Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the profession or act of commercial sex; prostitution; cits. 1728, 1755 refer to running a brothel.

1615		T. Overbury New and Choise Characters n.p.: [A Maquerela] She accounts her best time of trading; for a Bawde is like a Medlar, shee’s not ripe, till she be rotten.
1620–50		‘Come Wanton Wenches’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) III 16: Come all you wanton wenches / that longs to be in tradings, / come learne of me, loves Mistris.
1632		D. Lupton London and the Countrey Carbonadoed 52: [They] pray against the decay of their trading. Their chiefest desire is to be well mann’d, and keepe open houses.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 14 30 Aug.–6 Sept. 120: The PY-WOMEN in, next Bartholmow-Faire, from Bawde to Whore, and from Whore to Mob, and from Mob to Mort have such Rum trading, that Sodom and Gomorrah are now as empty of traders, as great Bedlam is of honesty. [Ibid.] 24 8–15 Nov. 204: High-gate hathe this cold and windy weather, Petitioned to be joyned to the Suburbs, which it is thought will go neer to spile all trading in Islington.
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 363: Her frequent trading, and those many shots she had received between wind and water in the service, had so altered her countenance.
c.1673		‘The Loving Chamber-Maid’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1891) VII:2 448: Once having a smatch [i.e. taste (of sex)], to trading they fall, / Set up with a Maiden-(wile) common to all.
c.1690		‘Poor Whore’s Lamentation’ Pepys Ballads (1987) V 416: Traiding’s grown so dead, Upon my Maiden-head.
c.1700		London-Bawd (1705) 110: Trading now is very Dead, and I have got but little Custom.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy IV 319: Theatre Jilts, Would S-ve for a Crown; And for want of brisk Trading, Patrol’d round the Town.
1728		Defoe Street Robberies Considered 25: I began to keep, and one or other, I had the clever’st Mauks in Town [...] But one Summer in Particular, I found Trading very bad in Town.
1755		The Tricks of the Town Laid Open (4 edn) 71: Because Trading’s dead, and Money’s scarce, and you look like a civil Gentleman [...] you shall have one of them [i.e. a brothel prostitute] for half a Crown.