Chapter XXXIII: 48

THE RETURN OF THE JEWS TO ENGLAND.

=1. Manasseh presents his Petition.=――In October 1655, Manasseh ben Israel, with his only son Samuel, and two or three eminent Amsterdam Jews who had accompanied them, were safely arrived in London and settled in lodgings in the Strand. The first thing that was done was to personally present an address to the Protector, and a declaration to the Commonwealth, setting forth the objects of the Jewish visit to England, was published at the same time. Both these documents are very remarkable. Although humble petitions from an outcast people, who had been ignominiously thrust forth into exile 365 years before, Manasseh’s appeals have not the smallest trace of reproach nor of servility, into either of which mistakes it would have been so easy to fall. The Jewish case is stated with dignity, and on its merits, it is pleaded without passion, and on the grounds of justice rather than of favour. The ‘clemency’ and ‘high-mindedness’ of Cromwell are certainly taken for granted, but equally is assumed the worthiness of the clients who appeal. Manasseh, with a certain shrewdness, makes a point of the ‘profit’ which the Jews are likely to prove to their hosts. ‘Where the Jewes are once kindly receaved,’ he urges, ‘they make a firm resolution never to depart from thence, seeing they have no proper place of their own; and so they are always with their goods in the cities where they live a perpetual benefit to all payments.’[49] ‘Profit,’ proceeds Manasseh, ‘is a most powerful motive,’ and, therefore, he ‘deals with that point first.’ He dwells on the ‘ability’ and ‘industry and naturall instinct of the Jews for merchandizing,’ and on the fact that ‘wheresoever they go to dwell, there presently the traficq begins to flourish.’ And then, urging his claim on higher grounds, Manasseh dwells on the loyalty of the Jews, which he shows is a religious duty with the race, and cannot fail to make of them law-abiding, and law-defending, citizens of their adopted states. He shows from history that Jeremiah’s injunction to ‘pray for the peace’ and to ‘seek the peace’ of the cities to which they are ‘led captive,’ has been literally, and over and over again, fulfilled by Jews. In a few well-chosen and dignified words he refers to the slanderous and superstitious statements of which Jews have been the subject. He disposes with brief and distinct denial of the simply silly accusations, such as the killing of Christian children for the manufacture of passover cakes, only with quiet emphasis recalling that in the early days, when the Church was struggling against paganism, ‘the self-same ancient scandalls were cast upon innocent Christians.’ The more serious, because less entirely untrue, charges of ‘usury,’ which have been brought against Jews, Manasseh meets as boldly. Whenever, wherever, the practice exists, he frankly denounces it as ‘infamous.’ But he will not admit that ‘usury’ is in any sense a _Jewish_ principle, nor in any but a cruelly acquired one a _Jewish_ practice. ‘The sacred Scriptures,’ says Manasseh, ‘forbid absolutely the robbing of all men, whatsoever religion they be of. In our Law it is a greater sinne to rob or defraud a stranger than if I did it to one of my owne profession. A Jew is bound to shew his charity to all men: he hath a precept not to abhor an Idumean or an Egyptian; and yet another, “Love the stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger.” If, notwithstanding, there be some that do contrary to this, _they do it not as Jews, but as wicked Jews_.’ This petition, helped as it was by the fine presence and the fine character of the pleader, made a profound impression, and some five weeks after Manasseh’s arrival in England the question of the re-admission of the Jews was submitted to public discussion, and an assembly composed of the majority of the ministers, a commission of clergymen, the Lord Mayor, two sheriffs, and some selected merchants, was convened to take Manasseh’s petition into formal consideration.

=2. A Christian Advocate.=――A powerful ‘friend at court’ was found in one Edward Nicholas, who, under Charles Stuart and now under Cromwell, held the office of Secretary or Clerk to the Parliament. This gentleman had published in 1648 a little work entitled ‘An Apology for the Honourable Nation of the Jews and all the Sons of Israel,’ which work warmly espoused their cause, speaking of them as a ‘people chosen by God and protected by God,’ and insisting that ‘unless, as Englishmen, we all show ourselves compassionate and helpers of the afflicted Jews, ... and repeal the severe laws made against them, ... God will charge their suffering upon us, and will avenge them on their persecutors.’ Nicholas expressly stated in his little pamphlet that he alone was responsible for it, that he was publishing only his own views on the subject, unprompted and unsolicited by any one. And this was, in all probability, the exact truth. But the official position which Nicholas held under Cromwell made it seem hardly likely that he would have ventured to express such decided opinions had the Protector been entirely averse from them, and, naturally, such a pamphlet, from such a quarter, aroused a great deal of interest, and provoked a great deal of discussion. Published as it was, at the very time when Manasseh had begun to think in earnest of his mission, the pamphlet was also most useful in enabling him, before coming to England, to judge a little of the state of public feeling on the question, and to draw his own conclusions as to the attitude which Cromwell was likely to take up. On this latter point there was, from the first, very little room for doubt.

=3. What People said.=――When Edward Nicholas presented that brave, bold brief of his on behalf of proscribed and unpopular clients, the whispers had been many that he held it by the grace, or even, said some, at the secret instigation of Cromwell, but when Manasseh arrived in London, the marked favour with which the Protector received his Jewish petitioner set the wildest rumours in circulation. Cromwell was declared to be of Jewish descent, and it was further alleged that his Jewish kinsfolk beyond the seas had recognised in him their Messiah. St. Paul’s Cathedral, on the same authority, was to be converted into a synagogue, and an actual sum was named as the price the Jews had offered for it. These absurd tales were actually believed in by many ignorant people, for those most incapable of faith are often the most credulous of folly. The solution of Cromwell’s favourable reception of the Jews was simple enough. Those who went so far to seek for reasons could have found them close at hand. But there are people, says Carlyle, who ‘can look into the great soul of a man, radiant with the splendours of very heaven, and see nothing there but the shadow of their own mean darkness.’[50] In Cromwell’s support of Jewish claims the ‘great soul’ was only consistent with itself. The character of Cromwell in all things was an index to his conduct in this one thing. Liberty of conscience, religions rights secured to all men, was the Puritan battle cry. The principle had been fought for at Naseby, it would be upheld at Whitehall, and, though Cromwell could not know it, it would never more be abandoned by the England which he, in his stern rectitude, lifted out of the meretricious mists of greatness, into the ‘fine air, the pale severity of light’――a national ideal of goodness.

=4. How the Petition was received.=――Cromwell presided over the assembly which met to consider Manasseh’s petition. Two points were submitted for decision: 1, whether it was lawful to re-admit the Jews; and 2, under what conditions such re-admission should take place. The law officers ruled that if it should be decided that such re-admission was for the welfare of the State, it could not be by law opposed. That settled the legal aspect of the question. Then came the commercial. The merchants feared for the effects of Jewish competition on English industries. ‘Can you really think,’ asked Cromwell, ‘that so despised a people should be able to secure the upper hand in trade and credit over the merchants of England――the most honoured in the world?’ These adroit words allayed for the moment the mercantile jealousies that blocked the way, and left room for the religious difficulty to be debated. The clergy did not limit themselves to argument; an old chronicler declares the majority present ‘raged like fanatics,’ quoting Scripture, too, in their arrogant ignorance, against ‘the people of the Book.’ And after much debate, Cromwell roused himself to reply on the whole question. His speech has only come down to us in fragments, but these fragments justify the opinion expressed by one of the audience, who says, ‘I have never heard a man speak so splendidly in all my life.’ The man who, as Carlyle says, ‘grappled like a giant, face to face, heart to heart, with the naked truth of things,’[51] tore that mask of ‘English prosperity in danger’ from the merchants, and, dubbing their doubts ‘trade jealousy,’ flung their pretences at them. Then, turning to the clergy, he stripped off the rags of rhetoric in which they had clothed their personal prejudices, and held forth their action, bare, in all its hideousness, as persecution. He spoke sternly as the champion of justice, gently as the advocate of compassion. He did not succeed, but neither did he speak altogether in vain. Manasseh’s appeal was not granted; when put to the council, the majority voted against it, yet nevertheless Cromwell’s eloquence had done its silent work; the known favour of the Protector ensured no active steps being taken to prevent Jews coming to England, and quietly, and without much notice being taken of them, Jews gradually did come, and settled themselves in London. By 1657 they were numerous enough and felt secure enough to ask for, and to obtain, the loan of a piece of ground in the parish of Stepney for a בֵּית חַיִּים.

=5. End of Manasseh’s Story.=――Manasseh, after the disappointing decision of the Council of State, waited on month after month, hoping that the informal permission of the Protector might become the law of the land. His companions grew tired, and went back to their homes in Amsterdam, but Manasseh stayed on, patient and steadfast in his purpose, and longing to complete his work. Early in 1656 he published his _Vindiciæ Judæorum_, a triumphant answer to the slanders which were uttered against his people. And that was his last effort in the cause. His mission never fulfilled itself in the grand, complete way which he had hoped. He sowed his seed, and it is we, his descendants, who, ‘rejoicing, bear the sheaves.’ He would have been content that it should be so. In the autumn of 1657, when his book was launched and he could do no more, he set out for home. And, at home, in Amsterdam, before he reached it, they made ready his grave. For illness overtook him on the way, and on November 20, 1657, at Middleburg, in the house of Ephraim Abarbanel, his brother-in-law, Manasseh ben Israel died.