The Committees for _scandalous_ ministers had early in 1643 been followed by a Committee for _plundered_ ministers, that title being used to designate clergymen who had been ejected from their livings by the Royal army. The Committee for plundered ministers provided them with relief; and the instruction given to this body directed their attention to malignant clergymen, holding benefices in and about town, whose benefices after being sequestered might be appropriated to ministers of a different character. As the plundered were thus put in the place of the scandalous, the Committee for the plundered took cognizance of what had previously been submitted to the Committee for the scandalous. In July they received power to consider cases of scandal apart from charges of malignity, and to dismiss those whose characters would not bear examination. On the 6th of September the Commons ordered the Deputy-Lieutenants and the Committees of Parliament, or any five or more of their number, to take the examinations of witnesses against any ministers who were scandalous in life or doctrine, and also against any who had of late deserted their cures or assisted the forces raised against Parliament.[483] [Sidenote: 1643.] This order, upon being examined, shews that subordinate authorities were appointed to co-operate with the superior one--that they were commissioned to discharge magisterial functions in the provinces by collecting evidence, which they were required to transmit to the Committee sitting in London. It is also obvious that this parent Committee itself stood in the same relation to Parliament as other Committees, and that its business was to communicate information to the House, not to exercise any independent control. A very notable puritan phenomenon is this often-vilified body, with its manifold provincial ramifications. Persons may fairly object to Parliament men being invested with such ecclesiastical powers, and they may also consistently complain of the innovations made by such an arrangement upon the ancient ecclesiastical system of England; but nobody can charge this Committee with setting to work in an unbusiness-like manner, or with acting in an arbitrary and impulsive way. No sinecurists--anything but idle--toiling day by day, and that for several hours together, they did their work from beginning to end by line and rule. No committee ever proceeded with more order and with greater regularity. They had definite principles of action, and they carefully followed them. The minutes which they kept, with the signatures of the chairmen, are still extant,[484] and speak for themselves. Therein we see how one day they resolved to report to the House the conclusions at which they had arrived, and the course which they recommended to be pursued; and how, another day, they finally declared what should be done "by virtue of an order of both Houses."