Long before the Peace of Westphalia an attempt was made by the famous Jewess, Donna Gracia Nasi, to obtain protection for her persecuted co-religionists by diplomatic action, and it proved successful. The circumstances will be narrated presently.[11] It stood, however, alone for two hundred years. Even after the Peace eminent Jews, who sought in a like way to enlist the sympathy and help of European governments, failed. Menasseh ben Israel made representations in this sense on behalf of the oppressed Jews of Poland, Prussia, Spain, and Portugal to both Queen Christina of Sweden and Oliver Cromwell, but although he met with much and genuine sympathy he found the _raison d'état_--and probably also a lingering reluctance to regard Jews as quite within the pale of humanity--too strong for him.[12] A decade later a similar attempt was made by Fernando Mendes da Costa, one of the founders of the Anglo-Jewish Community, and a member of a very distinguished Portuguese Marrano family. From a letter of his which is still extant,[13] it seems that he was deeply concerned in helping the persecuted Marranos in Spain and Portugal, and he had a scheme for organising an emigration of his hapless brethren on a large scale to Italy and England. He received much help from Don Francisco Manuel de Mello, the distinguished Portuguese soldier, author and diplomatist, and through him interested Queen Katharine of Braganza and Charles II in the scheme. It appears, too, that, with the support of these eminent personages, the scheme was brought to the notice of the Pope, but of its subsequent fate we know nothing. (_a_) PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS IN BOHEMIA (1744-45).