Catalogue description Privy Council Office: Plantation Books

This series contains volumes, sometimes called 'Plantation Registers' which comprise copies (apparently made more or less contemporaneously with the originals) of colonial acts, and forms of confirmation; charters; commissions; instructions, orders and letters issued to governors and others administering colonial governments; orders in Council; warrants for the appointment of colonial councillors, for letters patent under the Great Seal, for letters of marque, and for grants and surrenders of offices.

The entries of colonial acts show in some detail the stages followed in the Council or its committees in the preparation of colonial legislation.

All but one of the volumes are indexed.

For records of the early Privy Council committees concerned with trade and the colonies, see Colonial Office, Division within CO

Volumes for the period 14 May 1755 to 17 November 1767 are missing.

These volumes were among the sources used by the editor of the Acts of the Privy Council of England, Colonial Series (HMSO, 1908-1912).