well's1. He is also found residing in the same house in Duke's Place in the year of King Charles's return 2. He could not continue to attend mass at the Spanish Ambassador's, for such services would not be held after the outbreak of the Spanish War; but he and his friends if they did not belong to the six Jewish families to which Cromwell is said to have given special privileges, would probably occasionally attend at some Protestant place of worship in order to make sure of escaping the pains and penalties of the Acts against Recusants *.

Yet another theory claims attention; it is that Cromwell as Protector gave to John Sadler “a special authorization" to build a synagogue 5. The authority for this statement is a passage in the account of John Sadler in the Birch Manuscripts. The account is an ordinary biographical notice, with the facts apparently stated in chronological order, which was furnished to the writer as late as the year 1738 by Sadler's grandson, Thomas Sadler, who was not alive at the time, and could have no knowledge of the facts except by hearsay. The words are "By his interest it was that the Jews obtained the Privilege to build for themselves a Synagogue in London." The words immediately preceding are "He was in high favour with Oliver Cromwell, who by his letter from Cork invited him to take upon him the office of Chief Justice of Mounster, in Ireland, with a salary of one thousand pounds per annum, which he excused himself from accepting." The letter from Cork,

1 Wolf's Jewry of the Restoration, p. II.

2 See the Mendez da Costa lists now printed in Wolf's Jewry of the Restoration, p. 4. Mr. Wolf is evidently right in fixing the date of these as 1660, but his theory that they were the work of reformers attempting to procure the re-expulsion of the Jews does not seem very probable. The traditional view that they are lists of persons made out preparatory to the regular organization of a community seems better.

3 The Question whether a Jew, &c., p. 36; and see the Petition of the Jews to the House of Commons against the special tax proposed to be laid upon them in 1689.

See the Ordinance of September 27, 1650, already quoted.

• Wolf's Jewry of the Restoration, p. 6; and his Menasseh, p. lviii.

which appears on another folio, was dated December 1, 1649. The words immediately following are " August 31, 1650, he was constituted Master of Magdalen College in Cambridge 1." The writer is ostensibly alluding to a grant made at the end of 1649 or at the beginning of 1650, but we know from the facts, which are now so well established as to be incontrovertible, that no such grant could then have been made. But, it may be said, there is no need to take the words in connexion with their context, and we may assume that they indicate a privilege granted not in 1650, but in 1656. This is a somewhat large assumption to make upon the authority of a writer who had been supplied with information more than eighty years after the event by one who could not have been personally cognizant of the facts; nor is it much less at variance with the known sequence of events and possibilities of the case. It is admitted that the privilege was never made use of by the Jews; no document conferring it has ever been discovered; by the constitution then existing, which Cromwell was not in the habit of disregarding except for the purpose of securing some great political advantage, the Protector had no power to make such a grant, and finally, if it had ever been made, it is unaccountable that John Sadler himself in his petition on behalf of Menasseh Ben Israel's widow, addressed to Richard Cromwell, who had succeeded his father as Lord Protector, though he speaks of his own efforts on behalf of the Jews, omits altogether to mention it 2. It seems impos

1 Birch MSS. 4,223, fo. 165, 166.

2 "To his Highness the Lord Protector the humble Petition of John Sadler Sheweth that although your petitioner being often pressed to present petitions in behalf of the Jewes, did rather dissuade their coming hither, yet by some letters of your late royall father and others of note in this nation some of their synagogs were encouraged to send hither one of their chief rabbines, Menasseh Ben Israel, for admittance & some freedome of trade in some of these ilands. And when he had stayed here so long that he was allmost ashamed to return to those that sent him or to exact their maintenance here where they found so little success after so many hopes, it pleased his Highness & the Council to settle on the said Menasseh a pension of £100 a year," &c. (S. P. Dom. Interregnum,

sible to come to any other conclusion than that the alleged grant was never made.

The last of these theories with which it is necessary to deal is that a favourable answer was given to the petition mentioned at the end of the last article, which was presented on March 24, 1656, praying for protection in writing for meeting privately for purposes of worship, and for leave to establish a cemetery for the burial of the dead. It is certain that no document purporting to confer these rights has ever been discovered, but it is suggested that such a document may have been given to the petitioners and subsequently lost or destroyed by them. The motive for destroying it is not very apparent, but it is said that the Jews, after the Restoration, were afraid to acknowledge the receipt of any benefit from the late Usurper; if this were so, they showed a great lack of that far-sighted shrewdness which has usually characterized their actions. To have possession of a grant from Oliver was no crime after his régime had come to an end, and it is remarkable that after the Revolution, when their rights and privileges were under discussion, no such grant was ever referred to, although at that time there would be no more prejudice against those who had received benefits from Cromwell than against those whose religious privileges depended upon the favour of the kings of the exiled house1. Moreover the fact of wilful destruction or voluntary loss would not explain the total disappearance of all traces of the document, if it had ever existed; for, besides the formal answer given to the petitioners, a copy of a document of this kind would have been taken and kept among the public records along with the petition which is still preserved there. No copy is to be found there, and there is no reason to differ from Dr. Gardiner's statement of the result of the reference of this petition to the Council-" As

ch. viii). The whole petition is printed in Wolf's Menasseh Ben Israel, p. lxxxvii.

1 See the case of the Jews stated, 1689.

might have been expected, it met with no response. Even if that body had been more favourably disposed towards the Jews than was the case, it was hardly likely to commit itself by a formal order to the effect that the existing law should not be carried into effect." There is, however, strong evidence, amounting almost to positive proof, that a Jewish cemetery was established about this time at Mile End. There is still in the possession of the congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews in London the counterpart of a lease dated April 13, 1670, of land at Mile End, which has undoubtedly been used as a cemetery since that time. It recites the surrender of a lease "for fourteen years of the same land granted in February, 165, by John Tuffenell and another to Anthony Fernandez Carvayall and Simon de Caceres." As the lease was surrendered it would in the ordinary course be given up to the grantors and cancelled or destroyed by them, so that there is little hope of finding it now 2. The lease of 1670 certainly does not, and that of 1656 probably did not mention the purpose for which the land was granted; nor is it likely that any separate deed of trust was drawn up, for such a deed would have been valueless, inasmuch as a trust of this nature would not have been enforceable at this time or for long afterwards. Of the joint lessees Carvajal had received letters of denization; De Caceres was still an alien, and consequently incapable of holding any estate in land other than a lease of premises for the residence of himself or his servants, or the purpose of any business, trade, or manufacture carried on by him 3. On the death of Carvajal, in

1 Gardiner's History of the Commonwealth, vol. III, p. 222.

"Mr. Godwin, writing in the year 1828, says: "I applied to the Rulers of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Bevis Marks, and by their permission Mr. Almosnino, their secretary, obligingly went over with me some of their oldest records. Among them I found an account of a lease of a piece of ground in the parish of Stepney, granted them in February 165, for a burying-ground." It is probable that he is referring to the lease of 1670, which mentions an older lease granted in 1656 (History of the Commonwealth, vol. IV, p. 250).

3"But as to a lease for yeares, there is a diversitie between a lease for

November, 1659, the lease would vest by right of survivorship in De Caceres alone, so that if the land had been openly used as a cemetery, or for any other purpose than that of trade or habitation, it could, and it may be safely asserted would, have been claimed by the Commonwealth or, after the Restoration, by the Crown, nor could the claim have been successfully resisted.

The old book of records of interments in the possession of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation in Bevis Marks shows that four burials took place between the years 1657 and 1660, but these interments must have been conducted with great privacy and, if they were accompanied by any religious ceremony, with the strictest secrecy. At this period, except in the case of Recusants, there was no law prohibiting the burial of the dead in a private garden1; but such an interment, if attended by ceremonies unknown to and inconsistent with the doctrines of Christianity, would have immediately provoked a criminal prosecution. There being no record of any such prosecution, it may safely be affirmed

yeares of a house for the habitation of a merchant stranger being an alien, whose king is in league with ours, and a lease for yeares of lands, meadows, pastures, woods and the like. For if he take a lease for yeares of lands, meadows, &c., upon office found, the king shall have it. But of a house for habitation he may take a lease for years as incident to commerce; for without habitation he cannot merchandize or trade. But if he depart, or relinquish the realme, the king shall have the lease. So it is if he die possessed thereof, neither his executors nor administrators shall have it, but the king; for he had it only for habitation as necessary to his trade or traffique, and not for the benefit of his executor or administrator" (Co. Litt. 26). No amendment of the law was made until 1844, when the right of holding lands was extended to all aliens, whether merchants or not, but it was still limited to lands held for the purpose of residence or occupation by the alien or his servants, or for the purpose of any business, trade, or manufacture, and to terms not exceeding twenty-one years (6 & 7 Vict., cap. 66, sec. 5). It was not until 1870 that the unrestricted right of holding lands was conferred upon aliens (see 33 Vict., cap. 14, sec. 2). As to the old law, see the case of Fish v. Klein (1817), 2 Mer. 431.

1 For the law relating to the disposition of dead bodies, see the judgments of Lord Stowell in Gilbert v. Buzzard and Boyer (1821), 2 Hag. Cons. 333; and Stephen (J.) in The Queen v. Price (1884), 12 Q. B. D. 247.