English opinion on the _Sanhedrin_――F. D. Kirwan――Abraham Furtado――Rev. James Bicheno――The Declaration of the _Sanhedrin_ and English comment――M. Diogène Tama――The Prince _de_ Ligne. COMING back to English history, we now propose to trace the impression produced in this country by Bonaparte’s Palestine Appeal of 1798 and the Proclamation of a _Sanhedrin_ in 1807. English opinion on this point was quite clear. No objections were ever raised to the restoration of the Jewish nation to Palestine: this idea had been cherished in England for centuries. But English opinion was opposed to its becoming a strategic or political instrument in the hands of an ambitious conqueror. Moreover, that opinion was not inclined to separate the idea of the Restoration of _Israel_ from that of the emancipation of the Jews. Thus the _Sanhedrin_ was considered merely a tentative preliminary step towards Restoration, and the Declaration made by that body against Jewish national aspirations produced an impression of surprise and bewilderment. This Declaration was not, in fact, intended to be a denial of Jewish nationality in its ethical, historical, cultural or religious aspect: it was rather an avowal of political loyalty. Yet such a Declaration, expressed as it was in exaggerated terms, was calculated to surprise and puzzle the genuine friends of the Jews in England, and give rise to misunderstanding. F. D. Kirwan, the English translator of the _Parisian Sanhedrim_, published in French by the French-Jewish editor, M. Diogène Tama (Appendix xlii), says, in his preface: “... The ultimate views which Bonaparte may have on the Jewish nation are, to this day, involved in obscurity; while the supposed advantages he so pompously conferred on them may reasonably be called in question. When we consider that the Jewish population of France and Italy is not calculated, by the deputies themselves, at more than one hundred thousand souls (a small number indeed when compared with the population of those countries), we are at a loss to see what great advantages could immediately result to Bonaparte from the Jews embracing zealously the profession of arms. We well know that his gigantic plans of ambition rest on the laws of conscription; but the Jews are already liable to them; they can hardly escape their excessive rigour; and even the whole of the Jewish youth, of the requisite age, would, in point of number, make but a contemptible reinforcement to the immense armies of France. “These exhortations to embrace the profession of arms, so zealously repeated by the leading members of the French-Jews, are besides, always coupled with strong recommendations to follow mechanical trades and husbandry; in short, those professions without which _a nation cannot exist by itself_, but which are not more particularly useful than any others to a small given number of people, who consider _as their country_ an Empire in which these professions abound.