duties, which required a certain sum to be paid by every ‘alien,’ both on merchandise and on personal property, were remitted. The concession, however, aroused great opposition among the English traders, and William III., though not personally ill-disposed to the Jews, and with all his Holland memories to guide him as to the wisdom of treating them generously, had to yield to the pressure put upon him, and to see this heavy tax re-imposed on Jewish enterprise. =2. Influx of Germans and Poles: how received.=――The tolerably secure position to which the Spanish-descended Jews from Holland attained in England tempted, in a short time, less happily placed Jews to join them. The new immigrants, who were mostly persecuted Ashkenazim from Germany and Poland, received but the coldest of welcomes from the Sephardic community, and so little was their fellowship desired, that by the end of the seventeenth century especial restrictive legislation was added to the _Ascamoth_ of the congregation on the subject. It was enacted that no ‘Tedescos’ (Germans or Poles) should vote at meetings or receive religious honours; that they should not be allowed to intermarry with the Sephardim,[73] nor to hold any higher office in their synagogue than that of beadle. In fact, socially and religiously, the Spanish and Portuguese Jews ‘boycotted’ their German brethren. Undoubtedly the Ashkenazim were of an altogether lower class than these others――less refined, less cultivated, and less well off, and the Sephardim, in thus holding themselves aloof, probably considered that they were taking the safest course for their own reputation. By this time (1702) the Spanish and Portuguese congregation had erected and consecrated a beautiful synagogue in Bevis Marks, to which building Queen Anne had contributed a beam.[74] The community had imported from Italy an eminent scholar as chief Rabbi (חָכָם), and their schools and institutions were liberally supported and wisely administered. The Ashkenazim would willingly have joined in all these good works, but, baffled in their hopes of union, they more or less good-temperedly accepted the situation, and built synagogues, and founded schools and institutions of their own. They increased rapidly in numbers, and gradually spread over the United Kingdom, establishing small congregations in most of the principal towns. Time has now so readjusted things that, in these days, the German-descended Jews of England rival in wealth and in culture, and in numbers far exceed, those who claim ancestry from among the Sephardim. Intermarriage between Sephardim and Ashkenazim is a frequent and welcome occurrence, and all the old feelings of separateness have disappeared with the causes for it.