Board of Trade, from 'Ackermann's Microcosm of London',
 
Board Of Trade.
 
The Board of Trade was established by William III in 1696 as a govermental advisory body for colonial affairs. Amongst other things the Board scrutinised colonial legislation especially laws likely to conflict with imperial trade policy. It also recommended laws affecting the colonies to Parliament and the Privy Council and warned against laws that were in danger of conflicting with imperial trade policy. The Board was responsible for the nomination of Governors and write instructions for the appointed Governors.  It also heard complaints from the colonies on the subject of imperial adminstration.  Members of the Board of Trade were either  permanent salaried commissioners (8 men who conducted the regular duties of the board) and eight ex-officio unpaid members who were nominally selected from the Privy Council.
 
The Microcosm of London, from which this image comes was published in three volumes between 1808 and 1810. The project was the brainchild of the publisher and printseller Rudolph Ackermann. Ackermann brought together artists and  engravers to produce one of the most memorable and visually arresting publications of the nineteenth century.  
There were over 100 plates in all and the drawings of the architecture and interiors were executed by Auguste Charles Pugin, who had moved to London from France early in the 1790s, and who had worked as a draughtsman for the architect John Nash.  The figures were drawn by the talented artist and caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson. The images were then etched and aquatinted by a number of different engravers, all employed by Ackermann. They include, Thomas Sutherland, John Bluck, Joseph Constantine Stadler, John Hill and Richard Bankes Harraden.