The question of transit to France came up again in 1632, when the Suprema notified Philip that the commissioner at Pampeluna reported that troops of Portuguese families were passing into France, many of them people of wealth, with litters and coaches, and the Inquisition did not interfere with them, as the last instructions were that they should not be impeded. The result of this representation was that the orders of 1619 were repeated.[769] Not content with retaining those who wished to expatriate themselves, when the Admiral of Castile, in 1636, captured Saint-Jean de Luz, and there were hopes of conquering Guienne, which was ripe for revolt, the Inquisition took steps to seize the refugees who might have settled there, though it had no evidence that they were Judaizers. It assumed that they were apostates and as such not included in the promises held out to the inhabitants at large, and that anyhow the cause of the faith was privileged. The king was therefore asked to order the admiral to send to the border all whom its agents might designate, so that they could be seized without attracting attention.[770] It is possible that some victims may thus have been procured during the brief time in which the Spaniards held their advantage. [Sidenote: _PORTUGUESE JEWS_] The refugees, however, mainly bent their steps to Holland, where they enjoyed free toleration and could work for their own advancement and the detriment of their oppressors. This was the leading cause of the effort to prevent emigration, and it was a matter of much concern. Luys de Melo says that there had passed to Holland more than two thousand families and, in those rebel states, they had purchased the right to establish synagogues. Those who publicly Judaized there were the same as those who, quitting Portugal as _sanbenitados_, published that their confession of Judaism was under coercion of the Inquisition. Many who had lived in misery in Portugal were rich in Holland; they paid contributions to those rebel states, and assisted to maintain their fleets and armies; they invested largely in the East India Company, and thus were absorbing a great part of Spanish commerce and, under feigned names and in vessels of the United Provinces, they did a large trade in contraband goods.[771] In short, their commercial aptitudes were impoverishing Spain and enriching her enemies. The writer unconsciously points out how large a part intolerance played in the decadence of the state.