Jon Kukla is right to suggest even earlier origins. Some examples in the religious arena from from the first half of the 18th century (in the colonies) are given in Carl Bridenbaugh's Mitre and Sceptre. Bridenbaugh cites a letter from Jonathan Mayhew to James Otis suggesting the use of such committees as a way of mobilizing opposition to the Stamp Act, after which he [CB] offers this summary observation about the mainly religious origins of this political tactic:

"Of the several sources from which proceeded those formidable organizations, the revolutionary committees of correspondence, none had been tried out so successfully over a long period or were more obviously right at hand than those of the Congregational and Presbyterian ministers, as Samuel Adams was quick enough to perceive. The nonconforming divines of England and Americahad invented and proved this device: 'This is the foulest, subtlest and most venomous serpent that ever issued from the eggs of sedition.' When the colonial opposition to royal authority, which numbered in its ranks so many dissenting ministers, found itself maneuvered into the forming of a revolutionary organization, it did not indulge in a miraculous improvisation. It took the tried-and-proved ecclesiastical organization of the Nonconformist churches and adapted it to secular affairs with great though hardly surprising success." (pp.203-204)

Doug Deal
History/SUNY Oswego 

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