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The Jewish Historical Society of England, soon after its establishment, resolved on the publication of the present volume as a memorial of Menasseh ben Israel, whose name must always hold the chief place on the first page of the history of the present Anglo-Jewish community. The Society did me the honour of entrusting me with the preparation of the work.

Menasseh’s tracts have been printed in facsimile. They have not been reproduced by any photographic process, but have been entirely reset in types similar to those employed in the original. Thanks to the resources of the printing establishment of Messrs. Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. of Edinburgh, and the taste and care they have devoted to the work, a much finer effect has been produced than would have been possible had photography been employed, while exact fidelity to the originals has not been sacrificed.

To me the preparation of this volume has been a labour of love. Nothing in the whole course of a very varied literary career, extending over nearly thirty years, has fascinated me so much as the story of the Return of the Jews to England. Its mysteries belong to the highest regions of historical romance, and it forms a page of history which is a real acquisition both to the annals of the British Empire and to that wider and more thrilling panorama of human activities which depicts the fortunes of my own co-religionists. I have not, however, spoken the last word on this subject in the present volume, which is chiefly concerned with the transaction with Oliver Cromwell in 1655–56 and its proximate causes. I hope to tell the whole story in detail in another volume, which I have long had in preparation for the “Jewish Library.”

The preliminary essay on the Return of the Jews to England is in no sense a réchauffé of the papers on the same subject contributed by me to various periodicals during the last fifteen years. Those papers were written at successive stages of an uncompleted investigation. The present essay is a re-study in the light of all the facts, and it will be found that some of my former judgments have been modified, and a few even reversed.

I have to thank many friends for their assistance. Mr. Israel Abrahams very kindly relieved me of the labour of reading the proofs of the tracts, and made many valuable suggestions which have added to the completeness and beauty of the volume. Mr. B. L. Abrahams was good enough to revise my introduction, and thus saved me from not a few slips of style and memory. The Rev. S. Levy has given me useful assistance in preparing the annotations, and Dr. S. R. Gardiner was good enough to place at my disposal his unrivalled knowledge of the politics of the Commonwealth in solving some of the difficulties in the negotiations of 1655. My acknowledgments are also due to Miss S. R. Hirsch for the excellent index she has compiled. Finally, Mme. de Novikoff kindly obtained for me from the Hermitage Collection at St. Petersburg an excellent photograph of the alleged portrait of Menasseh ben Israel by Rembrandt, which I have reproduced, together with two other better known and more authentic portraits.

L. W.

London, December 1900.