The Council lasted from 1668 to 1672 and during that time it did nothing, so far as we can discover, either for or against the trade with France. It considered the granting of patents, foreign trade with Piedmont and elsewhere, the export of wool, disputes among the merchant companies, dispensations from the operation of the Navigation Act, and a few matters relating to home industry, particularly as regards abuses in the baize trade. It took into consideration the order in Council of October 23, 1667, permitting the Dutch to send three or more ships yearly for seven years to trade from Holland to New York, and reported so strongly against it that the Privy Council revoked the order.[40] More important still, it took up the whole question of the operation of the navigation acts in the colonies, called upon the merchants and the farmers of the customs for information, and made a careful report to the Privy Council, which the latter, on January 20,1669, embodied in the following order:
"His Ma^{ tie} this day taking into consideration the great importance the Trade of his severall plantations is to his Ma^{ tie} & his Kingdome, and being informed that severall Governments of the s^{ d} Plantations have been wanting to their duty in the following particulars, viz:
1. That Governors have not taken the oath enjoined by law,
2. That shipps have been permitted to trade to and from the Plantations not qualified according to law,
3. That there has been omission in taking Bond and Security and returning those Bonds according as directed by the severall Acts of Parliament.
For redresse it is ordered, that the Farmers of the Customs do and are hereby required (at their owne charge) to send over and make choice of upon the place & from time to time commissionate & maynteyne one or more persons in each Plantation (whom his Ma^{ tie} shall approve & authorize) to administer the usual oaths to the severall Governors, that no vessels be admitted to trade there till said officer has the perusal of the passes and certificates and certifies that they may trade there, and that no Bond or security be admitted without the allowance of said officer,
That letters be written to all said Governors to take said oaths before said officer and also to give them countenance and assistance,