A work printed in 1628, for popular entertainment, entitled “A Miscellany of Seriousness with Merriment, consisting of Witty Questions, Riddles, Jests,” &c. tells this story as a good joke. A sea captain on a voyage, with thirty passengers, being overtaken by a violent tempest, found it necessary to throw half of them overboard, in order to lighten the vessel. Fifteen of the passengers were Christians, and the other fifteen were Jews, but in this exigency they unanimously agreed in the captain’s opinion, and that he should place the whole thirty in a circle, and throw every ninth man over till only fifteen were left. To save the Christians, the captain placed his thirty passengers in this order, viz.: four Christians, five Jews; two Christians, one Jew; three Christians, one Jew; one Christian, two Jews; two Christians, three Jews; one Christian, two Jews; two Christians, one Jew. He began to number from the first of the four Christians thus: CCCC. JJJJJ. CC. J. CCC. J. C. JJ. CC. JJJ. C. JJ. CC. J. By this device, the captain preserved all the Christians, and _deeped_ all the Jews. * * * * * Selden says, “Talk what you will of the Jews, that they are cursed, they thrive wherever they come: they are able to oblige the prince of their country by lending him money; none of them beg; they keep together; and for their being hated, my life for yours, Christians hate one another as much.” This was true, but it is also true that three quarters of a century have not elapsed since hatred to the Jews was a national feeling. In 1753, a bill was brought into the House of Lords for naturalizing the Jews, and relieving them from persecuting disabilities. It passed there on the ground that it would operate to the public advantage, by encouraging wealthy persons professing the Jewish religion to remove hither from foreign parts to the increase of the capital, commerce, and credit of the kingdom. The corporation of London in common council assembled, petitioned against it on the ground that it would dishonour the christian religion, endanger the constitution, and prejudice the interest and trade of the kingdom in general, and London in particular. A body of London merchants and traders also petitioned against it. Certain popular orators predicted that if the bill passed, the Jews would multiply so fast, become so rich, and get so much power, that their persons would be revered, their customs be imitated, and Judaism become the fashionable religion; they further alleged that the bill flew in the face of prophecy, which declared that the Jews should be scattered without a country or fixed habitation till their conversion, and that in short it was the duty of Christians to be unchristian. But the bill passed the commons after violent debates, and received the royal sanction. The nation was instantly in a ferment of horror and execration; and on the first day of the next session of