=4. How the Petition was received.=――Cromwell presided over the assembly which met to consider Manasseh’s petition. Two points were submitted for decision: 1, whether it was lawful to re-admit the Jews; and 2, under what conditions such re-admission should take place. The law officers ruled that if it should be decided that such re-admission was for the welfare of the State, it could not be by law opposed. That settled the legal aspect of the question. Then came the commercial. The merchants feared for the effects of Jewish competition on English industries. ‘Can you really think,’ asked Cromwell, ‘that so despised a people should be able to secure the upper hand in trade and credit over the merchants of England――the most honoured in the world?’ These adroit words allayed for the moment the mercantile jealousies that blocked the way, and left room for the religious difficulty to be debated. The clergy did not limit themselves to argument; an old chronicler declares the majority present ‘raged like fanatics,’ quoting Scripture, too, in their arrogant ignorance, against ‘the people of the Book.’ And after much debate, Cromwell roused himself to reply on the whole question. His speech has only come down to us in fragments, but these fragments justify the opinion expressed by one of the audience, who says, ‘I have never heard a man speak so splendidly in all my life.’ The man who, as Carlyle says, ‘grappled like a giant, face to face, heart to heart, with the naked truth of things,’[51] tore that mask of ‘English prosperity in danger’ from the merchants, and, dubbing their doubts ‘trade jealousy,’ flung their pretences at them. Then, turning to the clergy, he stripped off the rags of rhetoric in which they had clothed their personal prejudices, and held forth their action, bare, in all its hideousness, as persecution. He spoke sternly as the champion of justice, gently as the advocate of compassion. He did not succeed, but neither did he speak altogether in vain. Manasseh’s appeal was not granted; when put to the council, the majority voted against it, yet nevertheless Cromwell’s eloquence had done its silent work; the known favour of the Protector ensured no active steps being taken to prevent Jews coming to England, and quietly, and without much notice being taken of them, Jews gradually did come, and settled themselves in London. By 1657 they were numerous enough and felt secure enough to ask for, and to obtain, the loan of a piece of ground in the parish of Stepney for a בֵּית חַיִּים.