An important departure was introduced on December 17, 1651, when a standing committee of the Council was created, consisting of fifteen members, to concern itself with trade and foreign affairs. This committee took the place of that which had formerly sat in the Horse Chamber in Whitehall, and renewed consideration of all questions which had been referred to that body. It was organized, as were all the Council committees, with its own clerk, doorkeeper, and messenger, and as recommissioned on May 4, 1652, and again on December 2, 1652, when the membership was raised to twenty-one and the plantations were brought within the scope of its business, became a very independent and active body until its demise in April, 1653. Its members were Cromwell, Lords Whitelocke, Bradshaw, and Lisle, Sir Arthur Haslerigg, Sir Harry Vane, Sir William Masham, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Colonels Walton, Purefoy, Morley, Sidney, and Thomson, Major Lister, Messrs. Bond, Scott, Love, Challoner, Strickland, Gurdon, and Alleyn.[21] This committee, to which new members were frequently added, sat in the Horse Chamber at Whitehall and took cognizance of a great variety of commercial and colonial business. It considered the question of free trade versus monopolies and during the summer of 1652, after the Council of Trade had fallen into disfavor, debated at length the desirability of opening the Turkey trade as freely to adventurers as was that of Portugal and Spain. It listened to a number of forcible papers presented in the interest of free trade in opposition to trade in the hands of companies; it dealt with the operation of the Navigation Act of 1651 and rendered decisions regarding penalties, exemptions, licenses, and the disposal of prizes and prize goods; it devoted a large amount of time to plantation business; and, for the time being, probably supplanted consideration of these matters by the Council of State, and rendered unnecessary the appointment of any other committee on colonial affairs. Except for the Admiralty Committee and one or two other committees to which special matters were referred, as concerning Newfoundland, there appears to have been no other subordinate body actually in charge of affairs in America between December 17, 1651, and April 15, 1653. The period was an important and critical one, and the committee must have had before it business connected with nearly every one of the colonies in America. The Council of State referred to it petitions, etc., from and relating to Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Haven, Rhode Island, Newfoundland, Maryland and Virginia, Barbadoes, Nevis, Providence Island, and the Caribbee Islands in general. It dealt with the proposed attack on the Dutch at New Amsterdam, losses of merchant ships, privateer's commissions and letters of marque; the Greenland and Newfoundland fisheries, naval stores, and land disputes. It drafted bills and governors' commissions, considered vacancies in the colonies, and received applications for office, and, in one case, promoted the founding of a plantation in South America.[22] This business was performed to a considerable extent through subcommittees, many of which met in the little Horse Chamber and acted in all particulars as regular committees. On one occasion, the entire committee was appointed a subcommittee, and very frequently the committee met for no other purpose than to hear the report of a subcommittee. These subcommittees, which were generally composed of councillors, referred matters to outside persons, merchants, judges, and doctors of civil law, while the committee itself called before it merchants, officials, members of other committees, and indeed any one from whom information might be extracted. The main work was performed by the subcommittees, their reports were reviewed by the committee itself, and, if approved, were sent to the Council of State, which based upon them recommendations to Parliament.[23] After April 15, 1653, we hear no more of this committee. There is some reason to think that the duties entrusted to it were deemed too extensive and a division between trade, plantations, and foreign affairs was planned, but no definite record of such a separation of functions is to be found. A Council Committee of Foreign Affairs was appointed, probably before June, 1653, reappointed on July 27, and again reappointed August 16, but no committees of trade and of plantations appear. Very likely the Council of State, with the assistance of the committees on Scottish and Irish affairs, admiralty, navy, and customs, and a few special committees and commissioners, assumed control of plantation affairs.