as Banks, and Christopher Lister. Thus the Trade Committee, composed
of members from all parts of England, represented a wide range of
interests. Furthermore, any member of the Protector's Council could come
to the meetings of the committee and vote.[30] Such a body would have
been very unmanageable but for the fact that seven constituted a quorum
and business was generally transacted by a small number of the members.
The instructions were prepared by Thurloe after a scrutiny of those
of the former Council of Trade, and bore little resemblance to the
recommendations of the "Overture," because they were designed to cover
a far wider range of interests than were considered by the merchants.
The "Overture" was planned only for a plantation council. The Trade
Committee was invested with power and authority to consider by what
means the traffic and navigation of the Republic might best be promoted
and regulated, to receive propositions for the benefit of these
interests, to send for the officers of the excise, the customs, and the
mint, or such other persons of experience as they should deem capable of
giving advice on these subjects, to examine the books and papers of the
Council of Trade of 1650, and all other public papers as might afford
the members information. When finally its reports were ready for the
Council of State, that body reserved to itself all power to reject or
accept such orders as it deemed proper and fitting.

The Trade Committee met for the first time on December 27, 1655, in the
Painted Chamber at Westminster. Authorized to appoint officers, it chose
William Seaman secretary, two clerks, an usher, and two messengers at
a yearly salary of L280, with L50 for contingent expenses;[31] and from
the entries of the payments ordered to be made to these men for their
services, we infer that the board sat from December 27, 1655, until
May 27, 1657, exactly a year and a half. During this time it probably
accumulated a considerable number of books and papers, though such are
not now known to exist. Proposals, petitions, complaints, and pamphlets,
such, for example, as that entitled _Trading Governed by the State_, a
protest against the commercial dominance of London, were laid before it,
and it took into its own hands many of the problems that had agitated
the former board. It discussed foreign trade, particularly with Holland,
and the questions of Swedish copper,[32] Spanish wines, and Irish linen;
home manufacture