Читать книгу Menasseh ben Israel's Mission to Oliver Cromwell. Being a reprint of the pamphlets published by Menasseh ben Israel to promote the re-admission of the Jews to England, 1649-1656 онлайн

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The speech was a fighting speech, delivered with great animation, and is said to have been one of the best Cromwell ever made.^[122] It achieved its object, for the Conference broke up without a word of protest, and the crowds dispersed in cowed silence. Cromwell left the Council Chamber in a towering passion, and it was some days before he recovered his equanimity.^[123]

The battle was, however, not yet over. Cromwell had dismissed the Conference, but the Committee of the Council of State had yet to report. It could not well, in sober writing, take the view of the Protector’s strategic speech, nor could it ignore the instruction of the Council to which it owed its existence. Accordingly it set itself to the drafting of a report which should express the obvious views of the Conference without conflicting too violently with Cromwell’s equally obvious design. The report accepted the view of the Judges that there was no law against the Readmission, and then proceeded to set forth under six heads the views urged by the Conference, including the view of the merchants, that “great prejudice is likely to arise to the natives of this Commonwealth in matters of trade.” Finally, it laid down seven conditions, apparently borrowed from Barlow’s opinion,^[124] by which the Readmission should be governed. The Jews should have no autonomous jurisdiction; they should be forbidden from blaspheming Christ; they should not profane the Christian Sabbath; they should have no Christian servants; they should be ineligible for public office; they should print nothing against Christianity, and they should not discourage those who might attempt to convert them, while the making of converts by them should be prohibited. No restriction on their trading was suggested.^[125]