Note 453 — 388.
Reading edition
On March 13, 1780, the Board of Trade was declared to be useless by 207 to 199. Burke alluded to the literary value of the Board, which had its separate professor for every department of literature, and paid a sneering compliment to the "historian's labours, the wise and salutary results of deep, religious researches." As an Academy of Belles Lettres he held the commissioners hallowed; as a Board of Trade he wished them abolished.