per annum); for Thomas Bennett’s salary, keeper of the back-door of the Council Chamber, at 4_s. per diem_ (being L73 per annum); for the salary of Robert Stebbin, fire-maker to the clerks, at 2_s. per diem_ (being L36 10_s. per annum_):  amounting in the whole to L346 15 0

  “The first payment of the said several and respective sums
  before-mentioned to commence from the 1st of April instant.

“To Richard Nutt, master of his Highness’s barge:—­For his own office after L80 per annum; for Thomas Washborne, his assistant, for his salary, after L20 per annum; for the salaries of 25 watermen to attend his Highness’s barge, at L4 per annum to each (amounting together to L100 per annum):  amounting in the whole to L200 per ann.

  “The same to commence from 25th March, 1655.”

Clearly the Council were in a mood of economy.  Not only were certain salaries to be reduced, but a good many outlays were to be stopped altogether, including Needham’s subsidy or pension for his journalistic services.  But more appears from the document.  In spite of the general tendency to retrenchment, the salaries of Scobell and Jessop, the two clerks of the Council, are to be raised from L365 a year to L500 a year.  This alone would suggest that not retrenchment only, but an improvement also in the system of the Council’s business, was intended.  The document as a whole confirms that idea.  It maps out the service of the Council more definitely than hitherto into departments.  Thurloe, of course, is general head, styled now “Secretary of State”; but it will be observed that the department of Foreign Affairs, including the management of Intelligence from abroad, is spoken of as now wholly and especially his, and that Meadows, with the designation of “Secretary for the Latin Tongue,” ranks distinctly under him in that department.  Scobell and Jessop, as “Clerks to the Council,” though under Thurloe too, are now important enough to be jointly at the head of a separate staff; the Bailiff or Constable department is separate from theirs, and under the charge of Mr. Sergeant-at-Arms Dendy; and minor divisions of service, nameable as Ushership and Barge-attendance, are under the charge of Messrs. Scutt and Nutt respectively.  The payments of salaries are henceforward not to be vaguely through Mr. Gualter Frost, as Treasurer for the Council’s Contingencies, but by warrants to the Treasury to pay regularly to the several heads the definite sums-total in their departments, their own salaries included.