It was noted also, in proof of his personal kindness towards the Quakers, that, though he received letters from some of them violently abusive of himself and his government, he never showed any anger on that account.[1] [Footnote 1: Sewel's History of the Quakers (ed.

1834) I.137-173; Baxter, 77 and 180; _Public Intelligencer_ of April 14-21, 1656; Council Order Book, Feb.

6, 1655-6.] (5)_The Jews._ A very interesting incident of Cromwell's Protectorate was his attempt to obtain an open toleration for the Jews in England.

Since the year 1290, when they had been banished in a body out of the kingdom under Edward I., there had been only isolated and furtive instances of visits to England or residence in England by persons of the proscribed race.

Of late, however, a certain Manasseh Ben Israel, an able and earnest Portuguese Jew, settled in Amsterdam as a physician, had conceived the idea that, in the new age of liberty and other great things in England, there might be a permission for the Jews to return and live and trade freely.