The first instance of the appointment of a committee (1367) has been already quoted. The record for that year mentions that certain persons were elected by the Estates to hold the Parliament, and leave was given to the rest to go home, on account of the harvest.[49] As we have seen, burgesses found a place on the committee. The next Parliament met in June, 1368, and it contained burgesses among its members, but there is no mention of a committee. In March 1368-69, certain persons were again elected to hold Parliament,[50] and the reason for allowing the rest to go home is stated to be the political and economic difficulties of the time. On this occasion burgesses do not appear on the list of the committee, and we have no definite assurance of their presence. In February 1369-70 we know that burgesses were present,[51] and we are told that when Parliament met it did not seem expedient that the whole "communitas" should take part in the business ("universalis communitas ad deliberationem huiusmodi intenderet seu eciam expectaret"), and two committees were appointed--one to deal with general business and the other with matters connected with the administration of justice. At this point it may be well to state the kind of business transacted at these various parliaments. In 1367 financial matters formed the most important portion of the business of Parliament, and we are therefore prepared to find burgesses on the committee. In March 1368-69, when we have no assurance that burgesses were present, the most important item of business was the pacification of the Highlands; but an enactment was made which was of special interest to the burghs, for Lanark and Linlithgow were given places in the Court of the Four Burghs, instead of Berwick and Roxburgh, now held by "our adversaries the English." In 1369, when burgesses were elected to the Committee for Justice, that committee had to deal with a dispute between the town of St. Andrews and the guild of Cupar, while the committee for general business, on which they do not appear, dealt with the question of the king's debts, taxation, police, and the war with England. There is little in all this to give us any guidance as to the origin of committees. The facts, so far, seem equally compatible with the unwillingness of burgesses to attend, of which the nobles had complained in 1366, and with an attempt on the part of the nobles to reduce the burgess element and to monopolize the efficient power of Parliament.