Buried in the chapter ‘Containing Various Observations about Diamonds’, within his diverse collection of scientific experiments entitled Experimenta et Observationes Physicae (1691), is Robert Boyle's most succinct statement about his interest in English maritime trade. His motivation was knowledge. Given Boyle's desire for information collected by employees of the English East India Company, this chapter attempts to answer the following question. Was there a connection between Boyle's interest in English commerce and colonies, and the rest of his work?

The idea that the New World and its colonies might yield useful knowledge for natural philosophers was common among members of the Hartlib Circle. I suggest, however, that Boyle gave this idea a detailed theological underpinning found neither in the work of Francis Bacon nor Boyle's Hartlibian colleagues. In his defence of experimental philosophy, Boyle drew a theological connection between natural philosophers’ pursuit of man's original empire over the world, and English trade and colonization, which he argued were the means of fulfilling God's command to man to enjoy the fruitfulness of the earth. In short, Boyle gave a theological framework to the idea that the recovery of Adamic empire and the pursuit of an English Protestant colonial empire were part of the same enterprise.

This chapter attempts to bring together an understanding of various aspects of Boyle's work: his theology, his natural philosophy and his colonial interests and activities in the Council for Foreign Plantations, the New England Company, the East India Company, as well as his extensive correspondence with the New World. I will suggest that identifying Boyle's Adamic ideal of restoring the ‘Empire of Man over inferior Creatures’ enables us to perceive a continuity between these various dimensions of Boyle's work, among which there is sometimes a disjunction in the historiography.