159 is a copy minute book of a later incarnation of the Committee on Trade and Plantations, 1823-1827.

Mainly printed in Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts Number 17, 14th Rep . VI, House of Lords.