ter, 77 and 180; _Public Intelligencer_ of April 14-21,
1656; Council Order Book, Feb. 6, 1655-6.]

(5)_The Jews._ A very interesting incident of Cromwell's
Protectorate was his attempt to obtain an open toleration for the
Jews in England. Since the year 1290, when they had been banished in
a body out of the kingdom under Edward I., there had been only
isolated and furtive instances of visits to England or residence in
England by persons of the proscribed race. Of late, however, a
certain Manasseh Ben Israel, an able and earnest Portuguese Jew,
settled in Amsterdam as a physician, had conceived the idea that, in
the new age of liberty and other great things in England, there might
be a permission for the Jews to return and live and trade freely. He
had opened negotiations by letter, first with the Rump and then with
the Barebones Parliament, but had at length come over to London to
deal directly with the Protector. "_To his Highness the Lord
Protector, &c. the Humble Addresses of Manasseh Ben Israel, Divine
and Doctor of Physic, in behalf of the Jewish Nation_," were in
print on the 5th of November, 1655; and they were formally before the
Council on the 13th, his Highness present in person. The petition was
for a general protection of such Jews as might come to reside in
England, with liberty of trade, freedom for their worship, the
possession of a Jewish synagogue and a Jewish cemetery in London, and
a revocation of all statutes contrary to such privileges. Cromwell
was thoroughly in favour of the proposal and let the fact be known;
but, as it was necessary to proceed with caution, the matter was
referred to a conference between the Council and twenty-eight persons
outside of it, fourteen of whom were clergymen (Owen, Thomas Goodwin,
Nye, Cudworth, Hugh Peters, Sterry, &c.), and the rest lawyers (St.
John, Glynne, Steele, &c.), or city merchants (Lord Mayor Dethicke,
Aldermen Pack and Tichbourne, &c.) There were four meetings of this
Conference at Whitehall in December, Cromwell himself taking part. "I
never heard a man speak so well," says an auditor of his speech at
one of the meetings. On the whole, however, the Conference could not
agree with his Highness. Some of the city-men objected, on commercial
grounds, to the admission of the Jews; and the clergy were against it
almost to a man, partly on the authority of Scripture texts, partly
from fear of the effects of the importation into London of the new
sect of Juda