The preliminary essay on the Return of the Jews to England is in no sense a _réchauffé_ of the papers on the same subject contributed by me to various periodicals during the last fifteen years. Those papers were written at successive stages of an uncompleted investigation. The present essay is a re-study in the light of all the facts, and it will be found that some of my former judgments have been modified, and a few even reversed. I have to thank many friends for their assistance. Mr. Israel Abrahams very kindly relieved me of the labour of reading the proofs of the tracts, and made many valuable suggestions which have added to the completeness and beauty of the volume. Mr. B. L. Abrahams was good enough to revise my introduction, and thus saved me from not a few slips of style and memory. The Rev. S. Levy has given me useful assistance in preparing the annotations, and Dr. S. R. Gardiner was good enough to place at my disposal his unrivalled knowledge of the politics of the Commonwealth in solving some of the difficulties in the negotiations of 1655. My acknowledgments are also due to Miss S. R. Hirsch for the excellent index she has compiled. Finally, Mme. de Novikoff kindly obtained for me from the Hermitage Collection at St. Petersburg an excellent photograph of the alleged portrait of Menasseh ben Israel by Rembrandt, which I have reproduced, together with two other better known and more authentic portraits. L. W. LONDON, _December 1900_. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION xi THE RETURN OF THE JEWS TO ENGLAND:— I. DAYS OF EXILE xi II. THE HOPE OF ISRAEL xviii III. CROMWELL’S POLICY xxviii IV. THE APPEAL TO THE NATION xxxvii V. CROMWELL’S ACTION lvi VI. THE REAL “VINDICIÆ” lxix VII. DOCUMENTS lxxvii “THE HOPE OF ISRAEL, WRITTEN BY MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL”(1652) 1 “TO HIS HIGHNESSE THE LORD PROTECTOR OF THE COMMON-WEALTH OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND, THE HUMBLE ADDRESSES OF MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL” (1655) 73 “VINDICIÆ JUDÆORUM, OR A LETTER IN ANSWER TO CERTAIN QUESTIONS PROPOUNDED BY A NOBLE AND LEARNED GENTLEMAN, WHEREIN ALL OBJECTIONS ARE CANDIDLY, AND YET FULLY CLEARED, BY RABBI MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL” (1656) 105 NOTES 149 INDEX 171