Portuguese Jews in Jacobean London

<plain_text><page sequence="1">Portuguese Jews in Jacobean London By E. R. Samuel1 PREFATORY NOTE IN 1609 the Tuscan and Venetian Ambassadors in London reported to their Governments on the expulsion from England of a colony of Portuguese secret Jews. Other readers of Dr. Cecil Roth's History of the Jews in England may have been puzzled, as I was, on reading his account of the incident, to discover that there were at that time any secret Jews in England to expel. My own first thought was of surprise that Portuguese Marranos should have been allowed into this country at all after the execution for treason in 1594 of Dr. Roderigo Lopes, Queen Elizabeth's physician, or after the Gunpowder Plot of 1606. Further investigation shewed that there were other references, some already published, to a few Portuguese Jews in England after Queen Elizabeth's death. It is my intention to attempt an assessment of the circumstances which brought the Marranos to England, and to submit some fresh data (some of my own finding, some from the unpublished papers of the late Lucien Wolf) which I hope will throw some light on the history, both of those Portuguese Jews who lived in London during the reign of James I, and of the Marrano communities in Antwerp and Amsterdam, whence most of them came. One feels diffident in attempting research on a period which immediately follows Lucien Wolf's most brilliant work on The Jews in Elizabethan England. Especially so, when one has been prevented by lack of free time from fully exploiting the available sources. For there is a wealth of unexplored material awaiting investigation in the legal, Admiralty and other National Records and this paper is not based on a comprehensive survey but on a few items which chanced to come to hand. I do hope that others will become interested enough to do that which I have been unable to attempt. I should like to express my thanks to my father, Mr. Wilfred S. Samuel, Dr. Cecil Roth, Miss J. Pearson of University College Library, London, Mrs. R. Goulston, Mr, Arthur Arnold, Mr. J. P. C. Kent, Professor C. R. Boxer, Miss Freda Podmore, Dr. Hollander of Guildhall Library, Mr. R. B. Chandler of the City of London Records Office, Mr. J. Lefevre, the Conservator and Mr. C. Tihon the Archivist General, of the Archives Generales du Royaume, Brussels, for their kind and courteous assistance. Above all, I should like to thank my kinsman Mr. R. D. Barnett, Keeper of the Western Asiatic Department of the British Museum, for his continuous advice and collaboration and for undertaking the exacting and unrewarding task of deciphering and translating the Spanish and Portuguese documents for the Appendix. THE PORTUGUESE "NATION" OF ANTWERP One of the consequences of the discoveries of the New World and of the sea route to the Orient at the close of the fifteenth century was the rapid rise to eminence of the City of Antwerp. Its geographical situation in the fertile and industrious Southern Netherlands with its fine port and proximity to the inland waterways of Europe combined with a fortunate political history to raise it, for almost a century, to be the commercial capital of Northern Europe. Under Charles V its merchants enjoyed the dual advantages 1 Address delivered before the Jewish Historical Society of England on 16th February, 1955, 171</page><page sequence="2">172 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON of being under the same sway as the valuable colonial Empire of Spain and of possessing ancient privileges of autonomy. At a time when the rulers of Europe saw commerce principally as a readily taxable source of revenue and squeezed their merchant subjects at every opportunity, the Burgomasters of Antwerp ensured security for capital, kept the taxes low and granted special civic status to foreign merchants. They readily granted to them the Poortersrecht (or City Freedom) and allowed them to form self governing communities within the city.1 Six colonies of foreign merchants or Nations2 as they were called, became promi? nent in Antwerp affairs ... the Nations of Spain, Portugal, Germany, Denmark, Italy and England. By 1560 there were 1,0003 foreign merchants in the city. One of the more important of these six colonies was the so-called Nation of Portugal or Portuguese Nation. It was a compact well-disciplined community, ruled and administered under an ancient constitution by two governors or Consuls, a Secretary and a Treasurer, all four elected from among its members. The status of the Portuguese Nation was based upon privileges which had been granted in 1411 by John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy and Count of Flanders, to the Portuguese merchants who settled in Bruges. These privileges emanated from a treaty between the Duke and the King of Portugal. In 1488 Maximilian, King of the Romans, asked the Nations of foreign merchants to transfer to Antwerp and promised them the same privileges as they had enjoyed at Bruges, together with Consular autonomy and his protection. In 1493 the Portuguese Nation at Bruges received a farm on the beer and wine excise. In 1499 the King of Portugal's Factor moved to Antwerp, and the merchants gradually followed the Royal Factor thither. By 1511 all had moved to Antwerp where the Nation was given a fine mansion for their Consulate and granted the local franchise for beer and wine. They were also promised the same privileges as had been accorded to other Nations in the city; their Chartered Rights were ratified and re-ratified at the request of their Consuls in 1539, 1542, 1545 and 1554. The constitution of the Nation was as follows : Each year at Epiphany an official of the Margrave of Antwerp would summon the mem? bers of the Portuguese Nation to the House of Portugal where they would elect two Consuls. The precise electoral procedure is unknown but the members of the Nation did not always decide to elect the candidate recommended by the King of Portugal, and only sometimes was the King's Factor in Antwerp chosen for office. The Consuls of the Portuguese Nation had a threefold responsibility. They represented the Nation to the Government; they enacted by-laws which were binding on the members of the 1 J. A. Goris Etude sur les Colonies Marchandes Meriodionales ? Anvers de 1488 ? 1567 (Louvain, 1925), C. Roth The House of Nasi: Dona Gracia (Philadelphia, 1947), C. R. Boxer Salvador de S? and the Struggle for Brazil and Angola 1602-1686 (London 1952), R. V. Livermore A History of Portugal (London, 1947), J. L. Motley Rise of the Dutch Republic and History of the United Netherlands, G. N. Clark The Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1929) form the general bibliographical background to this section of the paper. 2 The use of the word Nation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries is confusing; there being four distinct meanings. It was used in Antwerp, Amsterdam and elsewhere to denote a privileged colony or community, and this is the sense in which Sephardi Jews as late as the Nineteenth Century referred to themselves as members of the "Portuguese Jewish Nation." The word was used in Spain and Portugal to denote the community or race of "New Christians' who were often referred to as 6(Gente de la Nacion,\ The Spaniards employed the word in a third sense, and used to refer to foreigners as "naciones" in exactly the same way as in ancient Hebrew foreigners were called Goyim or "Gentiles" (anglice "Nations"). In addition to these special meanings the word was frequently used in the modern sense to connote nationality. 3 Out of a total population of 150,000?Motley, History of the United Netherlands.</page><page sequence="3">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 173 Nation, and they acted as a Court of First Instance for its members. The Consuls were responsible for the taxation of the Portuguese; they purchased or hired warehouse facilities for the Nation. They levied an import duty on all Portuguese merchandise which was then sealed with the letters N.P. (Natio Portugaliensis). Their patriarchal government took charge of the welfare of minors who were orphans. They appeared officially at Government ceremonies and Royal receptions as the representatives of the Nation, and they were charged by the Burgomasters with responsibility for the ransom of merchandise captured by the Pirates and with the verification and assessment of insurance claims.1 The forcible conversion of the Jews in Portugal at the end of the fifteenth century had left them as it found them, a closely inter-related commercial class which included some considerable capitalists. The persecution of the New Christians (as they were now called) which followed the introduction of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1536, welded them together as a community but scarcely inhibited their commercial activities. Whereas the Jews had controlled much of the internal trade of the Peninsula, the New Christians by virtue of their mutual loyalty, exclusiveness, energy and probity, came to dominate the external trade of Portugal. In Antwerp security of capital and freedom from the Inquisition were granted to all outward Catholics; and of the Portuguese merchants who gravitated there, naturally most were New Christians and many were Secret Jews (or Marranos). Before long the Consuls of the Portuguese Nation of Antwerp were almost invariably New Christians.2 The prosperity of the Antwerp settlement was greatly augmented by the amazing success of Diego Mendes, a Lisbon Marrano who proved himself to be a commercial genius. In partnership with other New Christians in Antwerp and with the Affaittati, a firm of Italian bankers, he purchased in 1524 the entire spice crop of the Indies from the King of Portugal. With the profit which accrued he was able to outbid all rivals, to establish an annual monopoly of the spice trade, and to build a great fortune. After his death, his heirs migrated to Constantinople to profess Judaism openly, and they slowly withdrew their capital from Antwerp. They were succeeded in the spice trade by a consortium of Portuguese New Christians in Antwerp who negotiated the annual "Contract of India" and "Contract of Lisbon" for the distribution of the spice crop.3 In 1565 Philip II of Spain installed the Inquisition in his Netherlands and a large part of the "Six Nations" of foreign merchants left the city : the English, Germans, Danes and Portuguese for direct fear of the Inquisition and many Italian, French and even Spanish merchants because they felt that credit could not be secure where arbitrary confiscations were possible. The trade of Antwerp suffered. Frankfort, Cologne, Lyons, La Rochelle, Hamburg and London benefited. From this time Antwerp ceased to be the financial centre of Europe.4 However, the greatest blows to the City's prosperity followed upon the rebellion of the Protestant Netherlands against Spanish rule. First came the terror and exactions of Alva's government with the "Spanish Fury" massacres of 1576, then a brief period of renewed prosperity under the Dutch Republic (1577 to 1585), and finally the recapture 1 J. A. Goris?op. ext. pp. 37-55. 2 See J. A. Goris?op. cit.3 p. 623 for list of names. 3 For the History of Diego Mendes see Goris op. cit., pp. 562-9. For references to the annual Spice Contracts see Goris p. 194-205?H. I. Bloom op cit.3 p. 116. Also C. Roth, The House of Nasi:? Donna Gr acta. 4 J. A. Goris, op. cit.3 p. 599 et seq.</page><page sequence="4">174 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON of the city by the Spaniards mined its great trade. In 1585 Parma expelled 20,000 Protestants, and the cloth and dye industries migrated to Amsterdam. In the twenty years that followed Antwerp's population dropped from 150,000 to 80,000. In the same period the population of Amsterdam grew from 70,000 to 100,000.1 This was perhaps due as much to the Anglo-Dutch mastery of the sea and control of Flushing as to the Spanish repression, but one factor was the conscious attempt of the Burgomasters of Middelburg, Alkmaar, Rotterdam, and especially of Amsterdam, to emulate the policies which had made Antwerp great. Nevertheless, even as late as 1595 the Portuguese Nation of Antwerp still numbered 57 heads of households and 20 single men.2 THE PORTUGUESE "NATION" OF AMSTERDAM Study of the small colony which lived in London under King James I requires a preparatory survey of the history of the first Jewish settlement in Amsterdam, in itself a subject of larger importance. There are three traditional versions of the story of the arrival of the first Jews in Amsterdam towards the end of the Sixteenth Century?and no contemporary story. First there is the account of Moses Ury HaLevi, grandson of the first Rabbi of the Community, which was written about 1673 and published under the title of "Narracao da Vinda dos Judeos Espanhoes a Amsterdam" in 1711. Then there is the flamboyant poem of Daniel Levi de Barrios, entitled" Triunpho del Govierno Popular en la Casade Jacob" which appeared in Amsterdam in 1684. This made some use of HaLevi's account but added a great deal besides. Finally there is the version of David Franco Mendes, a descendant of one of the earliest Amsterdam Jewish families. He used the two former accounts and added some further material. It was published as : "Memorias do estabelicemento eprogresso dosjudeos Portugueses e Espanhoes nessa Cidade de Amsterdam no anno 1769" (Amsterdam 1769). The best discussion of these three traditional accounts is probably that to be found in J. S. da Silva Rosa's introduction to a modern Amsterdam edition of HaLevi's book.3 For the following Summary I have drawn on all three versions, omitting much that is not relevant to our immediate purpose. In 1590 or 1593 (according to de Barrios) or 1604 (according to HaLevi) a shipload of Marranos sailed from Portugal under the leadership of one Jacob Tirado. After a suggested landing in England, probably apochrypal, they arrived in the Hanseatic Port of Emden. On the advice of a local rabbi Ury HaLevi, whom they consulted, they then sailed on to Amsterdam in order to return to their ancestral Judaism. Ury HaLevi followed them with his family and received them all into the Covenant of Abraham. A secret service which they held shortly afterwards on the Eve of Kippur was interrupted by armed men, as the Dutch authorities suspected them of holding a clandestine Mass. Jacob Tirado made a speech in Latin to the intruders, declaring that he and his fellows were Jews, and not Papists, moreover that they were fugitives from the Spanish Inquisi? tion, that they had brought much wealth with them from Spain and Portugal, and that, if they could induce their relations in the Peninsula to follow their example much more wealth would accrue to the trade of Amsterdam. The Burgomasters were satisfied, 1 Motley United Netherlands. 2 J. A. Goris op. cit.3 p. 55. 3 "Reprints and Texts from the Library of the Portuguese Jewish Seminary Etz Haim" Vol, IJ (Amsterdam, 1930),</page><page sequence="5">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 175 the armed men withdrew, and the service was allowed to continue. Shortly afterwards the Marranos were permitted to build a Synagogue which they called Beth Jacob (or House of Jacob) after their leader Jacob Tirado. Since all three traditional narratives come from secondary sources written many years after the events, we may expect them to contain useful information but they may be incorrect in detail. The discoveries of later writers do not altogether square with the traditional accounts, though the story of HaLevi needs little emendation. First of all, Mr. Isaac Prins1 and other Dutch authors have shown that there were Marranos in Amsterdam from the 1590's onwards ; then we have the discovery by Jacob Zwarts2 that Ury HaLevi did not arrive in that city until 1602, as he himself told the magistrates when he was arrested on a false charge of larceny in the succeeding year. This means, as Zwarts has pointed out, that de Barrios' dates are wrong, and that the most likely date for the clandestine service is 1603, when the Eve of Kippur would have fallen on a Sunday night?a time when Roman Catholics were wont to meet at their devotions. It is now possible to produce two further documents which throw light on the subject. The first is a note which I was fortunate enough to find among the papers of Sir Julius Caesar, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty of England. This is his sum? mary of a Prize Court case3 tried before him in 1601, which will be referred to later and in more detail. It shews that in that year the Marranos of Amsterdam produced evidence before an English court that they were Professing and Communicating Protestants, and that their opponents did not controvert their statement. The second document which helps us is the treacherous denunciation of Henrique Garcez of Antwerp to the Spanish Authorities by one Isaac Palache, a born Jew of Amsterdam and a son of Samuel Palache, the Moorish Ambassador at the Hague. Isaac Palache told the Spanish Authorities that Garcez, though baptised, was a Secret Jew, and he went on to give information about other baptised Marranos in Amsterdam who had reverted to Judaism. He declared that he had seen Simon de Mercado at a Synagogue in the house of Guines Lopes alias Jacob Tirado. We can take Guines Lopes to have been the same person as Jennes (otherwise James) Lopes da Costa, whose name heads the Portuguese merchants' claim in the London Prize Court case.4 That the Synagogue was in his house is interesting, particularly in view of its name Beth Jacob (or House of Jacob).5 The Palache denunciation shews that Mr. Jacob Zwarts' not unreasonable 1 I Prins?De Vestiging der Marranen in Noord Nederland in deXVIde Eeuw (Amsterdam, 1927). 2 J. Zwarts?De Eerste R?bbynen en Synagoguen van Amsterdam naar Archivalische Bronnen (Amsterdam, 1929) pp. 107-110. 3 See Appendix II (4) 4 Dr. Jaap Meijer in the Preface to the 1950 edition of D. H. de Castro's De Synagoge de Portugees Israelitsche Gemeente te Amsterdam cites A. M. Vaz Dias lets over Jacob Tirado in the periodical HaSephardi Vol. V p. 36?which I have not seen?as quoting from a denunciation by Isaac Palache... "That he had repeatedly met the suspect Simon de Mercado in 1607 in the Synagogue at Amsterdam of Jennes Lopes da Costa, who among the Jews of that place is called Tirado and which Synagogue was situated on Vlooyenburg opposite the Steenvoetsegg." See also Appendix IV (2) Dossier 924B. 5 De Barrios confirms the suggestion that the Beth Jacob was named partly after its founder. "La prima sinagoga Amstelodama Fundada fue del gran Jacob Tirado Que por su nombre Bet Jahacob la llama Y por el pueblo de Jacob Sagrado Quema despues la inquisidora llama At gran Diego : y su Historia increado Rey, dedico en las arias de mi anhelo Por que la admita la luz de Cielo",</page><page sequence="6">176 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON conjecture that Jacob Tirado was to be indentified with Manuel Rodrigues Vega, one of the foremost merchants of Amsterdam, was not correct.1 Apparently the first Marranos came to Amsterdam from Antwerp (as did Manuel Rodrigues Vega and Duarte Fernandes) during the 1590's. They seem to have been joined soon after by others from Portugal. In 1598 a resolution was passed by the Burghers of Amsterdam permitting Portuguese merchants to buy the Poortersrecht (Freedom) of Amsterdam ("confiding that they are zealous Christians").2 They were told that no religious services, apart from those allowed in Public Churches were permitted in the city and that they were not to hold any public services other than in accordance with the Protestant faith. These provisions are reminiscent of those accorded by the victorious Dutch in 1602 to the defeated Catholics of Graves.3 One imagines that it was soon after this that the Amsterdam Marranos were granted privileges of communal autonomy similar to those of the Portuguese Nation of Antwerp, for one hears soon of Consuls and a Consulate.4 In 1602, as the Portuguese Nation of Amsterdam, they purchased a cemetery at Alkmaar in N. Holland.6 Rabbi Uri HaLevi arrived in Amsterdam in the same year.6 Then the discovery of the clandestine synagogue took place, probably in the next year. If, as it appears from Sir Julius Caesar's summary of the Prize Case of 1601, the Amster? dam Marranos like their brothers in Elizabethan England did not scruple to join in Protestant worship, one can well imagine that the Dutch authorities would be surprised and disturbed to discover that the whole Portuguese Nation was privately practising Judaism. They would have earnestly doubted whether they could countenance what was not permitted in other Christian cities. We have no evidence of the debate which must have ensued, but we can conceive that the great prosperity of the Portuguese Nation of Amsterdam and their economic value to the City would have been adduced as proof that God's Grace had not entirely departed from the Scattered Remnant of Israel. 1 Lucien Wolf had the information identifying Jacob Tirado, the founder of the first Amsterdam synagogue, with James Lopes da Costa, and it has also been published in Brugman and Frank Geschiedenis der Joden in Nederland (Amsterdam, 1940) but it does not seem to have been generally appeciated. 2 I do not think that this phrase means that they were believed to be Jews. After all, the Burghers of Amsterdam are not likely to have forgotten Marco Perez (1527-1572) head of the Calvinist Consistory of Antwerp, or Philip de Bernuy, a leading Lutheran, who were both New Christian merchants of the Portuguese Nation of Antwerp. One imagines that they hoped that Calvinist Portuguese rather than Catholics would settle in the City. The actual resolution of the Burgomasters together with other documents relevant to this subject have been published in Jacob Zwarts' De Eerste Rabijnen en Synagogen van Amster? dam naar Archivalische Bronnen p. 105. Translated, it reads : "On the 4th Sept., 1598 at a meeting held with the gentlemen the former Burgomasters it is resolved with regard to the Portuguese Merchants living here in the city and wishing to purchase a Poortersrecht that the Burgomasters (confiding that they are sincere Christians and that they propose to live here honourably as sincere and good citizens) are willing to grant these people the Citizenship but that before administering the oath, it must be men? tioned that here in the city no exercise of religion is permitted other than that which is practised publicly in the churches". The following is a list of those granted the Poortersrecht?Emanuel Rodrigues (Vega) (1597), Antonio Rodrigues de Melo (1598), Francisco de Villa Real (1598), Fernando de Mercado (1601), Francisco Pinto de Britto (1602), Duarte Seraiva (1604), Jacques Miguel (1604). H. I. Bloom : The Economic Activities of the Jews of Amsterdam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Williamsport, Penn., 1937) p. 23. 3 Motley?History of the United Netherlands. 4 Zwarts?op. cit. Appendices XVII and XI. 5 Prins.?op cit. p. 205. 6 Zwarts?op. cit. Appendices VII and VIII,</page><page sequence="7">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 177 When the leaders of the Portuguese Nation went so far as successfully to petition the Burghers of Alkmaar (1604;,1 Haarlem (1605) and Rotterdam (1607) for permission to live and trade among them as Jews, the argument must have been clinched. They were permitted to stay in Amsterdam and to open synagogues. It came to be increasingly recognised that Portuguese Jews lived openly in Amsterdam. Yet they proceeded discreetly so as not to involve their trading correspondents in the Peninsula. The economic value of the Portuguese Jews to Amsterdam lay in their unique ability to trade with the Spanish and more particularly the Portuguese Empires. Of course, this trade was the legal monopoly of the merchants of Iberian home ports, but there were many ways in which the monopoly might be circumvented with the compliance of relations and factors in Spain, Portugal and the Indies. Goods could be shipped through the Spanish-held port of Antwerp or even through the English-held port of Flushing by which all Antwerp trade had to pass. With a willing accomplice in Lisbon it would probably be possible with double bills of lading to trade direct with Bahia, Pernambuco, or Rio de Janeiro.2 The imports most needed in the colonies were northern manufactures, and since Northern Europe was the best market for the dyestuffs, bullion and sugar of Brazil, the Portuguese Jews of Hamburg, Amsterdam, and (as we shall see) London, would have been able to undercut all their competitors and make handsome profits. The New Christian capitalists in Portugal were always ready to finance and assist them, for apart from the high profits of the trade, the capital invested in it was beyond the reach of the Inquisition. The Dutch merchants might have been able by force of arms to capture the East Indies' trade, or even for a time to make inroads into Brazil, but they had always in the end to leave most of the interloping and monopoly-breaking trade to the Portuguese Jews. It was because they brought additional commerce with them without damaging the interests of the Protestant merchants that the Portuguese Jews were welcomed and valued. It is interesting to see that they continued their interloping for many years afterwards. In 1685 an Englishman complained that the Amsterdam Jews were trading with the English colonies by the aid of their London correspondents.3 This technique must surely have been learnt in the Spanish Indies' trade. Some new information as to the size and character of the Amsterdam Marranos' trade with Portugal, India and Brazil is given in the documents which were placed before Sir Julius Caesar in the Prize Court case referred to previously.4 A fleet of six ships of Emden bound under charter in 1601 from Lisbon to Amsterdam had been seized as rich Spanish prizes by the Royal Navy and taken to London The vessels were claimed by their owners and a large part of the cargo, of which the share awarded to the Queen was valued at no less a sum than ?28,000 sterling (possibly ?400,000 1 Mr. I. Prins. {op. cit. p. 205) aptly quotes the Dutch saying "From Alkmaar began the Victory". 2 A modern instance of breaking government trading restrictions with double bills of lading, occurred in a recent court case where a large consignment of copper was found to have been shipped to Poland from London although consigned for Antwerp. 3 Samuel Hayne Abstract of all the Statutes made concerning aliens trading in England. Also of the Laws for securing our plantation trade to ourselves . . .proving that the Jews . . . break them all. (London, 1685). 4 Brit. Mus. Lansdown MS 145 &amp; 374 "So as the goods alreadie adjudged unto her Matie are well worth 38,000 li at leaste" See also Appendix II (10).</page><page sequence="8">178 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON in modern currency)1 was claimed by James Lopes da Costa2 (Jacob Tirado) on behalf of himself and seventeen other prominent Portuguese merchants of Amsterdam, two of whom as we shall see, later settled in London. Three letters were written to the Privy Council by the States General on behalf of Fernando de Mercado2 whose brother, a prospective immigrant to Amsterdam travelling in one of the six ships, had been arrested. The incident emphasises the surprisingly high value of a typical cargo and the large amount of capital that they must have brought to the Amsterdam trade. Whether those settled at Amsterdam were, as they alleged before Sir Julius Caesar, the sole owners of the cargo, or whether they were really financed from Portugal, we cannot know. To summarise, the sequence of events appears to have been : first, from 1590 a gradual settlement of Portuguese Marranos in Amsterdam; then, from 1598 the admission of some six individuals to citizenship on the understanding that they were Protestants ; then, the official recognition of the Portuguese Nation as an autonomous community; then, the purchase of the cemetery at Alkmaar; then, the discovery in 1603 that they were all Jews, and the reluctant granting of permission to open synagogues ; then, the growth of three separate Jewish religious congregations within the Nation3; and finally, the amalgamation of the three synagogues in 1618 so that the secular heads or Consuls of the community were also the Parnassim (or Wardens) of the one big synagogue, whose constitution down to the present day plainly reflects the organisation of the original Marrano mercantile colony. THE PORTUGUESE MARRANOS IN LONDON Now let us turn our attention to the state of affairs in England. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I some twenty or thirty Portuguese Marranos had settled in London. Two of the most notable were Dr. Rodrigo Lopes, the Queen's physician, and his father in-law Dunstan Anes, a merchant who was "Purveyor of Groseries" to the Queen's household and who seems to have been the principal London agent for the great Marrano Spice Trust of Antwerp. The story of this colony has been wonderfully told by Lucien Wolf and it is largely by use of his unpublished papers in the Mocatta Library that we are able to take up the tale where he broke off. As is well known, Dr. Lopes dabbled in international intrigue, and he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in 1594 for allegedly plotting to poison the Queen. His widow was allowed by the Queen's bounty to retain Iiis estate, and after his death she lived on with her family in Mountjoys Inn, in Holborn, which a grateful patient had built and given to her husband.4 1 Of this ?20,000 worth was pepper belonging presumably to King Philip but probably being consigned to the Marranos in Amsterdam for sale there on his behalf by the Portuguese syndi? cate who farmed the "Contract of Lisbon". This very large shipment to Amsterdam seems to imply that even before the Dutch captured the Spice Islands Amsterdam had succeeded Antwerp as the staple for spices. 2 Brit. Mus. Lansdown MS 145 &amp; 374 &lt;c So as the goods alreadie adjudged unto her Matie are well worth 38,000 li at leaste " See also Appendix II (10). 3 In a book dedicated to him in 1612 Jacob Tirado is described as "Parnas de la Nacion Portuguesa que reside en esta may noble y opulenta villa de Amstradama"?Francisco (Joseph) de Caseres, Los siete Dias de la Semana (Amsterdam, 1612). This being at a time when there were two Synagogues, he was presumably Consul of the Portuguese Nation, not merely President of the Synagogue. 4 Diet. Nat. Biography "Rodrigo Lopes".</page><page sequence="9">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 179 In 1594 Dunstan Anes also died. Three of his children withdrew to Constantinople, where they became Jews and where, in 1613, they entertained an English traveller Thomas Coryate.1 WILLIAM ANES, Dunstan's only other surviving son, remained in London as a merchant throughout King James' reign. I can add little to Lucien Wolf's discoveries, but it is worth recalling his account of William Anes' life. He was born and baptized in London in 1562. Together with his uncle Francis he fought in Ireland and distinguished himself at the Defence of Youghal. The Earl of Ormond wrote of him to the Privy Council that he had "behaved himself like a tall and valiant man". In 1581 he was sent to Lisbon to further the interests of Don Antonio, the Pretender to the Portuguese Crown. The Spanish Ambassador in London discovered his errand and reported it to King Philip.2 He described Anes as "a young fellow of twenty, well built, with a fair and handsome face and a small fair beard". In the next year he went with his brother Jacob to the Azores to spy out the Islands in preparation for Sir Francis Drake's raid, and on returning to England they were both received by the Queen. In 1588, his name was included in the list of London Marranos who were denounced to the Alcaide of Madrid in the following terms "... it is public and notorious in London, that by race they are all Jews, and it is notorious that in their own homes they live as such, observing their Jewish rites; but publicly they attend Lutheran Churches, and do listen to the sermons and take the bread and wine in the manner and form as do the other heretics".3 William Anes lived in London for the rest of his life, and on his death in 1630 he was buried near his father in his parish church of St. Olaves, Hart Street. He seems to have continued his father's business as an agent for the Marranos on the continent, for we find him acting as surety for the Amsterdam Marranos in the 1601 Prize Case.4 Like his father he was a liveryman of the Grocers' Company. It is noticeable that the other Marranos who came to London in James I reign chose to live in and around the same street as he.5 Probably many members of the Elizabethan Marrano colony left the country after Lopes' execution. Unfortunately, the records surviving from the period are too few for us to know for certain which members of the Elizabethan colony remained in London in the succeeding reign. We do however know of one other who did so. In 1599 JERONIMO LOPES was living in Tower Ward with his wife and negro servant.6 He was (so Lucien Wolf has said) a cousin of Dr. Rodrigo Lopes. That he was a merchant and a Secret Jew we know from a letter written three years previously by 1 Purchase His Pilgrims Vol. X (Glasgow, 1905). Coryate visited : "The house of a certain English Jew called Amis (presumably Jacob Anes, b. 1552, see J.H.S.E. Trans. Vol. XI, p. 19) born in the Crootched Friers in London, who hath two sisters more of his own Jewish religion . . . likewise born in the same place . . . This forsaid Amis for the love that he bore to our English nation, in which he lived till he was thirty years of age, being at the time of my residence in Constantinople sixty . . . received me with very corteous entertainment." 2 L. Wolf in J.H.S.E. Trans. Vol. XL 3 Lucien Wolf in J.H.S.E. Trans. XII. 4 See Appendix II (7). 5 Gabriel Fernandes lived in Aldgate Ward and in St. Olave's, Hart Street Parish. Crutched Friars was the only main thoroughfare in both the Parish and the Ward although there were some side streets. Jeronimo Lopes and Antonio da Costa Olivario lived in Aldgate Ward. Francisco Pinto de Britto, A. da C. Olivario's partner, lived in the Parish. It is extremely likely that all these men lived in Crutched Friars. 6 "Return of Aliens" Vol. Ill, Huguenot Society (Aberdeen), 1908 pp. 53, 55, 124, 125, 282.</page><page sequence="10">ISO PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON Sir William Waad, Clerk of the Privy Council, to Sir Robert Cecil. Waad refers to another Marrano (Pedro Rodrigues of Lyons) as "a Portugal by nation and a Jew by race" and goes on to describe Jeronimo Lopes as "one of his nation and sect, whom your honour doth well remember".1 In 1601 we find Jeronimo Lopes acting jointly with James Lopes da Costa on behalf of the Amsterdam Marranos in the Prize Court Case.2 In 1605 King James issued a patent exempting merchants born in the Netherlands and dwelling in London from alien duties. Two Marranos, Jeronimo Lopes and Gabriel Fernandes, appear in this list annually from 1605 to 1608. As their names are omitted from the patent of May 1609 it would seem that they had by then left the country.3 GABRIEL FERNANDES, who is the first to attract our attention as a new im? migrant to the Marrano community of Jacobean times is probably to be identified with Gabriel Fernandes Vega (1576-1639) the second son of Luis Fernandes,4 a great merchant of Antwerp and partner in the Syndicate which marketed the Portuguese spice crop. Luis Fernandes (1542-1602) had four sons and one daughter. His eldest son, Manuel Rodrigues Vega (b. 1575) settled in Amsterdam where he set up silk mills, owned sugar warehouses and was an important merchant.5 The third son, Duarte Fernandes Vega (b. 1587) lived first in Rouen,6 then in Amsterdam and then in Rotterdam. His second son, Gabriel Fernandes Vega, who was known in the synagogue by the name of Moses Touro, was born in Antwerp in 1576. We first hear of him in 1612 when he journeyed to Rotterdam and Amsterdam.7 He settled ultimately in Antwerp, where he died twenty-seven years later.8 If Gabriel Fernandes Vega of Antwerp is identical with the Antwerp-born Gabriel Fernandes who lived in London from 1605-1608, we can appreciate that with one son in Amsterdam, one in Rouen or Rotterdam, one in London, the fourth son Gaspar (b. 1590) perhaps in another city, a nephew (Francisco Fernandes) in Brazil,9 their father in Antwerp and other relations in Lisbon, the Fernandes family was well placed for international trade. The case of Gabriel Fernandes, who came to live in London under James I, raises another question. Why did he and other Marrano merchants choose to settle in England ? The most obvious reason is that in 1604 King James had terminated England's war with Spain. As a neutral port London had become an ideal entrepot by which the Amsterdam merchants could covertly trade with the Peninsula.10 Much of the trade which formerly passed through Emden, Hamburg and the other neutral Hanseatic 1 Salisbury MSS Vol. II p. 253 (Hist. MSS. Commiss.), cited by Wolf op. cit. p. 22. 2 See Appendix II (7). 3 Return of Aliens see p. 197 note 4. 4 Luis Fernaildes was an agent in collecting contributions for a secret synagogue in Antwerp (Wolf. op. cit. p. 20). 5 Bloom, op. cit. see Index. 6 I. S. Revah "Le premier etablissement des Marranes portugais ? Rouen 1603-1607)" in Annuaire de VInstitut de Philologie et d'Historie Orientales et Slaves Vol. XIII (Brussels, 1955). 7 J. Zwarts, De Eerste Rabijnen. There is an inconsistency in this statement which casts doubt upon its accuracy, for in the same sentence the author states that Luis Fernandes died in 1602, and that he travelled in company with his son Gabriel to Rotterdam and Amsterdam in 1612. 8 His daughter Beatrix (alias Abigail) Toura (married Dr. Isaac Rocamora in Amsterdam in 1647) was born there in 1622. He married (presumably for the second time) a Flemish Catholic lady, the Jonkfru Maria de Beex (d. of Jonkheer Jan de Beex). This information is derived from a birth brief of the Santacroos family in the possession (1955) of Mr. Sigmund Gomes da Costa. It was compiled by Mr. M. Vaz Diaz of Amsterdam who cites, as authority for the data, an essay by Mr. L. J. H. M. Nijgh of the Hague. 9 See the "Plea of the Portuguese Merchants", Appendix II (3). 10 See the first of the Mercado letters in Appendix IV (2) Dossier 755.</page><page sequence="11">PEDIGREES ILLUSTRATING "PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACC (1) The FERNANDES Family of Antwerp Luis Fernandes (1542-1602) of Antwerp m. Leonora Rodrigues Vega Manuel Rodrigues Vega of Nantes and Amsterdam b. 1575 I Gabriel Fernandes (Vega) alias Moses Touro (1576-1639) m. 1. ? 2. Jfru Maria d.o. Jkr. Jan de Beex _i__ Gracia Rodrigues (Vega) m. Gaspar Sanches of Rotterdam Duarte Fernandes (Vega) alias Joshua Habilho of Rouen and Rotterdam b. 1587 Mary b. London, 1606 Brites Fernandes Vega alias Abigail Toura b. Antwerp 1622 (Antwerp) Duarte Fernandes of Amsterdam Gaspar Francisco Fernandes Fernandes b. 1590 sent by his father to Brazil, 1600 Frai b. L Anne ] El m. 1647 Dr. Isaac Rocamora of Amsterdam (2) The NUNES and MERCADO Families Gaspar Nunes b. 1530, fl. 1610 of Antwerp m. 1568 Catherine Vas i Gaspar de Mercado of Lisbon Henrique Luis A younger Isabella ? m. 1610 Fernando Simon Rodrigo Gaspar ? Alvares Vas daughter Henriques de Mercado de de de of London Mercado Mercado Mercado of of of Amsterdam Hamburg Amsterdam Sarah b. 1550 m. Dr. Rodrigo Lopes, Physic to Queen Eliz beth I, execut Tyburn 1594. Douglas Wil Lopes L&lt; b. 1573 b.</page><page sequence="12">*G "PORTUGUESE JEWS IK JACOBEAN LONDON1 of (3) The PINTO DE BRITTO Fam?y Francisco Pinto de Britto b. Lisbon, d. London 1618 m. Anne Lopes b. London, d. 1626 Elizabeth Pinto Britto William Harborne, of Knolle, Warwickshire m. Mary Edgeworth, of Coventry William Harborne, armiger, merchant of London John H. William H. camora ido Gaspar ? de Mercado F of urg Amsterdam ;o le ado (4) The ANES Family of London Dunstan Anes d. 1594 'purveyor and marchant for the Queen's Matis. Grosery for the Howsehold', armiger. m. Constance Ruys _I_ Sarah b. 1550 m. Dr. Rodrigo Lopes, Physician to Queen Eliza? beth I, executed Tyburn 1594. Jacob b. 1552 Elizabeth b. 1553 I Rachel b. 1567 Living as Jews in Constantinople in 1612 I I II Benjamin William others d. (1551-1589) (1562-1630) before 1610 I m. Benjamin Frances ? d. 1605 (d. 1601) Douglas William Anne Lopes Lopes Lopes b. 1573 b. 1577 b. 1579 I I I I Anthony d. young William Hester Lopes Anes Anes (at Win- b. 1598 m. 1612 ehester John How College) John Anes b. 1600 died young</page><page sequence="13">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 181 ports could more conveniently go through London and Southampton, and agents in London were needed to handle the business. There were other opportunities to tempt Amsterdam Marranos to settle in London. English trade, though out stripped by the Dutch, was venturesome1 and the home industries were expanding. English cloth was in good demand in the Peninsula and in the Indies, as were other English manufactures. England was a good market for the bullion, diamonds, pearls, spices and sugar2 of the Portuguese colonies in which the Marranos dealt, and there was a gradually expanding market for their Brazilian logwood, indigo and other dyestuffs.3 In some other respects London was less attractive to the merchant stranger who might think of settling there than it had been in the days of Elizabeth I. The Dutch were now no longer fighting for survival, and within six years they were to be at peace with Spain. Their expanding industries and trade were begin? ning to make inroads on English commerce. The commercial outlook of the English merchant was protectionist and narrow in the extreme. He was always most anxious to restrict the activities of the foreign merchant and to protect Englishmen from his competition. He seemed seldom aware of the advantages of attracting foreign traders and trading capital to the English ports. Whereas the Dutch, as we have seen, readily admitted foreign merchants to citizenship and even allowed them a measure of autonomy, in England aliens were subject to special taxes and duties, and were excluded from the Freedom of the City of London. After the death of Elizabeth and the accession of James, English commercial policy became less heedful of the national interest when subject to sectional pressures.4 Moreover the Government was more extravagant5 and less adroit in commercial and political manoeuvre. In or before 1607 two important Marrano merchants, Fernando de Mercado and Francisco Pinto de Britto, both citizens of Amsterdam, settled in London.6 They seem to have acted as agents and factors for the Portuguese merchants of Amsterdam and other places, and also to have traded on their own account7. We shall now have to consider in detail the careers of these two men and of Antonio da Costa Olivario who came at a later date (though before 1618) to join Francisco Pinto de Britto in partnership. 1 e.g., the foundation of the E. India Company, Massachusets Company, Virginia Company. see J. N. Clark "The Seventeenth Century" (Oxford, 1929) for general background. 2 The duty on imported sugar was low and being at a flat rate greatly favoured importers of refined sugar until 1614, when the rates were adjusted to protect the English refiners (Acts of the Privy Council, November 1614). 3 This was a period of continuous dispute with the Dutch over the protection afforded to the English dyeing industry. An English prohibition on the export of grey cloth to the Netherlands was followed by a Dutch embargo which after negotiation was withdrawn (Motley, United Netherlands). 4 A good example of the contemporary attitude is the protest made by the City authorities when a merchant stranger, Paul Timmerman, set up a sugar refinery in the City of London, which was said to be a serious threat to the English-owned refineries (S.P. Dom., James I, Vol. II, pp. 376-396). In view of the fact that the sugar refineries of Amsterdam increased from three in 1603 to forty by 1650 (Bloom op. cit. p. 38), it is difficult to believe that the English refineries were so developed at this date (1610) as to cope fully with home demand or to compete with foreign centres. Timmerman's enterprise was suppressed. 5 King James spent one-quarter of his Imperial revenue on his household (Motley, History of United Netherlands). "The Narrative History of King James for the first fourteen years." (London 1651) Part III gives a summary of the Royal revenues and expenditures which if as accurate as it would appear, reiterates this point. 6 We know this because they had to relinquish their shares in the Dutch East India Company on leaving the Netherlands (1608). A. M. Vaz Dias : "De deelnamen der Marranen in het oprichtingskapital der Oost-Indische Compagnie" (Amsterdam, 1936). 7 See Appendix IV (2) Dossier 755. M</page><page sequence="14">182 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON Fernando de Mercado1 was born in Lisbon and was the son of Gaspar de Mercado of that city. He settled in Amsterdam and was granted citizenship (Poortersrecht) in 1601.2 As we have seen, he was one of those who applied for the restoration of the goods taken in the six ships which Sir Robert Mansell captured in that year. His share of the cargo consisted of fifteen chests of sugar, six barrels of mirabolans, one box of camphor, four bags of pearls, three chests and fifteen fardels of cinnamon, four punchions of gumlac and three unspecified packets. His brother, Simon de Mercado who was accompanying the consignment, was also captured by Sir Robert and held prisoner. Fernando suc? ceeded in securing the intervention of the States General of the Netherlands with the English Privy Council. Two letters3 were written on his behalf requesting that Simon be released as he had left Lisbon in order to settle in Amsterdam under the protection of the States General. We next hear of Fernando de Mercado in company with Manuel Rodrigues Vega (Gabriel Fernandes' brother) heading a petition to the States General for better convoy protection for their ships.4 He was clearly a merchant of some importance and of wide connections. His position in later years was however gravely weakened by a series of misfortunes. His brothers, Roderigo de Mercado in Hamburg and Gaspar and Simon de Mercado in Amsterdam, who were merchants and also his agents, went bankrupt. In 1607 soon after Mercado had started his London business, Gaspar Nunes, an aged Marrano merchant of Antwerp, who was his principal debtor, stopped payment. Nunes' eldest son Henrique Alvares, who managed his business, had been arrested on a charge of Judaism and their goods had been seized.5 Nunes was forced to compound with his creditors and Fernando de Mercado could not collect the substantial sums owing to him. He was unable to pay his own creditors, the chief of whom seems to have been in Portugal ?Hector Mendes, nicknamed "o rico" (the rich one).6 By 1610, he was forced to take extreme measures to avoid bankruptcy. He therefore quickly negotiated a marriage with Gaspar Nunes' eldest daughter and arranged to receive his debts in full (and a little more besides) by way of dowry with the lady. This arrangement was acceptable to all the parties concerned. Meanwhile, in the course of some litigation in the English Courts7?in or before 1609?another Portuguese merchant had publicly denounced Mercado as a Jew. On being questioned he freely admitted that he was a Jew and the Government took cogniz? ance of the fact. In view of the scandal caused it was announced that he and his fellows must quit the Kingdom.8 1 He is said to have been a "hombre hidalgo escrito en los libros delRey de Portugal'9?See Appendix IV (2) Dossier 924B. 2 H. I. Bloom?op. cit. p. 84. 3 B. M. Mss. 14,027 fol. 102-5 (Caesar papers)?see Appendix II (11 to 13). 4 H. I. Bloom, op. cit. p. 89. 5 The case was not proved and Henrique was eventually released only to be re-arrested at a later date. 6 He is mentioned as such in an MS genealogy of the Mendes family of Trancozo by Jk. E. V. Texeira de Mattos in the possession of Dr. Cecil Roth. 7 (Hisp. En la Justitia de Londres)?Lucien Wolf dates this incident at 1603. I have found no evidence to support this date : possibly it may be an error or misprint for 1608. The later date seems more probable as this must have occurred during Mercado's sojourn in England after 1607 and before 1610. La Justitia de Londres may have been the Mayor's Court. Un? fortunately there are gaps in the records of this Court, but there is reference in S.P. Dom. to a case in this Court at this time involving Marranos (see Appendix II (1)). 8 That the events occurred in this sequence and that it was the Mercado case which precipitated the Earl of Suffolk's patent, has not been proved. It does, however, seem to be a very strong probability.</page><page sequence="15">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 183 The Earl of Suffolk was granted a patent for the discovery of the Jews (which he had doubtless purchased from the King) and which, according to a later writer "made the ablest of them fly out of England".1 It was apparently at this stage that Jeronimo Lopes and Gabriel Fernandes departed from the Country. Unfortunately we have no Privy Council Records for this period, and the original patent to the Earl of Suffolk has not been found. We must therefore rely on the reports of two Italian diplomats. The Tuscan Envoy, Ottaviano Lotto, wrote on 12th August, 1609 : "There are many Portuguese here who are trading, and have lately fallen out among themselves. Some of them have been accused of Judaism and have, therefore, been ordered to leave the Kingdom and with much despatch, for the law concerning this matter prescribes the death penalty.2 The Venetian Ambassador Marc Antonio Correr, reported from London on 20th August, 1609 to the Doge and Senate3 : "Many Portuguese Merchants in this City have been discovered to be living secretly as Jews. Some have already left and others have had a little grace granted to allow them to wind up their business, in spite of the laws which are very severe on this subject. These men are such scoundrels that, I am told, the better to hide themselves they have not only frequently attended Mass at some one or other of the Embassies, but have actually received the Holy Eucharist." The strange thing about the whole affair is that while Gabriel Fernandes and Jeronimo Lopes apparently left the Kingdom, Fernando de Mercado, the denunciation of whom seems to have started all the trouble, was still living in London at the end of 1610. True, some of his letters written in that year reveal that he was thinking of moving from England to Antwerp, but there is nothing in their tone to indicate that he was in a hurry. Presumably he had been able to bribe the Earl of Suffolk (who was reckoned a venal man even in his own time)4 not to "discover" his already manifest Judaism. One more problem concerning this incident does stand right out. Why did Fernando de Mercado confess to being a Jew ? His behaviour runs quite counter to the normal Marrano practice. In innumerable similar cases, Marranos asserted doggedly, even under torture, that they were faithful sons of the Church. We can be sure that it was not from religious scruple that Mercado was so frank. It seems inconceivable that any man born, 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale (a Royalist leader) to Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State to the exiled King Charles II, dated Brussels 20th September, 1655. (Nicholas Papers, Vol. Ill, p. 51) : "For that clause of Mr. Overton's letter which mentions the Jews, it proceeded from some discourses I had with Mr. Brokes (Saxby) about them, who seemed much to favour them as necessary to a kingdom, and I believe their tenets do not much differ. I desired Mr. Overton to sound their intentions by some of his party in Holland. I am very sorry they agree with Cromwell. The Jews are considerable all the world over, and great masters of money. If his Majesty could either have them or divert them from Cromwell, it were a very good service. I heard of this three years agone, but hoped that the Jews that understand the interest of all the princes in the world, had been too wise to venture themselves and estates under Cromwell, where they may by his death or other alteration in that kingdom run the hazard of an absolute ruin: but they hate monarchy and are angry for the patent that was granted by King James to my Lord of Suffolk for the discovery of them, which made the ablest of them fly out of England" 2 C. Roth Hist, of the Jews in England. 2nd Edit., (Oxford, 1949). 3 Cal. S.P. Venetian, 1609. 4 See Diet. Nat. Biog. "Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk".</page><page sequence="16">184 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON baptised and bred in Lisbon, and trained from infancy (under threat of death at the stake) to dissemble his true religion, would have felt bound to confess to being a Jew, merely on being questioned. A possible explanation occurs if we consider the contemporary history of the Amsterdam community. Mercado had lived in Amsterdam throughout the period when the Portuguese Nation there came into the open as Jews. Living in Protestant England, he may have thought that his confession of faith would secure the same result as had the discovery of the Secret Jews in Protestant Holland. Perhaps he hoped that the Government would consent to the open practice of Judaism in the interests of increased trade. Perhaps he could play the role in England of Jacob Tirado. If he thought so, he miscalculated the character of James I and his Government, and misjudged the differences in approach between the Calvinist Burgomasters and the Episcopalian King. Elizabeth might, in the national interest, have countenanced the presence of Secret Jews, providing they caused no outward scandal. James who was less flexible, was not likely to shew tolerance where even Elizabeth would have paused. In 1610, Fernando de Mercado left London for Antwerp. He went there to marry Isabella Henriques, elder daughter of Gaspar Nunes, and to sort out yet another complex commercial dispute. He took with him his brother, Simon de Mercado (of Amsterdam). The Procurator General of Brabant heard of their arrival and issued a writ for their arrest.1 Fernando apparently escaped, but Simon de Mercado, Gaspar Nunes and others were arrested. All Simon's papers?some of them quite incriminating?were im? pounded. Gaspar Nunes, then aged eighty, was arrested and charged as a Judaiser, in so far as he had sought to marry his daughter to a man whose public profession of Judaism in an English Court was notorious. New evidence was found against Henrique Alvares. Simon de Mercado was now confronted with the treacherous deposition of Isaac Palache who reported having seen him, a baptised Christian, in the Synagogue in the house of Jacob Tirado (alias Guines Lopes) in Amsterdam. The States General of the Netherlands intervened and procured Simon's release.2 They protested that he was under their protection, that he was a man of good character who had been sent as an emissary from the Portuguese Nation of Amsterdam to the Portuguese Nation of Antwerp to settle commercial disputes, and that he had been arrested only because he was a Jew. We have an account of the arrest and interrogation of Simon de Mercado and the other Marranos taken with him, and the packet of business correspondence which he had on his person when he was arrested. All these are in the Belgian Archives. The letters throw a great deal of light on the relations between the Marrano merchants and their commercial methods,3 and I know of no parallel collection having been printed. They deal with many topics, from the prospects of profit in the Guinea trade to an order to sell some Jewish prayer-books, and they mention by name over forty individuals. An? other document among these letters in the Belgian Archives is an unsigned balance sheet of (apparently) Gaspar Nunes of Antwerp, setting out his assets (?15,481 flemish) and liabilities (?25,779 flemish) in 1610.4 This also seems to me to be illustrative material of the first importance. 1 See Appendix IV (2). 2 H. I. Bloom?op. cit. p. 18 : Lucien Wolf papers "Marranos in Antwerp" at University College Library, London. 3 See Appendix IV (2). 4 See Appendix IV (2).</page><page sequence="17">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 185 Francisco Pinto de Britto was born in Lisbon, lived for a time in Oporto and settled in Amsterdam. He was granted the City Freedom (Poortersrecht) in 1602 as we have seen. I have found less material about him than about Mercado, and only indirect evidence of secret Judaism. He was a member of the Portuguese Nation of Amsterdam and, as such, signed a petition to the States General in 1602.1 In the previous year he figured as a Protestant in the Prize Court Case tried before Sir Julius Caesar.2 His share of the cargo taken was twenty chests of sugar, one barrel of vermeill (vermillion) and six packets of diamonds. Again in 1605, four years after the London case, his name is among the Amsterdam Marranos who petitioned Middelburgh Prize3 Court to restore one of their cargoes which had been taken by a Zeeland privateer. After settling in England, Francisco Pinto de Britto remained in close touch with the Amsterdam Marranos; and he is mentioned several times in the Mercado letters. Two instances are : when he was employed to assess the London rate of exchange between sterling and Flemish pounds ; and when Simon de Mercado was given a letter for him which he forgot to deliver when in London.4 Francisco Pinto de Britto remained in England until he died in 1618. He traded in partnership with Antonio Da Costa Olivario, a native of Lisbon, and both resided in St. Olave's, Hart Street Parish, where in Queen Elizabeth's time Dunstan Anes and Dr. Hector Nunes had lived and died. I have found the name of Francisco Pinto de Britto in a list of merchant strangers in London who subscribed to a forced loan to the Crown in 1612. His share was ?20? not a great sum.5 Mercado does not appear in this list, neither do any other Portuguese. In the next year, we find King James writing on behalf of Francisco Pinto de Britto to the Lord Mayor of London. The text of his letter is as follows : "JAMES REX "Right trustie and well beloved, wee greete you well, ffrancisco Pinto a stranger and auncient inhabitant of the cittie haveinge wife and children there born, hath done us some service, for which wee are willinge to doe him favour, and his suite to do, is to procure him the ffreedome of the cittie, which being a matter of noe burthen to you, but onlie a kindnesse, we have willinglie graunted to recommend him to you for the same. And yf you shall, in regard hee is one thate meriteth favour of you, doe him this pleasure, we shall take it in very thankfull part from you. "Given under our signet at Newmarket, the eight and twentieth day of ffebruarie, in the tenth year of our Raigne of England and ffraunce and Ireland and of Scotland the sixth and fortieth."6 The matter was referred by the Court of Aldermen7 to the Court of Common 1 Prins. op cit.&gt; p. 185?The other signatories were : Nicholas Rodrigues d'Evora, Duarte Ximenes, Antonio Faillero, Duarte Fernandes, Henrique Garcia (Garcez ?), Manuel Rodrigues Vega, Fernando de Mercado. 2 See Appendix II (6). 3 Prins. p. 203?The other signatories were : Emanuel Carvalho, Diego Diaz Querido, Luis Gomes D'Aberro, James Lopez, Guy Lopes Gomes, Michael Lopes Home, Belchior Mendes, Francisco Nunes Home, Thomas Nunes Pina, Jeronimo Rodrigues de Sousa, Duarte Serraiva. 4 See Appendix IV (2) 5 B.M. Add. MSS. 27,877. 6 City of London Records, Remembrancia III fol. 83. 7 On 11th March, 1612, a resolution of the Court of Aldermen was passed : "Item the request of the King's Most excellent Majesty made unto this court by his Lordship on behalf of ffrancisco Pinto to be admitted into the freedom and liberties of this City, is by this court wholly referred to the consideration of the next Common Council to be holden for the affairs of the City."</page><page sequence="18">186 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON Council, but no mention of the affair has been noted in the latter's records. I am inclined to think that the City would have granted the King's request. It was one that he rarely made. Francisco Pinto de Britto's wife was named Anne Lopes, and if, as alleged in the King's letter she was born in England, she was probably the daughter of either Dr. Rodrigo Lopes (whose daughter, Anne, was born in 1579) or of Jeronimo Lopes. The burial of "a blackamoore girl out of Mr. Pintoe's House" is recorded in 1612. Six years later, Francisco Pinto de Britto himself died and the same Parish Register records under the date December 30th, 1618 . . . "Francis Pintoe a portingall died and was carried ovr sea to be buried."1 This seems strong evidence that he was a Secret Jew. Francisco Pinto de Britto had, by this time, lived and traded in London for eleven years. He must have been well known on the Royal Exchange and in the City generally (for London was then a town of less than 150,000 people).2 His surviving daughter and heiress, Elizabeth,3 had married a London merchant, William Harborne. One is tempted to think that his death and the carrying of his body overseas to be buried would have caused gossip. In a play called "The Double Marriage", published by Massinger and Fletcher in the next year, a Jewish character is mentioned approvingly with the words "this Jew might live a Gentile here". This might perhaps have been a topical reference.4 After Pinto de Britto's death his partner, Antonio da Costa Olivario, continued to trade from London for three further years. I have no information about Antonio da Costa beyond the fact that he was a native of Lisbon and resided in Aldgate Ward in 1618.5 After his departure for the Continent, the only member of the Marrano colony who remained in London apart from William Anes and his family was Francisco Pinto de Britto's widow, Anne Lopes. In 1624 she attracts our attention by being sued in the King's Bench Court by John Francisco Soprani and Phillip Bernardi, two Italian merchants of London. Anne Lopes applied to the Equity Courts to have the case stopped. Her petition, drawn in careful form, is for a layman a most amusing example of the succession of alternative arguments, beloved of lawyers.6 The position was that, in 1616 Francisco Pinto de Britto and Antonio da Costa Olivario, trading in partnership, had chartered the good ship "Susan Bonadventure", belonging to Soprani and Bernardi, to collect sugars for them at Lisbon. In 1626 the latter sued Pinto de Britto's widow for ?100 damages and claimed, in addition, that his bond for ?300 on the fulfilment of the contract was forfeit. Anne Lopes' case was that the charter party never existed. If it did exist, then its terms had not been broken, if its terms had been broken, Bernardi and Soprani had suffered no damage; or, if they had suffered damage, they had been fully indemnified; or, as she was not party to the contract, they had no right to sue; or, if they had a right to sue, they had delayed too long and were furthermore seeking to take advantage of the fact that she was a poor widow and a stranger and could speak no English, in order to 1 Records of St. Olave's, Hart Street (Harleian Soc. Registers Series Vol. 47). 2 Encyclopedia Brittanica (11th Edition) "London". 3 One of the earliest names on the list of subscribers for Dutch East India Company stock is that of Elizabeth Pinto in 1602 for f300. In 1606, Francisco Pinto de Britto declared to a notary that he had invested 2100 Carolus gulden in the company in the names of his infant daughters Lucia and Isabella (viz. Elizabeth) Pinto de Britto. See A. M. Vaz Dias De deelnamen der marranen in het oprichtingskapital der oost-indische compagnie (Amsterdam 1936). 1 M. J. Landa The Jew in Drama (London, 1926) p. 96. 5 Huguenot Soc. Returns of Aliens in London, Vol. Ill, p. 182, (Aberdeen, 1908). 6 Chancery Pleas. Daves 2nd Div., June 1624 (see Appendix II (14).</page><page sequence="19">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 187 get her to compound with them in another action. Their reply answered most of her points. They said that they had been in traffic together as merchants with Pinto de Britto in Oporto, and that they were in love and amity with him and his partner and had hoped to settle their differences out of Court. His widow had proved quite intransigent, and had forced them to Law. They added "she pretendeth poverty and disability of language"?"but your defendantes doe well know her redines of tongue and her great riches in estate." The only comment that this lawsuit impels is one's incredulity that a lady said to have been born and bred in Elizabethan London should have been unable to speak the Queen's English. In 1626 Anne Lopes died, and the administration of Francisco Pinto de Britto's estate was re-granted to his daughter, Elizabeth Harborne.1 To conclude : We have seen that, whereas the community of Secret Jews in Elizabethan London had sprung from the great colony of Portuguese merchants in Antwerp, the smaller group living and trading in London in James I's day was more dependent on the rising community of Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam. The discovery of their religion was followed by the expulsion of the Jacobean Jews. Perhaps they had thrown off their dis? guise in the hope that England was ready to follow Holland's lead in re-admitting the Jews. This enlightened step had to wait for forty-five further years, when Cromwell, who could see that London's loss had been Amsterdam's gain, connived at the Resettlement. 1 P,C.C. January 1626. Admon,</page><page sequence="20">188 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON TENTATIVE LIST OF MARRANOS IN JACOBEAN LONDON William Anes Antonio da Costa Olivario Antonio Dias Gabriel Fernandes Vega Manuel Fernandes Anjes Valentine Fernandes Anjes Anne Lopes Jeronimo Lopes Fernando de Mercado Matthew Nunes Paul Pinto Francisco Pinto de Britto Elizabeth Pinto (partner of F. Pinto de Britto) ? (alias Moses Touro) ? (wife of F. Pinto de Britto) ? (alias Jacob Bueno) (daughter of F. Pinto de Britto and wife of William Harborne, Armiger, Merchant, of London) Rachel Fernandeth (see Appendix I, 2)</page><page sequence="21">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 189 LIST OF APPENDICES I Miscellaneous References to Marranos in Jacobean England p. 190. II Documents in London (1) and (2) Public Record Office?1608-9 Docquets. p. 190. (3) British Museum?The Plea of the Portuguese Merchants, p. 191. (4) and (5) British Museum?Sir Julius Caesar's Summary of the Evidence and Notes of the Prize Case. p. 192. (6) British Museum?List of 14 claimants, p. 193. (7) Public Record Office?Bonds of the agents of Amsterdam Marranos. (8) British Museum?List of Cargo claimed by Portuguese Merchants of Amsterdam p. 193. (9) and (10) British Museum?Goods laden in the six ships captured, p. 194. (11), (12) and (13) British Museum?Letters of the States General to the Privy Council, p. 195. (14) and (15) Public Record Office?Plea of Anne Lopes ; and abstract of counte plea. p. 198. III (1) Notes on Currency in James I's Reign (by J. P. C. Kent) p. 200. (2) A List of the Aliases of some of the Marranos of Amsterdam, p. 200. IV Documents in Brussels (1) Guide to relevant documents in Brussels Archives, p. 201. (2) Calendar of Documents of the Office Fiscal de Brabant, p. 202. V Pedigrees illustrating "Portuguese Jews in Jacobean London", p. 231.</page><page sequence="22">190 portuguese jews in jacobean london APPENDIX I Miscellaneous References to Marranos in Jacobean England 1. In 1614, Samuel Palache, Ambassador of the Sultan of Morocco to the States General of the Netherlands, who had been at sea in a Dutch ship with Letters of Marque from the Sultan, put into Plymouth with two Spanish prizes. He was arrested as a pirate at the suit of the Spanish Ambas? sador. When it became clear that he was a privateer, the authorities decided that if the Spanish Ambassador wished to take any action against him, it should be taken in the Civil Courts. He was released from arrest. Palache was presumably not a Portuguese Jew, and the incident is, in any case, outside the scope of this paper. It has been dealt with at length in the Jewish Quartlerly Review, Vol. XIV, pp. 354-8. See also Jewish Chronicle, 4th November 1955 : S. P. Dom. Vol. 78, Acts of the Privy Council 1614 and S.P. Foreign (Spanish) at the P.R.O., and a collection of documents in the possession of Mr. Heinrich Eisemann. 2. In the Middlesex Sessions Records (ed. Col. Le Hardy) there is reference to one "Rachel Fernandeth, spinster" of St. Andrew's, Holborn, who was fined for recusancy in 1606. One feels that she was almost certainly a Marrano, for her first name means she is unlikely to have been a Catholic and her recusancy would seem to preclude Protestantism. Perhaps she was a member of the household of the widow of Roderigo Lopes who resided in this parish. 3. In the parish Register of St. Olave's, Hart Street, (Harleian Soc.) Register Series, Vol. 47, the burial of one "Mathew Nune, A Portingall out of Mr. Vynas's" on 9th October, 1610. 4. There was a leading case in the Exchequer Court in 1603 (Chandler v. Lopes Law Reports Croke I) where one Lopes (a marrano) sued one Chandler, a London goldsmith whom he had paid ?100 for an alleged bezoar stone, which proved to be a false one. His action failed as he had no Warranty that the stone was as alleged, a salesman's misrepresentation being held, of itself, no ground for action. This case is still cited. (I am grateful to Mr. L. L. Loewe for drawing it to my attention). APPENDIX II Documents in London P.R.O. S.P. 38/9?1608-1609 Docquets (1) 13 May, 1608 Docquett (\th paragraph} "A like letter to Sir John Garrett Sir Thomas Lowe Sir William Rumney Knight and George Bolls Alderman (sic) to proceede forthwith to determin a cause in controversie before him depending in fauor of Anthony Dias and Paulo Pincto for certaine brasill wood and Sugars in regard the said Dias and Pincto are forthwith to be ymploied in his Mats, service for mynerall works." (2) 16 May, 1608 Docquett (1st paragraph) "A letter to Sir John Garrett Sir Thomas Lowe and Sir Wm. Rumney Knighte and George Bolles Aldermen of the Citie of London Requiring them to heare and examine a Controversie betweene Anthony Dias as Procurator for Henry Dias, Paulo Pincto and others, on the one part and John ffrancisco Suprani and Phillipp Bernardy marchant strangers on the other part Concerning certen Brasell wood and sugars (which was comitted by warrant from the Lds. of the Councell to be determyned by the said Aldermen) and fyanlly to end the said Controversie before the xxxth day of this instant moneth of May, for that the said Anthony</page><page sequence="23">portuguese jews in jacobean london 191 Dias and Paulo Pincto are ymployed in his Mats, mynerall woorks. procured by Sir Thomas Lake at the sute of Sir James Semple." The Plea of the Portuguese Merchants B.M. MSS.?Naval and Maritime Caesar Papers. Add. MS. 14,027 f. 101 Manoell Lopez Nunnis, Belcher Mendiz, Thomas Nunnis, Anthonio Fernandes, Fran? cisco Pinto de Britto, George Rodregus, Manoell Pinto, James Lopes de Costa, Emmanuel Lopes and Francisco Nunnis Homi, Milwell Corualia, Duerte Fernandis, Michell Lopes Homi, Jacomi Roes, Duerte Sereiua, Fernando Mercado, Fernando Roes Perera, beinge borne in Portugall, have some of them 10 yeares some 4 : 5 : 6 : yeares past forsacken the saide Country, tackeinge with them suche goodes as they coulde, and went to Amsterdam a place in amitie with the Queene of England &amp; nott wth the Kinge of Spayne. They toocke att Amsterdame howses subiectinge them selves to the government of the States, and shewed them selves to bee enymies to the Kinge of Spa : and weare receyved into the protection of the sayde States and did Contrybute towardes the mayntaynance of the States warre against the Kinge of Spayne : and doe pay suche impositions here as are putt uppon those personnes that are there natturally borne, and by the lawes of Spayne and Portugall they are holden enymyes &amp; rebelles unto the saide Kinge of Spayne. whoe ceased uppon the goodes wch they lefte behinde them in Portugall as the goodes of Rebells. and by the Lawes of Portugall, the Portugalls soe departinge unto Amsterdam, may nott Come nor trade into Portugall under the payne of Confiscation of their goodes, and losse of their Lives, by vertue of wch lawe the goodes of some of theis and other Portugalls departing from Por : to Amsterdam have bene Confiscated, the most parte of theis Portugalls doe in other names covertly trade to Brasill, Baye, Fernabucke, &amp; Lisbone haveinge a Company of them selves only in Amsterdam and nott ioyn e ninge in Company or partenershipp with any of the Spa : Kinges Subiects. Sebastian Roes de Leaon a subiect of the Kinge of Spayne beinge factor att Lisbone for Emanuell Lopes &amp; Francisco Nunnis Homi, and nott partener with them sent certaine Sureties to them whereof he bought for him selfe a 6 partt, because he coulde nott buy the right quantyty Thos of the Company of Amsterdam have their factors att Brasill Fernambucke Baya &amp; Lisbon &amp; some of them perhapps subject to the Kinge of Spayne. the generali States under whose protection they are have Licensed them to traffique for Portugall, &amp; over Lisbonn, or Portugall for Brasill. Fernando Mercado dwellinge att Amsterdam hath his father Caspar de Marcado att Lisbonne &amp; doeth his own busynesse beinge separated from his father. Francisco Fernandis newly come from Brasill to Lisbone is Sonne to Duerte Fernandes of Amsterdam beinge 18 yeares of age, and was sent by his father from Amsterdam for Brasill from whence his father directed him to come for Lisbone to lade some goods for his accompt the goodes and merchandises laden by the factors of Portug : of Amsterdam, att Brasil Fernambucke Baye &amp; Lisbonn for their accompt to be delivered to them att Amsterdam are in the way home wardes tacken by Sr Robt Mansfeild sett to Sea by the Queenes authoryty of Englaunde Tho : Croke Jo : Pope Sir Julius Caesar's Summary of the Evidence B.M. MSS. ?? Naval and Maritime Caesar Papers MS. 14,027 f. 96 Manuel Lopes Nunes etc. All naturall Portugalls have for theis 3. 4. or 6 yeares last past remayned at Amsterdam, all of them protestants and communicate with the protestants there in their Service and Sacraments. Somme of them having goods, howsen, wifes and children there, and being ther be receaued into the protection of the States of the low cuntries, doe pay</page><page sequence="24">192 portuguese jews in jacobean london ordinary impositions, and taxes, and doe contribute towards the warres against the King of Spayne. They doe trade to Baia, and Fernabouck in Brasile, as alsoo at Lisbone, have either factors, parteners or kinffolkes, that does there busines at Lisbona, Baia and Fernabouck, and somme of them allsoe are imployed in reciprocall factorage for the inhabitants of Portugall and theis persons all remaynd, and were at Lisbona longe since the imbargo in Spayne and Portugal, and the many greeuances, and iniustice offered, and donne unto her Matie and her subiects? The goods of theis men in the way to Emden, are taken by Sir Robert Mansell knight seruing in one of her Maties ships? The question is whether the said Portugalls goods soe taken, are to be adiudged good prise ? (5) Sir Julius Caesar's Notes on the Prize Case B.M, Lansdowne MSS. 145. f. 359 (his no.) (Heading in the index) "My Let. to my L. Treasurer touch, the sd. goods, &amp; redelivery of the rest not adiudged for her Maties. use; to the strangers claiming them uppon bondes. 1601." "My humble duty to your good Lp. Over and above the goods, moneys merchandises &amp; jewels, contained in my former certificate to your Lp. I have further adiudged to her Maties. use these parcels ensuing : Videlicet (followed by a list of 13 commodities) "All the rest of the goods moneys, etc. etc. forthcoming in the Commissioners' hands and custody, landed out of the 6 Ships brought in by?etc. etc., are to be delivered upon bonds given by the several claimers; which bonds they have acknowledged before me to her Maties. use, And therefore are in justice to receive the possession of their said goods without further scruple or delay. The condition of each bond is to measure the value of such goods as shall be adjudged to have appertained at the time of the taking thereof, to any subject of the Spanish King, and adjudged for good prize. And so beseeching the Almighty to grant etc. etc. health &amp; long life? Your Lordships-etc. etc. 25 February 1601. Jul. Caesar (6) B.M. Lansdowne MSS. f. 379 "Claymeurs suspected to conter (? cover) the enemies goods" "that the Ks edict stretcheth to those who are with the confederates, not to those who are in th'enemies countrie" (list of 14 names). 1. Ferdinando Saluador of Hamborough 2. John Smissart of Amsterdam 3. Joos van Peine of Amsterdam 4. Ferdinandez Marcado of Amsterdam, nueuo Christiane 5. Manuel Rodriguez Vega of Amsterdam 6. Jacomo Rodriguez Vega of Amsterdam?protestante 7. Michael Lopez Homez of Amsterdam?protestante 8. Manuel Caruaglio of Amsterdam?protestante 9. (omitted) 10. Ferdinando Rodriguez of Amsterdam?protestante 11. Duarte Fernandez of Amsterdam?protestante 12. Duarte Serauia of Amsterdam?protestante 13. Peter Belters of Embden 14. Francisco Pinto de Britto of Amsterdam?protestante 15. Lawrence Back of Middleborough</page><page sequence="25">portuguese jews in jacobean london 193 "There appeareth as yet nothing against the claimers ensuing (list of 7 names) 1. Melchior Mendez of Amsterdam. 2. Thomas Nunez Pina of Amsterdam 3. Antonio Fernandez of Amsterdam 4. Manuel Lopez Nunez of Amsterdam 5. Georgio Rodriguez of Amsterdam *6. Manuel Pinto of Amsterdam 7. James Lopez of Amsterdam * (There is a cross beside No. 6) The Bonds Entered into by the Agents of the Amsterdam Marranos P.R.O. H.C.A. 3/25 Serena Domina Regina contra Jacobum Lopez mercatorem Hispaniae (margin) (Translated from the Latin) On Thursday the 18th day of February 1601 "stilo Angliae" (i.e. 1601-2) before . . . Julius Caesar doctor of laws judge of the High Admiralty Court. .. etc.. .. and in the presence of me John Pulford notary public . . . appeared personally Jacobus Lopez Spanish merchant, a resident of Amsterdam, and Jeronimus Lopez a Dutch (teutonicus) merchant, a resident of London, . . . who submitting themselves to the judgment of this Court. . . bound themselves, their heirs, executors and all their goods whatsoever to Queen Elizabeth in the sum of three thousand pounds of English money to be paid to the same Queen or her sure attorney, heirs and executors etc. etc. under this law and condition that the aforesaid Jacobus Lopez and Jeronimus Lopez their heirs, executors or any of them, pay and make satisfaction, or cause to be paid and satisfaction made, in the said High Court of Admiralty of England etc. for the use of the said Queen the sum of two thousand four hundred and fifty six pounds of English money to the value and amount of one hundred and twenty four boxes of sugar four bundles and one barrel of Indico of one sack of (cotton) wool and of two packages of the said stones and diamonds lately captured on the high seas by the said Sir Robert Mansell and his associates from certain ships and claimed by the said Jacobus Lopez failing which the aforesaid goods within six months from the given date will be adjudged by the lawful order of the law to be lawful prizes And unless they do this and either of them wishes it and allows it that the writ be made binding against them their heirs and executors and all their goods wherever they may be found until the aforesaid sum be raised James Lopez Jeronimus Lopez Postea on the third of March 1601 (1601-2) before the Judge in his Court and in the presence of me the aforesaid notary appeared William Anys grocer of the City of London and sub? mitting himself to the judgment of this Court etc. etc. bound himself his heirs and executors etc. and all his goods whatsoever to our Serene Lady Queen Elizabeth in the sum of three thousand pounds of English money to be paid to the same Lady Queen or her attorney heirs or executors under the laws and conditions aforesaid and unless etc. by me William Anes List of Cargo Claimed by the Portuguese Merchants of Amsterdam based on B.M. Lansdowne MS. 145 and Add. MS. 14027. James Lopes da Costa :? 11 chests of sugar 1 bag of cotton wool. 2 barrels of green ginger. Thomas Nunes Pina :? 17| chests of sugar.</page><page sequence="26">194 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON Melchior Mendes :? Manuell Carvaillo :? Manuel Rodrigues Vega ; Duarte Fernandes : Jacomo Rodrigues :?? Manuel Lopes Home :? Francisco Nunes Home : Antonio Fernandes :? George Rodrigues and Manuel Pinto :? Francisco Pinto Britto :? Fernando Rodrigues :? Edward (Duarte) Seraiva : Fernando de Mercado :? N.B. The original documents state merchandise, shew how this was was loaded. 26 chests of sugar. 16^ chests of sugar. 60J chests of sugar. 1? barrels of green ginger. 5 boxes of bezoar stones. 1 pack of diamonds. 29 chests of sugar. 10 hogsheads of oils. 2 barrels of green ginger. 10J chests of sugar. 41 chests of sugar. 4 share in one chest with baggage. J share in one chest with baggage. 9 chests of sugar. 11 barrels of green ginger. 1 hogshead of indigo. 1 box of camphor (canfora) 20 chests of sugar. 1 barrel of vermillion (vermeill). 6 packets of diamonds. 8 chests of sugar. 9 chests of sugar. 14 chests of sugar. 6 barrels of mirobalans. 1 bag of camphor. 4 bags of pearls. 15 fardells of cinnamon. 3 chests of cinnamon. 4 punchions of gumlac. 3 packets (contents unstated), the names of the Lisbon shippers, give the marks on the owned in partnership, and in which ship each consignment (9) B.M. MSS.?Naval and Maritime Caesar Papers MS. 14,027 f. 94 Goods laden in the 6 ships brought into the Thames by Sr Robert Mansfield Knight, adiudged to her Majesties use by the Judge of the Admiralty 843 bagges wth pepper 502 chests wth sugar 25 cases wth cynamon 62 Hogsheds wth oyle 4 barils wth mirabolans One chest with apparell 4 barils wth camphera 4 teirces wth conserves 6 barils wth gomlack 13 barils wth grene ginger One hogshed with Indico 100 Incats in rials of 8. claimed.</page><page sequence="27">portuguese jews in jacobean london 195 2 boxes of bezoar stones, claimed. 4 bagges with perles, claimed. Besides divers bagges wth golde, silver, diamonds, rubies, perles, &amp; bezaar stones &amp; other like goods not claimed; the particulars whereof may be found by the Skippers bookes, whereof the Commissioners haue or might have copies; &amp; theise moneis iewels &amp; like goods not claimed are valewed by estimation at 5000 lib. starling, over &amp; above all the former. (10) B.M. Add. Ms. 5664. f. 229 The benefite that her Maty hath receaved by the goods of the 6 Dutch ships brought in by Sr Rob. Mansell knight in the goods here subjoined Pepper?787 bagges wourth 20000?0?0 Sugar?343 chests wourth 4690?0?0 Indico?2 bales &amp; 5 barils 500?0?0 Synamo?14 chests &amp; 20 canesters 770?0?0 Grene ginger?20 barils, wourth 100?0?0 Oyle?8 tons &amp; a h?lfe 330?0-0 Brasill wood?18 tons 1300 &amp; demi 829?0-0 Cotton wooll?6 bagges, wourth 30?0?0 Gomlake?4 pipes wourth 75?0?0 Camphire?3 barils wourth 40?0?0 Mellasses?6 barils wourth 10?0?0 6 bags contemning in rials of 8 2 boxes of Bezaar stones One packet of diamonds One bag of perle, &amp; 2 buttons Totals 27374?0?0 240?3-0 200?0-0 125?0-0 100?0-0 Summa 665?3?0 27374?0?0 28039?3?0 Summa totalis 28,039 lib 3 s (11) The Letters of the States General of the Netherlands to the Privy Council B.M. MSS.?Naval and Maritime Caesar Papers Add. MS. 14,027 f. 103 Messieurs, Comme Ferdinando de Mercado marchant de la nacion Portugese s'estant faict bourgeois de la ville d'Amstelredam passe plusieurs annees nous a remonstre que ayant cependant traficque de toutes parts et en tous quartiers il auroit finalement induit son frere Simon de Mercado qui s'est tenu a Lisbona de se mectre en un des nauires d'Empden dernierement partis de Lisbona pour venir prendre la demoeure aupres de luy en la susdqt Ville d' Amstelredam Et qu'il seroit arriue qu'en chemin le nauire ou son susdqt frere estoit avoit este prins avec aultres du susdqt Empden par certains nauires de la Royne et amenes en Angleterre par ou il craint que on luy pourroit faire quelque facherie de tant plus quil n'entendt aultre langage que le Portuges Requerrant que vouldrions interceder vers vos Exces et Sries que par leur ordre son susdqt frere puisse estre relaxe libre et que a luy Suppliant soyent restitues les marchandises et biens qu'il avoit charge au susdqt et aultres nauires a luy proprement apper tenans selon lTnstance que nous en ont aussy tresexpressement faicte les Bourgemres et</page><page sequence="28">196 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON Conseil de la susdqt ville d'Amstelredam Nous ne luy auons peu refuser une tant Juste et raisonnable Requeste prions a tant vos Exces et Sries bien serieusement que prennans toute fauorable consideration en ce que dessus II plaise a Icelies donner ordre et commander que le susdqt Simon Mercado soit relaxe et de mesme restitue en susdqt Suppliant bourgeois de la susdqt ville ses biens et merchandises charges aus susdqt nauires pour Euiter la totale mine qui en depend Et vos Exces et Sries feront un grand aduantage a ces pays pour la mainten tion de leur trafficq et nous obligeront tant plus a prier Dieu Messieurs de vous octroyer en parfaicte sante longue et bienheureuse vie De la Haye ce vije Nouembre 1601. De vos Exces et Sries Bienaffectionnes amys Les Estats Generauls des Prouinces unies du Pays bas. Par Ordonnance des susdqt Srs. Estats AERSSENS * (12) B.Ai. MSS.?Naval and Maritime Caesar Papers Add. MS. 14,027 ff. 105-106 Messieurs, Comme le Magistrat de la ville de Haerlem Nous a ce matin faict remonstrer que Thieri Wissel Anthoni Coppens Daniel de Neunstvile Jordan Ludewich et Jehan Matheeus marchants et bourgeois de la susdqt vile ont quelques pacqs d'argent aux Nauires d'Empden qui depuis naguerres ont este prins en mer par les nauires de la Royne venants dl Lisbona et amenes en Angleterre nommement aux nauires de Pierre Mol Mre. du nauire appelle la Taupe Sibrant Faus Mre. du nauire appelle le Paradis et de Jehan Andries Mre. du nauire appelle Le Cheualier de St. George qui leur a este envoie pour retour Requerrants de mesme nre Intercession envers vos Exces et Sries comme nous auons faict pour les marchants bourgeois et habitans de la vile d'Amstelredam Nous ne leur auons aussy peu refuser une tant juste raisonnable et equitable Requeste prions a tant Messieurs vos Exces et Sries humblement que pour mesmes considerations qu'auons remonstre a Icelles par nos lettres susdqt en la faueur des susdqt bourgeois d'Amstelredam a la requisition tresinstante du Magistrat d'Icelle vile e que vos Exces et Sries peuuent considerer que cest Interest passe le particulier ainsi que la ruine de tant de notables marchants des plusieurs capitales viles d'Hollande apporteroit de la consequence et preiudice au coeur de nre Estat pour le maintenement d'Icelluy contre l'ennemy commun et a l'affection quils portent au seruice de sa Mate II leur plaise fauorablement donner ordre que aus susdqt Suppliants Interesses soit restitue leur susdqt argent selon la Declaration et verification quils en feront par leurs marcqs quil appertient a eulx en propriete sans que aulcun aultre y ayt part Ou du moins quils puissent estre traictes en Justise come il conuien et est decent. Et nous attendons de la benigne grace de Sa Mate par la faueur de vos Exces et Sries et nous prierons le Createur, Messieurs, Quil vous octroye en tresparfaicte sante longue et heureuse vie De la Haye ce xxixe de Nouembre 1601 De vos Exces et Sries Bienaffectionnes Amys Les Estats Generaulx des Provinces unies du pays bas Par ordonnance de ces susdqt Srs. Estats AERSSENS. 1601 (13) B.M. ?dSS.?Naval and Maritime Caesar Papers Add. MS. 14,027 ff. 107-109 Messieurs Combien que par plusieurs nos precedentes tant a la Requisition du Magistrat de la ville d'Amstelredam que a la Requeste particuliere d'un nombre des marchants bourgeois et * Cornelius Aertssens (Aerssen, Aerssens), Greffier of the States General, 1588-1605. (From Index of Persons, Historical MSS. Commission)</page><page sequence="29">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 197 habitans d'Icelle vile tant de la nacion Portugese que naturels nous ayons remonstre a vos Exces et Sries le tresgrand et excessiff Interest que les susdqt marchants ont par la prise depuis naguerres faicte par les nauires de la Royne en mer des cincq nauires d'Empden quils ont amenes en Angleterre d'aultant que par le continuel Arrest que le Roy d'Espaigne avait faict en Portugal II y avait long temps quils n'avaient peu tirer d'lllec aulcun retour lequel on leur avait envoye a ce coup par la comodite des susdqt cincq nauires d'Empden tout ensemble et a la fois en argent comptant Joyaulx piereries Et plusieurs aultres sortes des riches marchandises Et que nous esperons que vos susdqt Exces et Sries auront prins toute favorable Et Benigne consideration a nostre Justre et tresequitable intercession faicte pour la restitution de ces susdqt marchandises pour les raisons contenues en nos susdqt lettres qui regardent et touchent mesmes en leur consequence nre Estat S'y n'avons tout et fois peu laisser (sur la iteratiue tres serieuse remonstrance que nous ont faicte le susdqt Magistrat auec les susdqt marchants bourgeois et habitans de leur susdqt vile tant Portugues que aultres naturels du tresgrand et excessiff Interest et dommaige quils ont en ce quils sont fraischement aduertis d'Angleterre que l'on descharge et distraict illec leur argent et marchandises hors les susdqt cincq nauires sans que aulcun des susdqt Interesses ou de leur Commis ayt este ouy ou que Justice leur ayt este faicte) dTnterceder encore une aultre fois pour les susdqt Remon? strants Interesses Priants bien affectuement vos Exces et Sries quil leur plaise benignement pourveoir sur ceste nre Intercession et les Justes doleances et plaintes des susdqt Interesses quil ne leur soit faict aulcun tort Ainsi permectre et donner ordre quils soyent ouys en leur deffence et que leur argent Joyaulx et aultres marchandises par prouision de Justice leur soyent enthierement restitues selon raison et equite Considerants a cest effect vos Exces et Sries que Ton na uncques defendu par placarts ou aultrement ou seulement pense de defendre aux subiects de ces pays ou aultres de conserver et retirer leur argent marchandises et aultres denrees et moyens quils ont en Royaulmes du Roy dEspaigne et que les susdqt marchants Portuges s'estans retires de la subiection d'Iselluy Roy se sont venus rendre bourgeois d' Amstelredam passe plusieurs annees soubs nre protection et Sauuegarde ou ils jouissent des mesmes libertes et francises comme tous aultres bourgeois et habitans dTcelle ville au faict du trafficq Et la ou que en cela il n'y auroit regard que necessairement ils seroient constraints de se retirer d'lllec auec tresgrand preiudice de la susdqt ville Auec ce que nous auons ferme confiance que sa Mate et vos Exces et Sries ne vouldront Jamais permectre que un s'y grand nombre des plus notables bourgeois et habitans de la susdqt Capitale vile de ces pays con tribuants s'y liberalement au maintenement de nre Estat au bien de la cause Commune soient tous a la fois contre raison tout droict Justice et equite mines auec une Infinite d'aultres qui dependent d'Iceulx Enquoy vos Exces et Sries redoubleront l'obligation qu'auons au seruice de Sa Mate et obligeront en particulier les susdqt Interesses a se louer grandement de la Justice que leur aura este faicte par la faveur d'Icelles vos Exces et Sries a nre Intercession et que par ce mois ils auront este conserues de mine daultrepart Comme il nous a aussy este remonstre par Ferdinando de Mercado bourgeois de la susdqt ville d'Amstelredam en la faveur duquel nous auons aussy particulierement escript a vos Exces et Sries que depuis il a receu aduis d'Angleterre que son frere Simon de Mercado qui estoit parti de Lisbona en un des susdqt cincq nauires d'Empden pour venir prendre sa residence pardela seroit constitue prisonnier a Londres et que les marchandises et Joyaulx du susdqt Ferdinand qui sont de tresgrand pris seroient aussy asissis comme les aultres A ceste fin que vouldrions de mesme Intercedir une aultre fois vers vos Exces et Sries que le susdqt Simon son frere puisse estre relaxe auec les susdqt marchandises et Joyaulx Nous prions humblement qu'Icelles vos Exces et Sries pour les raisons susdqt et aultres mencionnees en nre precedente y vueillent prendre tout fauorable et equitable regard en ordonnant que le susdqt Simon soit constitue en liberte et que le susdqt Ferdinando puisse consuivir restitution des susdqt marchandises et Joyaulx a luy appertenants en propriete Et vos Exces et Sries feront un venure digne deulx A quoy nous attendants Prierons le Createur N</page><page sequence="30">198 portuguese jews in jacobean london Messieurs. Quil vous octroye en parfaicte sante longue et bien heureuse vie De la Haye ce xxvije de Nouembre 1601. De vos Exces et Sries Bienaffectionnes Amis Les Estats Generaulx des Prouinces unies du pays bas Par ordonnance des susdqt Srs. Estats AERSSENS. (14) The Plea of Anne Lopes Alias Pinto de Britto. Chancery Pleas. Public Record Office : Daves 2nd Dio Juni 1624. (Abstracted in full) To the Right honorble and right reverend father in God, John, Lord B'p of Lincoln, Lord Keeper of the great seale of England. Humbly complaineing sheweth unto yor good LoP yor dayly oratrix Ann Lopes als Pinto, Administratrix of the goods and chattells of ffrancis Lopez als Pintoe de Brito, her late husband deceased, that John ffrancisco Soprani and Phillip Barnardi, merchaunt straingers, unjustly pretending that the said Intestate together with Anthony de Costa Olivario of London merchants did by Charter ptye indentres bearing the date about the sixteenth day of Marche in the twelveth yeare of his Masties raigne of England (viz. 1615 ?) became bound in unto the said John ffrancisco Soprani and the said Phillip Barnardi being pprietors of a ship called the Suzan Bonadventure of London, then riding at Anchor in the River of Thames a porte of London, and to William Oakes Master of the said shipp in a voyage then, shortly after the making of the said charter ptye, to be made, from London to Dunkirke in fflanders and from thence to Lisborne in Portingale, from thence again unto London, and to paye for the same according to a certaine date in the said charter ptye mentioned, And further prtending that the said Intestate and the said Anthony de Costa de Olivaria did not lade the said shipp, being att Lisborne aforesaid, within thirty dayes next after her arrival at Lisborne aforesaid, such quantities of sugars and other merchandises as by the prtended charter pty they ought to have done wthn the tyme aforesaid, and thereby did forfeit unto them the said bond of three hundred pounds, and the said John ffrancisco Soprani and Phillip Barnardi doe now unjustly prtend that thereby they have lately caused yor Oratrix to be arrested prwritte awarded out of his Maties Court of Kinges Bench and by their Bill or declaration thereupon filed against yor Oratrix, as Administratrix of the said ffrancis Lopez als Pinto de Brito deceased, have demanded the said penall some of three hundred pounds supposed tto be forfeited as aforesaid, alledging only for breach on behalf of the said francis Pintoe de Britto and Anthony de Costa, that they nor their ffactors within the said thirty dayes wch was the tyme limitted for theire relading att Lisborne aforesaid, had caused the said shipp to be reladen wth such quantities of sugar and sugar chests and other goods as in and by the said p'tended charter ptye was appointed, upon wch p'tended breach they doe not only demand the said three hundred pounds, but further dammages by them supposed to be sustayned, by reason of the default aforesaid, as by theire Bill or Declaration in that behalf now att large yt doeth and may appeare. Whereas in truth there was noe such charter ptye made or sealed by the said Intestate, to the knowledge of yor Oratrix, or if any such charter ptye Indentres were ever by him made or sealed, yett theire was noe default of pformance thereof on the pte of the said intestate, eyther in lading or getting aboard of the merchandice as is prtended or in payeing for the same or for the hire of the said shipp, but the said John ffrancisco Soprani and Phillip Bernardi and William Oakes and eny of them were by the said Intestate in his life tyme and long since fully payd contented and satisfied all that was due unto them from the said Intestate in that behalfe or in any other wise concerning the prmissed and soe much would most plainely appeare by divrs Books and notes of Accompte now remayneing in the hands of the said John ffrancisco Soprani and Phillip Bernardi or one of them, or in the hands of some other by theire privitye c(overt)ly ther delivered for ther use, if the same might be produced, and the said Phillip</page><page sequence="31">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 199 Bernardi hath of late tyme confessed that there be in truth nothing due unto him from ye Oratrix uppon the sd Charter ptye, but sayde that he would, notwithstanding, cause the same to be put in suite at Comon Lawe against yor Oratrix, being a widdowe and a stranger and not well able to defend or sollicit the same, of purpose only to trouble her, and therebye to draw her to compound with him the said Phillip Barnardi concerning an other suite wch yor said Oratrix, uppon Bond of three hundreth pounds made to the said Intestate. In consideration whereof, and forasmuchas it is now almost tenn years compleate since the said charter ptye was made, and forasmuchas there were after that tyme divrs other dealings and reckonings between the said John ffrancisco Soprani and the said Phillip Barnardi and the said Intestate while hee lived, whereuppon the said Charter ptye (if any such there were) all demands concerning the same were fully discharged and cleered, and the said John ffrancisco Soprani and the said Phillip Bernardi were thereof fully satisfied by and from the said Intestate and since that they the said John ffrancisco Soprani and Phillip Barnardi boeth of them uppon accompte and reckonning and otherwise became indebted to the said Intestate and so much doeth and will most evidently appeare by divrs books and other notes and wrytings of Accompte remayning in the hands of them the said Soprani and Barnardi, and the said Soprani doeth but rake upp the said Charter pty, if any such there be, as an old specialitye, thereby of purpose only to gaine a composition for later just and due debte, and forasmuchas uppon receipt of all the said moneys and satisfaccon given for the hyre of the said shipp tto the said Soprani and Barnardi they never prtended themselves then to be damnified by any such supposed breach of the said covenants on the pte of the said Pinto and Anthony de Costa nor demanded of them any satisfaccon, therefore then was by them then released and forasmuchas the said supposed breach of the said covenants is only prtended to be made by the said Pintoe and Anthony de Costa for that wch in the tyme of thirty dayes, they nor theire factors did relade or cause to be reladen at Lisborne aforesaide wth such quanitye of sugar and other goods as was by them prtended to be undertaken by the said Charter ptye wch if it were true, as yor Oratrix is persuaded is very false, yett might not the said Barnardi and Soprani be much damnified by the staye of theire said shipp some fewe days after the said thirty dayes att Lisborne aforesaid, nor indeed in any waye damnified att all if att the end of the said thirty dayes the winde and weather did not serve for them for theire saile towards England, And forasmuchas they wonto now putt the said Charter ptye in suite, nor so much as demand any thing there uppon as or against the said Intestate while hee lived or against the said Anthony de Costa, who is yet alive and now resideth beyond the seas, while the said Anthony de Costa was resident here in England, where hee remayned durine 6 yeares after the makeing of the said prtended Charter ptye, and after the returne of the said shipp from the said voyage and after payment and full satisfaction given to them the said Soprani and Barnardi for the wages and hyre of the said shipp. But now after the death of the said Pyntoe and departure of the said Anthony de Costa do put the same in suite as afore? said against yor Oratrix being noe ptye thereunto, nor privy to the matter whereuppon the same was made, nor to the means whereby the same was discharged, otherwise than Admini? stratrix of the goods and chattels of the said Intestate, and have laied there said Atton att Lawe in the Cittie of London sueing to bring the same to a speedy triall, before that yor Oratrix being a poore widdowe and a stranger and not able to speake English cann prpare herself and be in rediness for the defence thereof. May it therefore please yor Lorp the prmisses considered to graunt unto yor Oratrix his Maties most gratious writt of Subpena to be awarded out of their honorble Courte and to be directed to the said John ffrancisco Soprani and Phillip Barnardi thereby comanding them and eyther of them at a certaine tyme and under certayne pains, therein to be limitted by yor Lorp prsonally, to be and appeare before yor Lorp in the Court of Chancery then- and there to Answer the (? complaynte) to abyde the order and Judgement of yor Lorpp and that honrble Courte concerning the same. And further to graunt his Maties most gracous writt of (? fo-icion) for Pay1 of theire proceedings in the said suite att the Comon Lawe uppon the said Charter ptye And yor</page><page sequence="32">200 portuguese jews in jacobean london Oratrix shall as, in duty notwthss, (viz. notwithstanding) shee is bownd, and praye for yr Lorpp health and happiness wth much increase of honour. (15) Abstract of the Counter Plea Claim damages of expenses occasioned by holding the ship for 25 days above unladen the specified 30 in Lisbonne ?100 plus the cost of the bond ?300. "The defdnts and the said Pinto were in trafhcke together as merchants in Porto as aforesaid." "The said Pinto and de Costa were in Love and Amitie together with the defendnts." And they had hoped to settle theire differences out of court. The "Widdowe" had forced them to go to law. They owed him no other debts as appeared by his books and their own. She "prtendeth povrtie and disabilitye of language, these defdnts doe well know her redines of tonngue and her great Riches in estate." They ask for costs by reason of the vexatious complaint. APPENDIX III (1) Note on Currency in James Ts Reign, by Mr. J. P. C. Kent of the British Museum. 1. The area in which ? s. d. was normally used was :? England France Livres, Sols, Deniers. N.E. Spain and Balearic Islands Libri, Sueldi, Dineri. Italy N. of Rome Lire, Soldi, Denari. Outlying areas, e.g. W. Switzerland, Belgium and Strasburg, tended to reckon in ? s. d. as well as the Germanic divisions. 2. The Flemish pound was divided in two ways :? (a) ?1 Fl. = 20 Schillings, or Sols de Gros = 240 Groots, Pence, Deniers. (b) = 6 Florins = 240 Groots = 480 Stivers. 3. (a) The rate of exchange between the Pound Sterling and Pound Flemish was (approx.) ?1 Sterling = 36 Schillings Flemish ?1 Flemish = (approx.) Iis. Od. Sterling. (b) The ducat most widely used was (approx.) 8s. Od. Sterling. These rates were liable to fluctuate, but the above are average figures. (2) A List of the Aliases of some of the Marranos of Amsterdam extracted from De deelnamen der marranen in het oprichtingskapital der ost indische compagnie by A. M. Vaz Dias (Amster? dam, 1936). Name Alias 1 Diego Nunes Belmonte 2 Manuel Carvalho Jacob Israel Belmonte Moses de Casseres</page><page sequence="33">portuguese jews in jacobean london 201 3 James Lopes da Costa 4 Michael de Crasto 5 Duarte Fernandes 6 Francisco Lopes H?rnern 7 Melchior (or Belchior) Mendes 8 Francisco Mendes Trancoso 9 Francisco Mendes Medeiros 10 Manuel Vaz Pimentel 11 Duarte Seraiva 12 Thomas Nunes Pina 13 Jeronimo Rodrigues de Sousa 14 Diego Dias Querido Jacob Tirado Michael Nahmias Joshua Habilho David Abendana Abraham Franco Jacob Franco (nephew and son-in-law of 8) Isaac Franco (son of 8) Isaac Abeniacar David Senior Joshua Sarfati Samuel Abrabanel David Querido N.B. No. 10 is taken from H. I. Bloom op cit. and not the above source. APPENDIX IV Documents in Brussels (1) A Guide to some of the Relevant Documents in the Archives Generales du Royaume at Brussels Documents of the office Fiscal de Brabant relating to Portuguese Jews during the first quarter of the Seventeenth Century are to be found in the following dossiers (*) :? Gaspar Nunes ; Henrico Alvares ; Luis Vaz ; Simon de Mercado; Maria Gomes, widow of Nicholas Rodrigues d'Evora (and sister of Alvaro Mendes [als Solomon Ibn Yaish], Duke of Mytilene) ; confiscations concerning Isabella Garcia and John Francisco de Sevilla; the claim of Isaac Palache against Henriques Garcez for goods belonging to the King of Morocco or his ambassador. 1314 1608 The sisters of Diego Duarte accused of Judaism. 1862 1617 Francisco Lopes Franco seeking restitution of the confiscated goods of Henrico Fernandes de Greslo who had died in Brazil. 2144 1613-4 Licences to Francisco Godines and Philip Jorge to ship arms to Portugal via Dunkirk. (*) I am grateful to M. J. Lefevre, Conservateur of the Archives du Royaume for this information and for that which follows. Copies and abstracts of many of these documents may be found in the Lucien Wolf papers ("Marranos in Antwerp") in the Mocatta Library, University College, London,</page><page sequence="34">202 portuguese jews in jacobean london (2) Calendar of Some of the Documents of the Office Fiscal de Brabant Dossier 529 (not examined). fo. 3 1608-9 Information taken at the demand of the Procurator General against Gaspar Nunnez, Henrico Alvarez and Loyz Vaz, prisoners. (25 pp.) fo. 23 1608 Ditto. (48 pp.) fo. 64 1608 Interrogations of Gaspar Nunez and Loyz Vaz (12 pp.) fo. 72 1609 Information taken at the demand of Gaspar Nunez against the Procurator General (100 pp.) fo. 145 1609 Ditto. (7 pp.) fo. 124 Attestations concerning Brites Rodrigues and Rodrigo Fernandes at Paris, fo. 149 1568 Copy of the Wedding Gift from the King of Portugal to Catherine Vaz, wife of Gaspar Nunnez. (5 pp.) fo. 152 Attestation of Francisco Revelasco. (5 pp.) Dossier 614 (not examined) fo. 1 Evidence on behalf of Henrico Alvares. (14 pp.) fo. 16 1609 Ditto. (41 pp.) Dossier 654 fo. 1 1608 Evidence taken at the demand of the Procurator General against Henrico Alvares. (110 pp.) Dossier 666 (not examined) 1616 Documents concerning the case of Diego Rodrigues de Souza. fo. 17 Includes the autograph signatures of several Portuguese Marranos.? Dossier 924A (only fo. 84 examined) fo. 7 1606 Evidence in favour of Alvaro Mendez Pinto (1 p.) fo. 12 s.d. Evidence for Henrique Garcez (9 pp.) fo. 18 s.d. ? ? ? ? (3 pp.) fo. 24 1610 ? ? ? ? (6 pp.) fo. 84 Balance Sheet, circa 161?, s.d., shewing assets and liabilities apparently of Gaspar Nunes. Ledger folio numbers against each item. (?1.0.0 sterling=?1.14.0 flemish in 1610). Balanco Deve A de haver 3 Rubis 109 pecas - 4 Plumasa de rubis p hua figra de letras co 71 pessas de Rubis 4 Tellas de ouro 5 Labinos de ouro 5 grogrois em Lixa 5 grogrois de napoles 6 passamanos de ouro - 6 Copos de Cristal 161 86 67. 6. 8 32. 1. 8 437. 6. 8 117.11. 3 23. 3. 6 60. 0. 0 12 diericq sweerts ? 12 martin fxl Carrillo 14 segros - 19 Rodrigo fernandes 20 fernao de mercado 21 diamtes 23 franco godines-? 23 franco rodrigues devra 26 gregorio Correa - 27 gavriel Correia-? 74.17. 6 4. 3. 1 15. 0. 0 220. 3. 4 571. 9. 1 2175. 2. 8 346.15. 2 135. 8.11 88. 5. 0 137.12. 6</page><page sequence="35">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 7 Pintura em francaf16 *10 Andre &amp; Ant? fallro 10 Comus de seva 11 Gaspar Ruiz - 15 fernao de mercado ? 16 daniel Briers - *17 hans de decquer - 17 diamtes lavrados - 22 Pessas em Casa - 24 diamtcs em Compa ? 25 Manoel de paz - *26 Anrique garcez 27 Simao de mercado *28 Antonio van Surcq ? 30 gorgerois - *33 Lorenzo magoli - 39 fernao duarte - 35 Caixa - *36 Andre &amp; Ano fal*? - 37 gaspar de mercado - *37 franc0 &amp; alonso Carillo ? *38 henricque baqa - 40 fernao de mercado - 43 Ant0 Roiz demoura - *44 dieg? duartte - *44 Marcos de Xalao - 48 gillis diegebroot - 46 Lopo Roiz demoura - 47 Juao de Cordes - *47 gregorio Correa - 48 Simao de mercado - *48 Baltasar andreia - *49 franc0 godinez-?? 50 fernao dute demra - *52 Niculao da veiga *53 hans fyens *56 alvaro mendez 58 Ant? Roiz de moura *62 gregorio Correia - 63 diogo anricq3 - 66 Ant0 Roiz de moura 68 depositos - 69 vinando de qeiser ? *70 franco godinez 70 Nos mesmos 35. 0. 0 254.19. 9 25. 3. 0 20.17. 4 1302. 2.10 99.11. 1 175. 3. 4 2224.11. 6 1198.17.10 147.12. 6 26.13. 4 7.16.11 138.10. 8 49.10.? 193.13. 6 55 157. 9.?? 1221. 0. 6 338. 8. 3 527.18. 2 748. 9. 3 17.10.? 313. 3.11 1101. 3. 3 537.10.? 147. 4. 8 483. 6. 8 172.10.? 300 - 435.12. 7 294. 5. 7 672. 6. 1 1604.18. 9 34. 8.? 398.14. 9 202.10. ? 191.11. 4 1442. 1440. 1. 5 37.13. 8 2134. 2. 6 2000 - 848.13.10 265.18. 9 91.10.? 28 gaspar sanchez ? 29 diamtes - 29 do. 32 Baltasar Andrea - 32 dute dias doulivras 33 Pedro gobin - 36 Luiz alvarez Jorge - 38 Jorge &amp; andre Rodrigues 38 duarte dias - 41 Rodrigo fernandes 42 Ant0 Van Surcq ? 45 manoel francez 46 diego lopez romro 49 gaspar sanchez 51 diogo gomes dalter ? 52 ho doutor luis Nunez 52 Juan de papenbrouq 54 Jac? doulivra - 55 Manuel Vaz pimentel 57 Sara escoliers - 59 Andre dazevedo 59 Juao mendes henriqs ? 60 Juao &amp; Jeorge de la faille 62 dute &amp; gonzalo Ximenez 63 Ant0 Roiz de moura - 67 Pedro daems - 71 Martin petro de miolo 71 Cambios de francafrte 71 Anrique Becqman 72 Alexre van den Berghe ? 203 238.17.10 290.13. 4 21.11.10 103.13. 1 362.18.9 128.14. 8 189.16. 5 77.10? 240.16.? 3614.19.? 450.10. 6 970. 3. 6 583. 5. 2 69.14. 6 135. 0. 0 214. 99. 3. 4 84.19. 1 65.11. 0 200 - 160. 8. 7 63.11. 5 202 - 226.19. 2 1451.10. 2 400 - 109. 8. 4 481. 5.? 340 - 140 - ?15481.17. 5 ?15481.17. 5 Avancao 10297. 1. 9 ?25778.19. 2 ?25778.19. 2</page><page sequence="36">204 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON Dossier 924A (contd.) fo. 91 Evidence in favour of Fernando de Mercado (13 pp.) fo. 99 1610 Evidence in favour of the cautionaries of Henrico Alvarez (1 p.) fo. 105 1609 Ditto. (5 pp.) fo. 110 1608 Evidence in favour of Gaspar Nunes and his son Henrique Alvares. (29 pp.) Dossier 924B fo. 37 Instructions to two members of the Council of Brabant to arrest and interrogate Fernando and Simon de Mercado. (Abstracted in full). Actes par forme d'instruiction pour le Conllr de Wirdt et le Connr et Procurator G(e)n(er) al de Brab(an)t pour selon iceulx se riegler au faict cy embas reprins Premierement commes nous sommes informes qu'en Nre ville D'Anvers sont vienus et arrives aulcuns Juifs portuguez de nation et entre aultres ung quy s'appelle en son nom Chrestien Fernando del Mercado est en son nom Juif, Jacob Bueno, pour se marier avecq la fille de Gaspar Nunes cydevant accuse par vous procurieur Gnal de nre part de Judaysme a cause de quele accusation il ateste par sentence solempnese en nre conseil de Brabant banny de Nre dqt ville et de touts noz pays y estant neantmoings iusquis ou demeura sans nre ordres ou permission. Sy nous ordonnons de vous transporter incontiment vers nre dqt ville et de primier abordt estant la nuict hiere vous addresse la maison ou que demeure le dqt Gaspar Nunnes en nous entendons touts iceulx Juifs este aussy logiz, pour vous asseurie ils est son ailba qu quilz se pourriot . . . touts et de Chascuns apart vous informe sur les poincts et arles suivants. Schavoir quy ils s'ont, d'ou ils viennent et pour quel cause ils sont vienus pardica, de quele religion ils sont, et la quele ils ont professe dernierement au lieu de leur residence. Sy ledqt ferdinando del mercado n'est vienu de Londres en Angleterre, et sy audqt Londres il n'est este autrefois encquis ou recherche de la Justice sur son Judaysme Sy n'at professe et confesse publicqunt audqt Londres qu'il estoit Juif, et que comme tel il estoit entre au Royaume Sy parcidevant il n'at faict profession d'estre Chrestien et Catholicque Romain et sy comme tel il n'at demeure en nre ville d'Anvers Quant parquy et comment il at este circoncis et en parce de quels Sy son frere Symon del mercado n'est aussy Juif circumcis ayant parcidevant faict pro? fession aussy de la mesme foy Catholicque Romayne Sy com tels ilz ne sont estes baptises parquy, ou, et en parce de quels et quy furent cieux quy les . . . du fond du Baptesme le tout selon qu'ilz doibvent avoir entenduz de leur pere et mere pariens et amys Sy ledqt Symon del mercado n'est vienu pardica pour apres son marriaige avecq la fille aisne dudqt Gaspar Nunez, faire et celebre les nopres d'icelluy en la maison dudqt Gaspar, et qu'a ceste effect les aultres son vienus avecq luy pour les solempniser Combien de dote on luy promis et donne avecq ladqt fille et en quoy icelle s'est payire schavoir en argent comptant, Joyaux ou aultres choses S'il n'at scieu et ne scait ladqt fille avecq laquele il s'est marie, ou se doibt marier este Juifve. Dossier 924B (contd.) fo. 119 et seq. Summary of letter dated 9th October, 1610, written at Antwerp by the councillors of the Council of Brabant, (in French). The Councillors went in company with the communal authority to the street called Thoplant, where the previous night Gaspar Nunez had been seen. They learned there that he had gone to lodge that day in a street near the Bourse. There, in a house, they found the said Gaspar Nunez. They interrogated him forthwith.</page><page sequence="37">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 205 They asked him whether there were other Jews there in the house. He claimed not. They asked if he had not seen Fernando del Mercado ; he replied 'No'. They asked if he knew whether he was in the town and where he was lodging. He replied that he knew nothing about it, but that two or three days ago he had done business with him. The councillors then gravely told him that it was very well-known that Fernando del Mercado was in the house, since he was going to marry his eldest daughter. Nunez persisted in his affirmations. A search was made all over the house, but no one was found save the wife and daughters of the said Gaspar Nunez. One of the daughters was already in bed, the other was still up with her mother. All were interrogated on the subject of Fernando del Mercado and his brother Simon. They replied in the same way as their father. They claimed that they did not know where he lodged, that they had not seen him for some days, not did they know where his brother lodged. Finally, the eldest daughter declared that he was in the city at the old Corn Market. The councillors caused all the rooms to be searched without finding anything. They again addressed Gaspar Nunez with threats. He had nothing to say. The daughter then admitted that she was going to marry this Fernando del Mercado but that she did not know when. The councillors then repaired to another house where Henrico Alvarez, son of the said Gaspar Nunez, lodged. He was found asleep. He claimed that he knew nothing of this Fernando and his brother Simon, save that Fernando had left Antwerp some days earlier, and that he knew nothing of his brother. The councillors also found an old man and a young man, both Portuguese, in the same house. They questioned them, asking whence they had come and why. The old man replied that he lived in England, in London, that he had come with his only son in the company of other Portuguese. He had accounts to settle in this town with Simon Rodriguez and Duarte Ximenes. He wished thereafter to depart to Flushing and to settle there. He claimed that he was Catholic. He was asked why, if a Catholic, he had gone to live in the midst of heretics. He then had his son produce a paper containing the conditions under which the Portuguese could reside in Flushing. It was stipulated that Jews could not be received there so long as the Portuguese nation resided there, and that these Portuguese might exercise their Catholic rites in their houses. He was asked if he knew Fernando del Mercado. He replied that this man dwelt in London and publicly professed to being a Jew. The old man was called Manuel Fernandez. He added that Fernando del Mercado's brother lodged in the same house. The councillors then asked the hostess who kept this lodging house if there were other men lodging there. The councillors were taken to a room where they found a man on a bed. He admitted he was Simon del Mercado, resident in Amsterdam, having come some days before to Antwerp. He was asked news of his brother Fernando. He claimed to know nothing of him, adding that they were on bad terms, that he, Simon, was insolvent and still had some accounts unliquidated. He, Simon, was a Roman Catholic. The councillors then caused him to be put in prison with Gaspar Nunez. They then interrogated Henrico Alvarez, asking him why he had not declared that Simon del Mercado lodged in the same house. He pretended he was half asleep when they questioned him, and further that he did not wish to disclose the presence of this man who had failed in business and was sought by his creditors. They found in Henrico Alvarez's room the clothes of the said Simon del Mercado. They caused Alvarez to be guarded in his room by halberdiers. They also caused the said Manuel Fernandez to be guarded. The councillors then went to arrest Gaspar Nunez. This was duly done, the women of the household screaming from the windows as they marched him away. They placed the two men in the Prison of the Steen. The next day the councillors found Louis Vaz, brother of the said Henrico Alvarez. They interrogated him without extracting anything from him and released him. He lives in the house of a diamond cutter. (Remainder of the document, except where otherwise stated, is in Spanish, and has been abstracted in full). Declaration of Emanuel Fernandez Anges, citizen of Lisbon^ aged 54 years,</page><page sequence="38">206 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON The witness, questioned under oath, says that he left Lisbon on 23rd May. of last year, 1609, for certain reasons. He says afterwards he came in order to settle his accounts and collect monies which were owing to him in Amsterdam and in this city of Antwerp. On arriving after reaching Rotterdam, he wrote to Amsterdam to his relatives, and when he had arrived there some of them came to visit him. Seeing that they were Jews who had changed their faith, whom he had known for baptised men who had practised the Catholic faith and passed as Christians ; as, for example, Christoval Mendes, son of (Balthesar deleted) Melchior Mendes ; the witness was much perturbed and did not wish to go to Amsterdam but returned to Utrecht, where he confessed himself and communicated, and some Catholics were making many feasts, and he departed thence, by way of Flushing, to London, where, finding his son, a Catholic and a Christian, he stayed a whole year and thence, he says, he came here via Flushing. Questioned, he said that he had known Fernando del Mercado as a Roman Catholic Christian in the said city of Lisbon, and afterwards that he had known him in London, at the time when the said witness was there, as an open Jew, having made profession of it also before the Justice (la Justitia). The witness knew that the said Fernando del Mercado came here one month ago, a little more or less, and according to rumour, his brother and Henrico Alvarez did so too, (with whose sister they say the said Fernando del Mercado is going to marry) and the witness says again that he learnt this from the mouth of the said Henrique Alvarez and his said brother, found by us in this house, and it cannot be that the said Henrico Alvarez, his father, mother and sister do not know that the said Fernando del Mercado is a Jew, for it is public and notorious that he is. He says that the occasion of his coming can only have been to marry. The witness does not know whether he has left this city except that he sent word by his said brother to the witness that before he departed he would come to take his leave. Furthermore, the witness, being better acquainted with his said brother than with Alvarez or his father, mother and others of his house, he does not know whether the said Simon del Mercado is a Jew or not because he had seen him eating everything, the same as other Christians. But he said that the Jewish Portuguese people live here more loosely than in other places where they practise public exercise of their religion. Questioned again, he repeated that he did not know anything further except that he had heard it said and that he knows some here. He knows as well that Andres Phaleiro is in Hamburg and that other Portuguese who live there are Jews. Sgd. M. FRS. ANJO. Afternoon Session Henrico Alvarez, eldest son of Gaspar Nunez, aged 29 or 30 years, being guarded as taken in this house, questioned under oath taken at our hands, said that he was born at Alvito, near Lisbon, having left there with his father seven years ago, and now residing in Antwerp here the last five years, says that he remembers that two years ago he was with his father, brothers and all his family, held prisoner by the Procurator-General, on the question of religion and Judaism of which he was accused. Asked if the affair had ended with his father being banished, and whether he had some order or permission from Her Highness to reside here. He said that after sentence was passed, he did obtain a licence once for two to four months residence which was afterwards renewed and that he had attempted to obtain another extension because his father, being old, could not thus leave the country, as well as because of his creditors with whom he had not yet reached agreement; the said licence had been refused here by Secretary Prats. He said that Her Highness had been misinformed by someone, and on the witness turning then to the Councillors Canis and Van Pede, they told him that his father could reside for some time under cover and that in this there would be no harm. Interrogated, he said that before his above-mentioned troubles, there had been some arrange? ment between his father and Fernando del Mercado that he should marry his eldest daughter, but after all these troubles it was all broken off and dissolved without there being any further arrangement. This was for certain reasons, which he says, were points of honour because they had seen letters from Simon del Mercado to his brother in which he advised that the father of the witness had not such a good position in The Bourse as was very necessary, and that thus he did not</page><page sequence="39">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 207 find marriage suitable. Also the witness declared that Matheo Rodrigues dissuaded his mother from this marriage because he wished to marry his own son to the witness's sister. Further, the said Fernando del Mercado has asked on this occasion 8,000 philippes in dowry. The witness's father did not wish to give more than 7,000. He was asked why, if this was the truth, did they also negotiate the marriage of the said sister with Fernando del Mercado ? He said that five or six months ago Fernando had come here from London to settle certain accounts with the witness, and the witness declares that nevertheless Fernando del Mercado was not paid what his father owed him, as he had to reach an agreement with his other creditors, and draw his payment from what he was owed in Holland : and the witness has heard that Fernando del Mercado came again to ask for his sister in marriage, although he would accept a much smaller dowry than he had asked previously, indeed almost nothing, because he had a longing to marry her. All the same, the witness, having heard this, for this reason alone did not desire to live in the house of his father, and subse? quently took lodgings in this house. Asked whether, for this reason only, he said 'No', but for this and other reasons of father and mother with sons; he did not wish to explain himself more on this point, and he denied even the thought of having spoken with Fernando del Mercado on the last occasion when he came here, which he thinks was fifteen days ago, and that if it were found to be otherwise he would wish to be punished with all the penalties that it was desired. It was sug? gested to witness again that at the time when Fernando del Mercado first wished to marry his sister as on this last occasion, he knew very well that he was an openly professed and notorious Jew, and that he had made public profession as such in London ? He said it was not so, and he knew also both on the first and last time that the said Fernando del Mercado was a man of gentle birth inscribed in the books of the King of Portugal (un hombre hidalgo escrito en los libros del Rey de Portugal) as were also his father and all his brothers. Asked again whether it was notorious and manifest that he had been converted from a Catholic Christian to a Jew whereof he made public profession as such openly before the Justice in London, he repeated that it was not so and he had not heard say so, and that there was no man in this country who could say so till now, that the witness's father was negotiating this marriage with him. He said that it was two and a half years since the said marriage was last treated of and at that time the said Fernando del Mercado was in London. It was the witness's father who planned the marriage according to the customs both of Portugal and Spain. Interrogated further, he said that his father had never left this country after the said misfortunes came upon him, and never in his life had he been in London, except that he would go there for the said wedding, and that if the contrary should be discovered to be the case, the witness would be satisfied to be burnt alive; and after two and a half years he had not had any letters about this marriage written to him, not referring to those which could have been written to his father, about which he says he cannot speak, and he also says that the last time Fernando came here he did not see him or speak to him or have any dealings with him, or eat with him, and had heard that his arrival was in order to settle certain accounts which he had with Manuel Vaz Pimentel, with Pedro Tesseda and with Antonio Phalero. And he again said that he did not know of any marriage, because he does not now live in his father's house; and when the said witness returned here from Paris fifteen days ago, he found in this lodging Simon the brother of the said Fernando del Mercado, who said to him that he desired to go to Portugal, that if he would give him some money on account of that which he owed him, he would be doing him much kindness. To this the witness replied that he had not enough to live on or to eat, and that thus he could not give him any money, but that his (Simon Mercado's) father in Lisbon owed the witness some money and that he could collect something from him there from what he received on account. Asked if this was the truth, that he had dealt with and dined with Simon del Mercado yesterday night, and why he had denied this to us, saying that he did not know where he lived, he said that it was for two reasons, one because yesterday when the questions were put to him he was half asleep and did not know what he was saying, and the other because Simon del Mercado, having hidden here on account of his debts and being insolvent in Amsterdam, he did not wish to reveal him, fearing that the Margrave would come to seize him for his debts. Questioned further, he said that he did not know that the said Simon del Mercado had been</page><page sequence="40">208 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON to see or visit his father, mother or brothers, after having been in this town and lodged here, the witness always having found him in this house both early in the morning, at meals and at night, and he said also T do know the said Simon only as a Catholic Christian because he passes with all as such', and witness had seen him eat oysters and pies and other things which Jews do not eat. He also said he had not spoken to any person about this marriage, inasmuch as since the day when he had left his father's house he excluded himself from all affairs concerning his house, and having once heard from someone or other some matter regarding this marriage, he never declared himself for it, because he did not approve of such a marriage with a man who had three bankrupt brothers. He declares that his father does not deal in any other business, large or small, as he also says he does not himself because he has no means, except that they owe him large sums of money and that they live by pawning their possessions from day to day to the Lombards, whereat the witness showed us many receipts which he holds for his possessions in pledge; and he says that his father has others. He said that he went to the Frankfurt Fair a year ago for the first time, in company with Henrique Correa to teach him some business in precious stones and to assist him to negotiate that which his father had given into his charge, and since then the witness had been once to Paris by permission of the court and his creditors to arrange his accounts with Rodrigo Fernandez, and more he does not know and he signs this in his name, ANRIQUE ALVARES. Valentine Fernandez Ange, son of Manuel Fernandez, aged 27-28 years. Questioned under oath like the others, he said that he had been in London the last seven or eight months more or less, and that he had known Fernandez del Mercado, a Portuguese by national? ity, as a merchant, who had made public profession of being and remaining a Jew. As the witness says, he once publicly confessed before the Justice (la Justitia) in London where he was accused as such by a certain Portuguese, also resident there, and was known by everyone as such. He is not able to say anything about his marriage with the daughter of Gaspar Nunez other than that it was rumoured throughout the whole country here, where the witness says he had heard it, and more he does not know, and signs himself, VALLENTINE FERNANDEZ ANGE. (French) "Afterwards they went to the house of the said Gaspar Nunez with the intention of more closely examining the wife, daughters and other domestics, and having sent the usher Bossayt to demand them to open the door, they refused to do so. None the less, he summoned them with his staff in his hand. We were obliged to withdraw from thence without having made any demon? stration, as it was Sunday and the street was full of people." 10th October, 1610. In the Prison of The Steen in the said city of Antwerp. We went to this prison at 7 a.m. in order to interrogate there more closely the said Gaspar Nunez and Simon del Mercado who had been made prisoners by us, and having brought before us the said Simon del Mercado, we questioned and examined him as follows (Spanish) "Simon del Mercado, born in Lisbon, having passed more than ten years in Amsterdam where he has lived four years more or less in the company of his brother, Fernandez del Mercado, and afterwards alone, has done business alone until he became bankrupt two years ago, aged 20 or 21 years. Asked under oath, again given and administered at our hands, why he has come here, he said it is to settle his accounts with certain merchants who are in this town, to wit, with Gaspar Nunez and Henrico Alvarez, it being about fifteen days since he came (a little more or less) and having arrived here he says that he has lodged in the house in which we had him taken captive, and this o n the advice of the said Gaspar Nunez, who told him that Portuguese and Spaniards lived there,</page><page sequence="41">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 209 and that when he had come there, although Henrico Alvarez lodged previously in the said house, all the same he did not rind him there because he thinks he was away from the town. Asked how long he had been there before the said Henrico Alvarez returned to the city, he said he cannot remember the precise time, but it seems to him that it was three or four days before the said Henrico Alvarez returned. He said he asked him for what he claimed he owed him, whereat the said Alvarez asserted that he did not owe him anything, but that if he had owed him anything, his affairs were not in a state for him to pay him anything because he had not reached agreement with his creditors, and afterwards as the witness went to take something from him they were diamonds and other things. Finally, he asked him to be good enough to pay for the meals which he owed in the said house, and he did not yet know whether he would do so. Asked if he has any diamonds, he said he had not seen any. Asked further if there was any reason for his arrival here other than the aforesaid ones, that he wished to settle his accounts with the said Gaspar Nunez and Henrico Alvarez and to remain within the house lest he might receive injury from his creditors, because they had found a basket of clothes with him, he said that in the basket, which he declares is his, there are no clothes of any importance, only old ones, apart from one suit of damask which he said he had bought in this town in the Old Market, not knowing from whom, but that he was going to sell it at some time to his brother, or to some other person and make a profit, because he bought it so cheaply for 15 or 16 florins. Questioned, he said that during all this time he has been three or four times to the house of the said Gaspar Nunez in search of his brother Fernandez, or with the said Henrico Alvarez. He further says he heard that his said brother had come there to marry the elder daughter of the said Gaspar Nunez, but that he does not know it for certain, except that the said brother told him in England that he was negotiating it, and he did not know what dowry should come with her, or any other particulars. Also, the said witness says that it is because he is not on good terms with his said brother since his failure in business, and although he passed two or three months with him in London, he says he does not know what religion his brother is, nor what profession he makes of it, the witness only answering that for himself he is a Roman Catholic Christian and that he has always lived as such, and that if it is necessary he will bring attestations from Amsterdam that there he confessed himself five or six months ago, a little more or less, and although it was said to him that it was a matter of little appearance, he did not know the religion that his brother professed and participated in, and that in all matters of religion he only wished to answer for himself. Asked further, he said that he did not know when his brother left here, only that when we asked Henrico Alvarez above in his lodgings when his said brother left, he understood from him that he replied that it was in the spring, but he thinks that he went a little earlier because it is now eight days since the witness says he has taken leave there of his said brother, and he thought he was leaving this day, and also he thought of leaving himself on the following day. Questioned, he said that he did not know where his said brother lodged, other than in the house of the said Gaspar Nunez, because by day he always found him there but he did not know where he lodged by night. With all this he said he did not know of any marriage of his said brother with the said daughter of Gaspar Nunez for certain, except what he has already said and declared here on the subject. Nor did he say that he had brought the said suit of damask to wear at the wedding of his said brother because he did not think he would be invited to the said wedding without his said brother was mar? ried, because his intention was to return to Amsterdam and thence go to Lisbon and afterwards to the Portuguese Indies, according to his convenience. Asked if he was circumcised, he said that if he is, it was done by force when he was a boy of ten years, and that all the same he has never changed from the Catholic religion, and on being summoned to reply categorically on this point he did not wish to do it, otherwise than as aforesaid. Interrogated as to whether he knows the Articles of the Roman Catholic faith, he says that he has known them and that he could still remember them to himself, but he did not know how to repeat them, and when it was put to him whether he had been to certain Jewish congregations to pray with other Jews in Amsterdam, whereat Isacq Pallache here present said and affirmed he had seen him and had been seated with him in the house of Gimes Lopez, who is also called by another</page><page sequence="42">210 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON name, Jacob Thirado, where all the Portuguese Jews assemble for prayers, he said that if this is so, it was that he was taken there forcibly or indeed to speak with or deal with certain friends or mer? chants. He would not explain himself further on this subject more accurately although he was many times challenged about it. Asked, he says that he has never heard that his brother declared himself as a Jew before the Justice in London (la Justitia de Londres), it having been five years more or less to his best belief that his brother was in London, and further de does not know, and the witness signs himself with his hand SIMAO DEL MERCADO. Gaspar Nunnez, born in Beja in the Kingdom of Portugal, at present residing in this city of Antwerp, 80 years of age more or less. Asked if he has the gracious permission of Her Highness to remain in this city, although by sentence of the Council of Brabant he was banished, he said that he has asked Her Highness for further grace and that his petition was referred to the Privy Council, but that he had no money with which to finance his departure and that ever since he has remained here because he had no means with which to leave the country. As he is at law with his creditors here he feared that if he came to Holland or elsewhere, before coming to an agreement with them, they might do him some robbery. Further, his son, Henrico Alvarez, had left for Frankfurt to see whether he could not sell some of the jewels of Gregorio Correa for whom he was acting. Asked where his estate was, and the jewels which his said son took from the hands of the said Gregorio Correa, he says that he paid some creditors with them, of which the said Gregorio Correa holds the account, and also that he took some from them to support himself and to live, and that with other jewels which were in Paris they also paid some creditors there. He says further that he holds in Holland in the hands of Antonio Rodriguez a quantity of precious stones which also are to pay his creditors there, adding that he has nothing more and that he lives more by charity than by anything else, his wife sometimes selling some furniture which she had, and declaring that he owns nothing else. Asked why, if he had nothing else, he was arranging with Ferdinando del Mercado the marriage of his daughter with him at some thousands of ducats of dowry, he said that before his misfortunes something of the kind might well have been, but afterwards nothing was arranged further about it except that the said Ferdinando del Mercado came to his house this last time when he was here to collect some money from what he owed him, and that he had not paid because he had no means and that he gave him a meal two or three times in his house where he was by day, going by night to his lodgings, of which the witness declared he did not know the whereabouts. Saying that the last time that he was in his house was five or six days ago, a little more or less, and that he had left this country without taking leave of the witness because he was displeased because he did not give him the money owing (which he did not possess) and he did not know when he left. Although urged to speak with clarity about the marriage of his said daughter with the said Fernando del Mercado, although it might be with less dowry than before, he said there was no arrangement of the kind and that there never would be : When it was put to him that his said daughter herself had said and confessed it, and that also the said son Henrique Alvarez had spoken of it and likewise Simon del Mercado with many others, he still persisted that it was not so and that he did not know and has never known that Fernando del Mercado was a Jew, or that he is to this day, but that he had always taken him for a Christian and as such would have given him his daughter. And he also said that he had not heard that he had made any declaration or profession to the contrary before the Justice in London, or anywhere else. He confesses that his son, Henrique Alvarez, had been in London before he was seized the first time, and in misfortune treated with the said Fernando del Mercado about his marriage and also about his estate which he had in his hands, but afterwards he never went there again. The said witness says likewise that he has never in his life been in London. He also says that Simon del Mercado was twice in his house while his brother was there, but that he did not eat or drink there with them, and also the witness because he had so few means and comforts left his house when it was time to eat, and that the said Fernando del Mercado went</page><page sequence="43">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 211 because there was not enough food for all, and sometimes Henrique Alvarez, his son, went in company with him. And it seems to the witness that he also ate with the said Henrique Alvarez in his lodgings. When questioned, he said that his said son, Henrique Alvarez, left his house because the witness, with his mother, frequently admonished him for spending much on a married woman called Anna, the wife of Jehan de Villarubia, whom he entertained with the consent of her husband, and that they had complained of it many times to the Bishop of this country and to the Auditor of Castille, and that his said son, angered thereby, had left him and had quitted his house as stated, and he complaining that there was no justice over him and saying that he himself had desired him to do it with a sword with which he had wished to slay the said consenting husband ; and now he says that the said Henrico Alvarez is on bad terms also with them because, having no more to give them nor to entertain them with, he has left the woman because she has written letters to his said son (Henrico Alvarez) that if he comes to visit her any more she will have him killed, and that she must kill herself too with her own hand, of which the witness says that the said letters have been seen by many men in this country and that by night the said woman has come in man's clothes to the house of the said Henrico to deliver these letters. He says he lived, whilst he was in Amsterdam, one year more or less, in the house of a German who was called Aron, that it was he who circumcised his child because he made him give him knife wounds for a "sabbatey" because he paid him 50 ducats and more, and signed for it. Asked where his son Henrico went this last time when he was abroad he said that he had been secretly in Holland to The Hague to ask for and pursue a safeguard to settle accounts with his creditors and the witness does not know whether he went anywhere else or for any other occasion. GASPAR NUNEZ. Catherine Vaz, born in Lisbon, wife of Gaspar Nunnez, who does not know her age. When asked, she says she does not know, nor has she seen Fernando del Mercado in her whole life, and although she could have seen him, she does not know him. She says that three years ago, or maybe four, there were negotiations through her husband and her son Henrico Alvarez for the marriage of her daughter with the said Fernando del Mercado, but after his misfortunes there had never been any further dealings about it. Further, she says that she has not seen Fernando del Mercado either on this last occasion or at any other time, but only Simon del Mercado, his brother, who came to collect money from her son, she does not know how much. She said that the said Fernando del Mercado never, either on this last occasion or at any other time, ate in her house, any more than did Simon del Mercado, and that after his misfortune and that of her husband and of her "advenido" son she knows nothing nor ever dreamt of desiring any marriage with the said Fernando del Mercado. Saying at first before he went bankrupt he had not promised or detailed anything of the dowry of her said daughter, except 6,500 ducats, as she never knew him as anything but a man of honour, although after her son came from London he told her that the said Fernando del Mercado was "emanccnado" and that as such she has never set eyes on him and she does not know anything more, save when asked of the departure of her said son from her house, she did not wish to testify any differently except that he came often at night, angering the said witness thereby, but wished to depart rather than stop although he said that he had left Anna, the wife of Jehan de Villaroubia a long time ago. Afterwards she said she does not know if he goes there or not and does not know anything more, and does not know how to sign her name, and said it is many months since her son came to her house, or she saw him. Signed G. FOXIUS. Isabel Henriques, elder daughter of Gaspar Nunez, asked about her marriage with Fernando del Mercado, knows nothing to tell because it is not the custom amongst Portuguese daughters that they should know anything of their marriage, except when married, and of the marriage of her father and mother too, and she says that she has never seen the said Fernando del Mercado, not even this last time when they say he was here, nor at other times, and she says that Simon del Mercado has once been here, and it seems to her that it was six or seven days ago that Fernando del Mercado</page><page sequence="44">212 portuguese jews in jacobean london left this country. She also says and confesses having said that the last time we were here and took her said father to prison, that the said Fernando del Mercado would marry her if such were the wish of her father ; and also that her brother Henrico Alvarez said that he was content that when his father and his brother paid Fernando del Mercado what they owed him from the 3,000 or 4,000 ducats, then he would take her to wife with this much of the dowry, and she knows nothing more of this business, and that thus she signs her name. ISABEL HENRIQUES." Dossier 924B fo. 281 Processes, evidences, interrogations, letters, etc. against Henrique Garcez. (22pp.) fo. 302 Information concerning Alvaro Mendes Pinto. (2 pp.). Dossier 755 Comprises principally the correspondence taken from Simon de Mercado at the time of his arrest. These have been deciphered and translated by Mr. R. D. Barnett, f.s.a., and are given in approximate chronological order. fo. 5 Diego Dias Querido to Fernando de Mercado.* en Amsterdam vi de junho 607 prdo de Mercado Seja o sr louvado pella chegada en paz do nao da madra qta e trazer todos os mais q' nos tocao a salevamto o sr di? nunes beija as maos a Vm. pede lhe avize o presso e estado Enquella esta dito/hosumgte q'carregou ferna? Ruiz e o en que lhe pede ho retorno delle. Vejo n?o vir chea a prassa de afon9o dias. Vm ma fara precurar satisfaxer nisso ho milhor e meis favoravell q puder e darme avizo do que se figou lastando p'ese Respto pera fazer devedor a esa qta dedito Afonco dias. Estao ben pagas as ?15.5.7 q' Vm avia desenbolsado pa o negco de Reinier pla ga q' ds. melhore sera m.pa my' mandarme clareza pa dar aos seguradores que espero se fara Avaria e mas pagarao q' asj estao obrigadore(s) e noq Vm puder favoreser e basejar dito negco me fara m. Assi ...(?) mas 1 .... g ... de todo a mao delle pois sabe q' mais o quero na sua como suceder q' na outra ganhado fallros dize'ao de siguir o prejtto se mor Alcada e te'me dado neste negco tantas mostras de me fazere m q' ja me sinto mais obrigado do q inporta as caixas mas 60' seria no se perder' q vendj mdos p parcellas p' 111 senpre me fara m. ser . . . tar os f . . . sucedendo En hu' nao q' vay daquy pa esa cidade que he mte piter gertsen Carreguey hua paca co' 10 pas de baeta de 100 fros deve ser partido p' que o nao acho. Leveo ds. en paz. La me fara M mandella Receber e pagarlhe de frete 4 floris moeda da olanda q asj acordey co' ell. e no pr? nao que se ofereser pa Viana a mandara Carreguar co' sinar a frco dias avzte A ant? sanches?e en falltta de nao pa Viana a Carregara pa o portto co'sinada A antonyo fernandes filho de Jorge esteves q' ds aja avztea gco Cardoso da foncequa dando me avizo do q' sig urirao servindo de-to nosso sr grde a Vm A servco de Vm Dgo dias querido * Diogo Dias (als. David) Querido and his brother-in-law Diogo Nunez (als. Jacob) Belmonte are listed by De Barrios as among the founders of the first Amsterdam Synagogue, Beth Jacob. Diogo Dias Querido formerly lived in Bahia in Brazil, where his activities came to the attention of the 1595 Inquisitional visitation (Denunciaqoes de Pernambuco, 1593-95 (Sao Paulo 1929)). I am indebted to Dr. Arnold Wiznitzer for this information.</page><page sequence="45">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 213 Below in neat hand : cardoso daffonsiqa Address : A fernado de mercado q' dios goarde en Londres Surcharged in neat hand : dito co madem da conesm0 hua desta paqu de Baetas. B Gl S Dossier 755 fo. 5 Translation. Diego Dias Querido to Fernando de Mercado. Amsterdam, 6th June, 1607. God be praised for the peaceful arrival of the ship from Madeira as she carries all those who concern us to safety. Sr Di? Nunez kisses your hands and asks that you will inform him of her price and condition. The said (erased).which Fernando Ruiz despatched, and the one in which he asks for its return. I see that the market does not come full from Afonco Dias (or, I see that it does not come full(y)loaded ?) to market from Afonco D.). You will be so good as to procure me satisfaction in this point, the best and most favourable that you can, and give me notice what was left, paying for this consideration so as to debit the said Afonco Dias for this quantity. The ?15.5.7 are being met, which you disbursed for the business of Reinier for the . . ., which may God improve. It will be a kindness to me to send me clarification so as to give (word) to the underwriters that I expect some damage will be wrought. Thus I shall be (?)... ed from all sides of it. But then you know that I wish it to succeed in your profit more than in the other. The Falleros intend to follow the lawsuit if it is in High Court, and have given me in this business such proofs of doing me kindness that I feel myself already more in their debt than the cases are worth but as it might be (?) it would not be lost, that I sold ... for ... &amp; parcels for 11J, you will always kindly serve (?) the f ... if you succeed. In a ship which goes from here to that city (London), of which Peter Gertsen is master, I freighted a packet with 10 parcels of baize of 100 florins. It must have left because I do not find it. May God bring it in peace. Kindly send to receive it and pay him for freight 4 florins of Dutch money, which I thus settled with him. And in the first ship that offers for Viana, kindly send it to freight &amp; consign to Franco Dias, adviser to Ant? Sanches?and in default of a ship to Viana you will freight it to Oporto consigned to Antonyo Fernandes son of Jorge Esteves, whom God keep, adviser to Gco Cardoso da Foncequa, notifying me of what they will insure, serving . . . Our Lord preserve you. At your service. Dgo. Dias Querido. Below : cardoso daffonsiqua. Address : Fernando de Mercado, whom God preserve in London. Surcharged : said despatch of bill of lading of this packet of baize. fo. 2 From Dionis Roodenburg to Gaspar de Mercado at Amsterdam. Senor, Ayer escrive a VM suplicando que me hisiesse la merced de pagar por m a Govert Govertsoon Trienta florinos, y que embia lluego las pinturas. Supco a VM se me quiere bien accomplir m (. . .) demanda por quanto m'inporta, y llegando en hora buena a Amsterdam los buelvere a VM con agradescimento. Con tanto le beso las manas. Dioni. Roodenburg. Haga 14 abril. Envelope : De ersemens Gaspar de Mercado ten huyse van Hendrick Bochsoon wonende after de nieuwe Kerck an de rode bock Amsterdam. o</page><page sequence="46">214 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON Translation. Sir, Yesterday I wrote to you asking you to do me the kindness to pay for me to Govert Govertsoon thirty florins and to send me the paintings quickly. I beg you if you wish me well to discharge my request as it is important to me, and when I reach Amsterdam in a favourable time I shall return them (i.e. the money,) to you with gratitude. Meanwhile I kiss your hands. Dioni. Roodenburg. Envelope : The worshipful Gaspar de Mercado at the house of Hindrick Bochsoon living behind the new church at (the sign of) the Red Goat. fo. 22 A de Vm. de 6 do corrente Recebj : vejo serem chegadas as naos de lisboa. Tudo a que vier de marqua que alvaro brandao consina a Vm para que sigua minha ordern, Vm o pode entregar ditas fasdas a guaspar Ruis que serao bem entreguez, por quanto a dito pretence ditas fazdas, a Carta de Vm. se dara a Henrique Alvarez, no quito qua a seus negocios estao seus bens socrestados como la sabera querera drs. e esperamos se faca tudo bem. Noso sr guarde a Vm. como deseja. todas as fazendas q'desta marqua vieram caregadas por alvaro brandao postas a minha ordern os deixara reseber a gaspar ruis. Fr. Greg? Correa 1608 Mark JA interlaced between asterisks. Envelope : Annotation : Anves. Oct. de gregorio A Simao de Mercado, Correa devi denro Amsterdam. Respondida a 17 d d Translation. I received yours of the 6th instant. I see that the ships from Lisbon are arriving. All that may come with the mark which Alvaro Brandao is consigning to you to follow my order, these goods you may deliver to Gaspar Ruis which will be well delivered, in as much as the said goods belong to him. Your letter will be given to Henrique Alvarez. As for his affairs I care not his goods are sequestrated. When he knows of it (the letter) he will want cash. And we hope all may be done well. May Our Lord guard you as you desire. JA (Mark) All the goods which come with this mark, consigned by Alvaro Brandao (and) placed to my order, you will allow Gaspar Ruis to receive. Fr. Greg0 Correa 1608 Envelope : To Simao de Mercado, Annotation : Antwerp. Oct. Amsterdam From Gregorio Correa owes money, replied the 17th of the same.</page><page sequence="47">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 215 fo 24. From (Fernando de Mercado) in London to Simon de Mercado in Amsterdam. Simao de Mercado em Londres 29/8 de Julho 1610. Segundo o boo vento q' levastes confio no Sor que ao sabado ao meodia averieis chegado a flissingue, e que presto serieis nessa cidade aonde fallarieis com jamez lopez dizendo q' vos espantais muito delle mandar tais contas as quais acordareis con eile da Manra que me disestes E avereis escrito delle e dizeilhe q' as ?80 q' lhe figarieis devendo de Crasto Nao era por Meu Credito, se nao por Vossa amizade, Pois Elle Nao Me escreveo disso quando lhe Mandey a Carta?se Elle Consentir Nisto E vos der a conta pa a Mandar a Envers Escuzareis de jr fazer gastos La escreuereis a mel Vaz pimtele P?texradizindo q' aquella he a Verdadra conta eo Mesmo a Greg? Correa E em todo cazo Vos desobrigay do juramt0 E saiba james lopez q' vos deso(brig)astes delle, e dizeilhe q' ainda q' seja vergenza pa Vos aveis de dizer a D.e ao Mundo, e escrever aos falros e Correa q' Elle Vos enganou E que Vos fez com'go Cobrisseis antes a Elle q' a mi devendome a mi Mouras?e dizeilhe q' as caxas de Ge Rz sao de greg0 Correa e q' quando a sentenca Va por apellacao a lxa q' alii temos Nos amigos e q' em Cazo q' alii se de Contra' Nos ha de lansear mas della Hector Mendez plo q' lhe deuo E eile Nao ha de Cobrar qto agora se lhe offrece. Por q' los asugres q' [elle deleted] frco diaz Recebeo e lhe madou ha de cobrar me Vazpel eP?texra ?20 sterlas q' lhe deuo [e se por que Vier algua Couza sua algua h deleted] Mas se dito jamez lopez nao quiser mandar a Conta na Verdade Como me dizastes entao jreis a Envers, e se algo q' nao Vades he por Vos nao fazer gastos, q' do mais he folgaria q' trozeis. Mas o tpo nao esta de demaziado o Sor nos ponha tudo em bem e nos alegre, q' tanto tristeza e desgosto por tantas vias me derao aqellas Cartas daqelle Correa. D. Vos grde. Escreuey a R? de mercado, e mt0 brando, e dizeilhe q' faro o q' posso q' pa isto e outras couzas determino de jr a Envers daqui a 3 semanas. Frco mendez Vos encomdo e o mais da memoria q' levasteis. Translation. Simao de Mercado London 29/8 July 1610. Following the fair wind (with) which you set sail, I trust in the Lord that on Saturday at midday you would arrive at Flushing and that you will be in that city where you speak with James Lopez, saying that you are much astonished at his sending you such accounts which you would settle in the manner which you told me; and you had written concerning him and would say to him that the ?80 which you still owed him from Crasto was not on account of my credit but of your friendship ; for he did not write to me of it when I sent him the letter. If he should agree to it and will give you the account to send to Antwerp, you would be spared going and incurring expense. You should write it to Mel Vaz Pimel and P? Texra, saying that this is the correct account, and the same to Greg0 Correa, and in any case release yourself from the oath. And James Lopez may know that you have released yourself from it, and say to him that, although it be a cause of shame to you, you have to tell God and the world, and write to the Falros and Correa, that he deceived you, and that he made you cover him before me although Mouras owed me, and say to him that the cases of Ge Rz are Greg0 Correa's, and that when the sentence goes to appeal at Lisbon, we have our friends there, and that in the event that it goes there against us, Hector Mendez has more to throw than he for that which I owe him, and he has nothing to collect as much as is now offered him. Because of the sugar which Frco Diaz (deleted : he) received and sent to him, (from ?) Mel Vaz Pel and P? Texra he has to collect ?20 sterling which I owe him (deleted : and if because some affair of his will come some . . .) But if the said James Lopez does not wish to send the account truthfully as you said to me, then you would go to Antwerp, and if there be something to stop you going, so as to save you expense, what there is over you would be glad you carried. But there is none too much time. May the Lord put all right for us and cheer us, as those letters of that Correa have given me so much sorrow and disgust in so many ways. God preserve you. Write to R? de Mercado, he is very kind, and say to him that I will do what I can, that for this and other reasons I am resolved to go to Antwerp from here in three weeks time. To Frco Mendes I commend you, and the rest which you have carried in your memory.</page><page sequence="48">216 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON Cover : to Simao de Mercado, whom God preserve. Amsterdam, fo 11. From Fernando de Mercado in London to Simon de Mercado in Amsterdam. Simao de mercado Em Londres 12/22 de Agosto 1610. Paullo pinto me disse Vos dexara ja em MelBurg. Bendito o senor q' Vos deo boa Viagem, Elle vos de Saude perfeita sempre, E seu temor para q'o servais. Aqui estive grel da costa e muito queizoso por q' eu nao lhe pagava por Vos, eu lhe disse como nao estava em tempo paisso, respondeome qe Elle sabia o contr0 E q' assi sabia de boa parte q' frco mendez de medros tinha hua joia Vossa de importancia em seu poder, Eu lhe respondj E jurei q' nao sabia de nada mais q' da hua q' aqui trouxestes de valia de ?25 de grs q' vos dexei posto qe a avia mister por ver Vossas Nescessidades, seya como for qrad. q* seja Verdade e que a tenhais por Vosso Bern, ainda q' a escondais de mi, Com dito grel da Costa tratey Na Viagem, e Me descubrio Segredo q* de hun se faz 3 e 4. fallaj Com Elle, q* eu jurei de o nao dizer a Ningue, E isto he jndo a Guine a Costa q' he tao sadia Como Lixa E ainda q' digo q' he 3.6 p, hun he mais plo q' nao Vades a lxa te eu Vir, de Anvers, e fallai Com dito grel da Costa sobre isto q' Confio no senor q' Por qa Vos fara Merce escreveiaome de Amb.? (e nao R?de mercado) se nao outra pa) q' Vos punheis em Condicao o acordo com hua Negrala, que engarabulhareis com Ishac Lemaire de q' estao os acredores dados ao diabo. Por amor de Nosso sor assi Elle Vos Cumpra Vossos boos desejos pa o servir q' Remedecis isto q' importa a Vossa e sua quietacao e a minha e a de todos. Se valho algua couza Comvosgo fazei logo isto, fazei isto logo Claro a fartai Vos ja do pobre R? que, assai pobre E lastimoso esta, e quem avia de Cuidar q entre jrmaos, ouvesse isto. Por tudo se Louve o Senor, eu Cuido Valho algua Couza comvosgo, plo menos fazei o Por mim. Eu mandei a fair08 e a greg0 Correa a Conta Como Madestes, E escrevei q' eu me fazia forte e Me obrigava a fazer boo q' aquella he a qa Verdadra, espero Vostro avizo pa Mandar a Carta q' Me dexastes. fallaj e acordai a Conta Com jamez Lopez. E acordai a Conta Com Elle dizendo q' se Contente, E se Elle acordara qtne Nao tindes paq* jr a Envers mas se Elle se nao quiser acomodar Com as ?200 de grs desataivos do Juramto. E escrevej a Envere Como podendo Cubrirme a Mi Cubristes a Elle, E por q' eu nunqa o soube qe Vos atou Com tal juramt0, E avizaimo Pa mandar Vossa Carta, ou a Levar q' assi ha de ser Nescro quando Elle se nao Contente. As taras do Attincal acorday, E Recebj de Thomas Nuz a Carta q' Com Elle Vos escrevi. Espero Com alvorosso saber, se acordastes Com frcomendez, Nao qto q' perqais Nada do Vosso q' eu Vos qro dar, mas entendej q' me obrigaveis mt0 mto E q' me he mt0 Nescro. Ja Lopez Vos pide lhe mandeis o Cambrai Mandailho se puder des. logo?tudo q' Levastes por mema sei fareis Como de Vos espero. O sor Vos grde Amen. frd0 de mercado Envelope : A simao de Mercado, q' D grde e sve. Amsterdam. Translation. Simao de Mercado London 12/22 August 1610. Paullo Pinto told me he will leave you now in Middelburg. Blessed be the Lord who gave you a good journey. May he always grant you health and fear of him that you may serve him. Here was Gabriel da Costa. He is very querulous, because I did not pay him for you. I said he was not in time for that. He replied that he knew the contrary, and that he knew thus from a good source that Francisco Mendez de Medeiros has in his possession a jewel of yours of importance. I replied to him and swore that I knew of nothing except the one which you brought here of the value of ?25 grossos, which I left you, assuming that you needed it to meet your needs. Be that as it may, may God will that it be true that you hold it as your property, although you hide it from me. I dealt with the said Gabriel da Costa on the journey, and he disclosed to me a secret, how from one is made three and four. I told him I swore to tell it to no-one; and he is going to Guinea, the coast which is as healthy as Lisbon, and though I say it is 3.6 for one, it is more, because</page><page sequence="49">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 217 you do not go to Lisbon till I come from Antwerp. I told the said Gabriel da Costa about this, that I trust in the Lord that he will do you the kindness. They wrote here to me from Hamburg (and not Rodrigo de Mercado) and no one else, that you were putting as a condition the agreement with a negrala (? slave ship) which would involve you (?) with Ishac Lemaire, whereby the creditors are consigned to the devil. For the love of our Lord, may He thus fulfil your good wishes to serve him, that you.(?) what is important for your and his, for mine and everybody's, tranquility of mind; if I am worth anything to you do this at once, do it at once clearly. I stuffed you enough now with poor Rodrigo, who is poor and pitiful enough, and who had to take care that this should (not) arise between brothers. However, God be praised, I take care that I am worth something to you, at least do it for me. I sent to the Fal(le)ros and to Greg(ori)o Correa the account as you sent it, and I wrote that I felt strong and was bound to make good (the claim) that there is the true amount. I await your instruction to send the letter which you left me. Speak and agree the account with Jamez Lopez and agree the account with him, saying that if he is satisfied, and if he agrees., you have no need to go to Antwerp; but if he does not wish to settle with the ?200 grossos, release yourself from the oath : write to Antwerp how being able to cover me, you covered him; and because I never knew it (erasure), he bound you with this oath. And instruct me to send you your letter, or to bring it, which is thus necessary if he is not satisfied. Agree the tares of crude borax; and receive from Thomas Nu(ne)z the letter which I (?) wrote to you with him. I wait with anxiety to learn if you reached agreement with Francisco Mendez; I do not want you to . . . nothing of yours which I want to give you, but I understood that you were obliging me very, very much, and that I need him very badly. James Lopez begs you to send him the cambric; send it him as quickly as possible if you can. I know that you will do everything which you carried in your memory as I expect it of you. The Lord keep you. Amen. F(e)r(nan)do de Mercado. Envelope : To Simao de Mercado, whom God keep and save, AMSTERDAM. fo. 14. (Right hand edge torn away) Roderigo de Mercado in Hamburg to Diogo Lopes Cardoso in Amsterdam. Em Amburgo A 19/29 de Agostto 1610. Sr. Diogo Lopes Cardoso. Sooposto que podia servir mais de agravos que tinho de Vm, nao aver sido sabidor de s (.) nunqa ser enforma, q' avendo de encaminhar contas ahi, deixe de saber de sua boa (.) m' mandar nouas ameudo, porque sindo boas (como desejo) levarei summo gosto (.) leve VM en conta, o trabalho, e ma faca avisar se meu yrmao esta ahi, pque d (.) sua antanho, nunqa mais, me quis, avisar o que fazia, sendome nesc0 ou forcado me m(an)de (.) de Ishack lemere para qa poder fazer ultima conclusao a minhas cousas, que assi Ds. me encam(nhe) q' por falta della me nao ponho a caminho, plo que VM ma faca de nao tomarP trabalho de lhe dar a reprecao que semilhaote descudo merece; acusaodome sobre isto, e perdoe Ds ao doctor David Farar que ha 6 somanas lhe escrevy sobre o mestre (?) sem me querer Responder e a ditto meu yrmao escrevo tambem per outtra via, p mas mais espero baste fazerme VM m., e tambem a Receberei emsedar a ynclusa a Diogo gomes drte estaodo ahi, ou mandarlha a Roterdam pa onde me afirmao se mada . . . e por estar de pose de Resebillas qa ameudo, me atrevo ataoto, Reservaodo todas para as servir, fazendo nosso sr me., que o mereca, que guarde a VM muitos annos e esa aos sres Michel e Rafael de crasto minhas beija maos, e me tenhao por tao seu como queria ser de VM de VM, Rodrigo de mercado Aq' vai para diogo gomes nao seja por via de meu yrmao, pq' abraco seja infinitto. Envelope : Ao mtt0 mag00 sr Diogo lopes Cardoso q' Ds guarde e sa Amsterdam.</page><page sequence="50">218 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON Translation. Hamburg 19/29th August 1610. Sr Diogo Lopes Cardoso, Supposing that there could be worse offence which I have from you, not to have been informed of (.) never to be (.) than having to direct accounts there, he should cease to know of his good (.) to send me frequent news, because if it is good, as I wish, I shall derive the utmost pleasure (.) (do not) take into account the labour, and let me be informed if my brother is there, because (.) last year, not since, he desired me to inform him what I was doing, as it was necessary or essential to me that he should send me.from Ishack Lemere so that I could completely wind up my affairs here. May God so guide me, for lack of it I cannot start on my way. For this be so kind as not consider it burdensome to give him the rebuke which such neglect deserves, putting the blame for it on me. And may God pardon Dr. David Farar to whom I wrote six weeks ago, about the . . . , but he does not wish to reply. And I am writing to my brother also by another route, but I rather hope it may be enough if you oblige me. Also I shall receive it, if you give the enclosed to Diogo Gomes Duarte when you (he is ?) are there, or send it to him to Rotterdam, whither they assure me he has gone. And to be in a position to receive them here frequently, I dare that much, reserving all of them to serve them, if God grant that he deserve it. May He preserve you many years and to Srs Michel and Rafael de Crasto I kiss my hands (send my compliments) who hold me as their own, as I would wish to be yours. Your (servant) Rodrigo de Mercado As for what goes to Diogo Gomes, let it not be through my brother, for whom (I send) endless em? braces. Envelope : To the very magnificent Sr. Diogo Lopes Cardoso, whom may God preserve and save. Amsterdam. fo. 23. Francisco Mendes Trancozo in Amsterdam to Fernando de Mercado in London. Em Anstrodama 14 de setenbro 1610. Ja VM se hemfadara de reseber cartas minhas que bem sei pera VM sera hescuzadas. Cem bransas q' senhelas me fara merse mao dar me hesas simcohenta livras pois Vm ve he tenpo he asim qu fazer. hesta por me dizer O sor seu hirmao afizese pera lhe dizer que bodas os dias atras se veho a mim se lhe queria vender humas simcohenta liuras que VM me deuia que lhe citareis por 100 que dentro de 3 meses mas pagaria. heu lhe dise que a nao queria uender ne tal me pasava pelo pensamento que heu hestava comfihado como hestou que muito hem breve VM mas auia de pagar ao que hele me respondeu que fazia bem que hele asino hentendia he pois a diuida he pequena. VM ma fara dar (?) ordern come sera pago he por que outro nao se hetrese ds. guarde a VM he ho hescreva hen luiro de uidas hen desto dia. Franco medez trancozo Endorsed : a fernao do mercado que ds guarde Em Londres. Translation. You will be quite weary of receiving my letters, which I well know by you are excused. The hundred bransas which you determine for me will give me a poor recompense at those five hundred pounds. Well, you see it is time, and thus what is to be done ? It is for me to say. Your brother should be advised to tell you that. . . days past he came to me (asking) if I wished to sell him some five hundred pounds which you owed me, that you would quote him for 100, which he would pay back within three months. I told him that I did not wish to sell it, nor had any such idea occurred to me, that I was confident, as I am, that (to put it briefly) you still had to pay. To which he</page><page sequence="51">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 219 answered me that he (you ?) would do it although he did not understand it thus, and besides the debt is small. You will give me your order, as it shall be, I shall pay; and in order that no one else should concern himself, may God preserve you and write it in the Book of Life on this day. Franco medez trancozo Endorsed : to Fernando do Mercado whom God preserve. In London. fo. 8. Belchior Franco Mendes in Amsterdam to Fernando de Mercado in London. en Amsterdam a 14 setembro 1610. Sn?r Thomas nunes pina nos fez bons p' orden de VM vinte livros nove soldre des grossos desta moeda de olanda procedidos de hun resto de conta q' tivera con o s6r simao de mercado estos pusemos a de VM a rezao de soldos 34 eg q' franc0 pinto nos taixouva . . . VM agora quando lhe bem parecer pode dar conclusao a jsto, advertindo que nos nao sabemos se sao ?40 se 38 sterlin Bern sabemos que o rebate que VM contava nas caxas, q* se nao a de contar segundo VM mesmo dise, pois nos a tanto q' estamos sen embolsar uno L. E bem sabemos que a letra q' nos deu para Lisboa q' nao teve efeito era de 150 R e 10L e que vejo entao recambiada na carta a 118 e que assi uaj ainda agora daqui e vem de laa. VM faca a conta como lhe parecer, que nos a aprovamos. Nao costumamos a dar parabens dos gostos q' se nos nao comunicao. Mas como este VM querera ter encuberto por alguns respeitos lhe nao pomos culpa, con tudo se VM se cazado con a filha do sn?r gaspar nunez seja para se lograrem mujtos anos, e ver de la fructo e facunda geracao en servico do Sn?r e se este rumor e publica voz do povo nao se verdadra figuem estas rogativas guardadas para a que noso sn?r lheigerlhe ese noudo e le garde a VM en quen nos recomendamos mujtos uezes, remettendo nos en tudo ao sn?r Simao de mercado O servidor de VM Belchiore franco mendez Endorsed : A sn?r fernando de mercado que ds garde Londres con amiguo q* ds salve Translation. Amsterdam 14 September 1610 Sir, Thomas Nunes Pina credited us with your order for twenty pounds nine shillings grossos of this currency of Holland, resulting from the remains of an account which he had with Sr. Simao de Mercado. These we placed to your credit at a rate of 34 soldos all of which Franco Pinto assessed for us. You may now when it suits you wind this up, noting that we do not know if they are ?40 or ?38 sterling. We know well that the rebate which you reckoned in the cases is not to be counted, according to what you yourself say; then we hardly pocket a single ?. And we know well that the bill of exchange which you gave us on Lisbon which proved ineffective, was for 150 R. and ?10, and I see it then changed back in the letter at 118, and thus it still goes from here and comes from there. Make the account as it seems good to you, we approve it. We are not accustomed to offer congratulations on pleasures which are not communicated to us. But since you may wish to have this concealed in some respects we do not blame you. If withal you have married the daughter of Sn?r Gaspar Nunes, may it be for enjoyment of many years, and to see from her fruit and fertile generation in the service of the Lord; and if this rumour and common saying of the people is not true, may these prayers remain kept until our Lord tie you this knot, and preserve you, to whom we commend ourselves many times. We refer ourselves in everything to Sn?r Simao de Mercado. Your servant, Belchiore Franco Mendes. Endorsed : to Sr. Fernando de Mercado, whom God preserve. London. with a friend whom God save,</page><page sequence="52">220 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON fo. 18. Draft of letter from (Fernando de Mercado) to Guilherme Roiz) Cancelled and followed by draft from (Simon de Mercado) in Antwerp to Guil? herme Roiz (? in Lisbon) Sr Guilherme Roiz Em Anveres A 23 de Sttr0 1610. (1) Nunqa cuidei que me custasse tao e . . fido, pedir a VM merce, tudo cauzado de seu descuido, ou pode ser do que escrevi a frco diaz Nao conhecendo de antes a VM m no q (2) Ge Rois En anveres 23 Set 1610. Vim a esta vila danveres aonde achay as queixas de greg0 Correa tan sen resao contra mim pois a culpa VM tern se entanto tp? lhe nao aver caregado seus asuges me poem a mim, nao sei q' resao ha de VM se queixar da carta q lhe escrevy a frco dias pois sendo a pra ves q tive Carta sua nao hera mt0 preguntar p eile e achando de seu primor e honra tan larga informacao q timey mt0 pedirlhe ms, asi q nao sei resao p q VM se queixe com ella de mim, resta pedirlhe com a instancia q posso digua a nosso amigo frco dias deixe a ausado q por nas caixas de greg0 Correa en falta VM faca plas desenbarasar. E nao se podendo escusar demanda asiga com o fervor e deliga nesca confirme a orden q'dito gregorio Correa lhe da nesto posto q' eu cumpro de frco dias entendera bem a resao q ha pa nao segir tal proseso e figo comfiando q fara VM isto como eu fizera en cousas suas. E estimarey esta m. mais do q lhe digo nesta p que me inporta mt0 ter este h?rnern contente e temme.destes enbarasos q tanto sem lho mereser me tern ft0 nosso amigo frco diaz p quen VM he lhe pedo asista a isto como va de nesco pr que este h?rnern se nao queixe de mim nen p ma cousa lhe enbarassen suas cousas. E se na . . servico de VM qu prestar me achara sempre prestes. N Sr ga. Sr. Guilherme Roiz. In Antwerp 23 Sept 1610 (1) I never thought it would cost me so much ... to ask you a service, all caused by your careless? ness, or perhaps by that which I wrote to Frco Diaz, not knowing before what. . . (2) Ge Rois. In Antwerp 23 Sept. 1610. I came to this city of Antwerp where I found the complaints of Greg0 Correa against me so wanting in reason, for the fault is yours, because for so long a time you have not loaded his (cases of) sugar. They put it on me, I do not know what reason you have to complain of the letter which I wrote to Frco Dias. For as it was the first time that he had your letter it was not much to ask for him ; and finding such ample report of your skill and honour, I was much afraid to ask you favours ; thus there is no reason why he should complain to you of me. It remains for me to ask you with all the urgency I can that you speak to our friend frco dias that he leave (it) to the High Court (?) ... in the cases of Gregorio Correa, failing this, please take steps to free them. And as you cannot be excused, he demands that you follow it with the zeal and necessary diligence, that you confirm the order which Gregorio Correa gives you in this matter; assuming that I buy from Freo Diaz he will well understand the reason for not prosecuting such a case. And I am confident that you will do in this matter as I would do in your affairs. And I should value it as a favour even more than I say because it is important to me to have this man satisfied and be . . . ed from these embarrassments which without my deserving it our friend Frco Diaz has done to me ; for whom I ask you and him that you assist it as is necessary, because this man should not complain of me nor should they embarrass his affairs for many matters. And if in your service . . ... you will always find me ready. O(ur) L(ord) guard you. (1) In the hand of Fernando de Mercado. (2) In the hand of Simon de Mercado. fo. 19. (Simon de Mercado) in Antwerp to Francisco Dias (? in Viana) frco dias En anveres 23 de set 1610. Chegei a esta vila de enveres por ver se me podia acordar com os sres Mel Vas Pemel e pro teixra, nas duvidas q* entre james lopes e meus jrmaos ha; e estando casi deacordo tiverao aviso d. d james lopes de lhe aver VM mandado 6 caixas dasugres de novo, com o q* desistirao entendendo</page><page sequence="53">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 221 q' estao deporse. Vm me avia dado aviso de ter a minha orden en seu poder 5 caixas q' do porto me vierao as quais avia careguado frco lopes frango e 10 caixas careguadas p frco de barros q' sao 15 agora me diserao estes sres q' Vm avia vendido 9 caixas e careguado 5 pa amsterdam; e agora 6 afora as 8 q' me caregou p ma orden de Londres ; as mais nao sei com q' horden as caregou nen sei q 6 caixas sao essas nen a quern pertenssen. Vm q* as caregou sabera o como pa se algun tp? seu . . . lhas pedir satisfacao facarme Vm avisarme quem lhas mandou e de me diser desapaxonada mente q lhe fiso en q lhe meresi tratarme tan cruelmte q afasa q dele tenho fiado memifeste e de absoluto poder a carege ao h?rnern com q tenho duvidas e qtas sen ouvir nhua pte; e nao bastando isso, os asugres q* pertensen a gregorio Correa quere pos enbarasar, q' en verdade mais me custa de dee nossego e deven que atacaode mtas cousas stando o mais q' me ten ft0 pa orden. sr lhe pedo baste o q' me tern feito e nao acresente mais odiarme e perturbarme com gregorio correa q he homen q hey mt0 mister e me fac am. desenbarasar a dito gregorio Correa seus asugres, pois sabe q sao seus. e ge tp?ha lhe pertensse e yas no q' teo a seu poder foi servido persegime tanto servasse p quern he de me nao querer faser tanto mal de me quer affedentar com este homen q o ey mte mister. E entenda q se ha pouqos dias ou antes se deva mt0 menos a james lopes se contentera; mas aguora nao quer q Vm se mostra tan ennemigo meu; e tanto he isto asi q estando casen consertados p la franca q dis fls meu jrmao se retirarao. seya ds. louvado pois e si foi servido casti garme q te Vm sendo tanto meu sr e amigo me foi tan contrario q poso diser. asi ds. me aiude q foi huns dos grdes q nesta vida tive sen aver respt0 a singeleza com q de sua honra fiey a ma e mas cousas entregarsse tanto a faserme mal sem he mereser, nao sei ao q o atrebrua q a meus pequados p quen Vm he lhe pedo baste e q me nao faca faser gastos en demandas de greg0 correa ... lhe desenbarassen seus asugres e facame m. escreverme a Londres e nao se fa(r) tan estranho de seus servidores (.) ne noq' se ofereser (en) seu servico q o farei senpre (.) ta vontade a quern (.) goarde mtos annos e ga Translation Antwerp 23 Sept. 1610. (Simon de Mercado to) Francisco Dias. I arrived at this city of Antwerp to see if I could reach agreement with Srs. Manuel Vas Pemel and Pedro Texeira on the debts which exist between James Lopes and my brothers; and (we) being almost agreed, they got word from the said James Lopes that you had sent him 6 cases of sugar de novo, whereat they stopped, understanding that they are in possession. You had notified me you were holding to my order in your possession 5 cases which come to me from Oporto, which Frco Lopes Frango had shipped, and 10 cases shipped by Freo de Barros, which make 15. Now these gentlemen told me that you had sold 9 cases and shipped 5 for Amsterdam, and now 6 apart from the 8 which you shipped to my order to London. I do not know on whose order you shipped the rest, nor do I know what the 6 cases are, nor to whom they belong. You, who sent them, will know how for you for some time your . . . has asked them to give you satisfaction. You will kindly inform me who sent them and tell me dispassionately what I did that I deserved you should treat me so cruelly, that apart from the fact that I am trusted openly and with absolute power, you should consign it to the man to whom I have debts, and this without hearing either side; and as if this were not -enough, you want to embarrass the (despatches of) sugar which belong to Gregorio Correa which in truth costs me more. the rest that you have done me to my order, sir, I pray that what you have done to me may be enough, and you will not increase it more to hate me and upset me with Gregorio Correa, who is a man of whom I have great need, and do me the kindness to clear the said Gregorio Correa's (cases of) sugar, why, he knows they are his and have belonged to him for a long time; and since in what I hold (?) at his power, you were so good as to persecute me, be so good for whoever it is, not to wish to do me such harm as to wish to make me at enmity with this man, whom I much need. And understand that since a few days or before, much less is owed to James Lopes ; he will be satisfied. But now he does not want you to show yourself so much my enemy. And so much is this so, that being almost agreed on what my brother said (and) did, about France, they withdrew; God be praised, then, and if you were pleased to punish me as you are, you who were so much my master</page><page sequence="54">222 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON and friend, were as much the opposite as I can say, so God help me, you were one of the great whom in this life I had without respect for plainness, all the same (though) proud of your honour in many many matters, that you could undertake to do me so much harm without my deserving it; I do not know to what I may attribute it except my sins; For whomever you are, I beg you let this suffice and do not cause me to have expense in the demands of Gregorio Correa, (and) clear his (cases of) sugar, and be so good as to write to me in London, and not to make yourself so estranged from your servants. (I shall be ready) in whatever offers itself in your service and will do always with (.) will. May God guard you many years. . . . Unnumbered. (Simon de Mercado) in Antwerp to Jorge Lopes Correa (? in Lisbon) Jorge Lopes Correa En Anveres A 23 de set0 1610. Nao poderey diser a VM o q nesta vila de enveres tenho pasado com greg0 Correa se os descuidos de sr ge Roiz naqueles asugres de que lhe fis transporte qe sendo ft0 tanto tp? antes do enbargo de frco dias pudera aver lhe dado fim. E nao tansomte o fas mas p10 qe sombra. Pois nen ainda p1 qe solesita p qen VM he q o aplique como ve q he nesco e lhe escreva se isto com forca disendolhe faca p' desenbarguar as caixas e sigua a demanda en caso q frco diaz nao qra deixala. E indo ahi p apellacao me dis greg0 Correa en cuja casa estou q ha de vir o feitio a VM p sua pde dirigido p q me dis pretende pedirlhe daqui p diante faca seus negos nessa cidade en verdade q se nao fora VM desconfiara deste pa ver os descuidos do sr seu cunhado meu srgr de md0 ha de ajudar a VM com asistencia de valiaq... Esefor nesco algums papeis dequa pa nossa justisa VM avisse q lhe jrao logo E posto q estes asugres sao de gregorio Correa se se lhe livraren o estimarja Como se VM mosdelhe dados e figuarej senpre nessa obriguacao pa o servir no q me mandar A ge ds ge mtos annos. Translation Jorge Lopes Correa Antwerp 23 Sept. 1610 I shall be incapable of telling you what I have gone through with Gregorio Correa over the care? lessness of Sr Ge Roiz about these (cases) of sugar, which I caused to be transported to him. As this was done so long before Frco dias' embargo, he could have brought it to a conclusion; and he does not only do it . . . more for what is left. Then. . . because he (i.e. Gregorio Correa) solicits it, for whom you are the person who should apply it, as you see it to be necessary and write to him (i.e. Roiz) about it strongly, telling him please to release the cases from the embargo ; and let him pursue the claim if frco dias does not wish to let it go. And as he was going there for the appeal, Gregorio Correa (in whose house I am) told me the law suit has to go to you for your . . .; directed by what you told me, he claims to ask you in future to conduct his affairs in this city. And in truth if it were not for you, he despairs from seeing the carelessness of his brother-in-law. Sr gr de md0 must help you with assistance of worth which . . . And if some papers are needed for our rights, you may inform them that they will come shortly and assuming that these (cases) of sugar are Gregorio Correa's, if they should be released to him, I/he would esteem it as you know . . . given by you; and I shall always remain under this debt to serve you in whatever you may send me. May God keep you many years. fo. 17. Draft letter from (Fernando de Mercado) in Antwerp to Hector Mendes (? in Lisbon) Meu sr Hector Mendes em Anveres A 23 de settr0 1610. Ha dias que Nao tinho Carta de Vm, Mas tivea de Meu sr Irmao em que Me diz q avia Vm entendido de Meu Cazamiento, e que Me davao Muita Riqeza, por onde era Resao lhe pagasse agora tudo, O que passa he que Vindo pro Rz Vega compressa da Bahia nao ouve lugar de aver eft0 avendo q da sua duvida faria, e q elle estar em amda nao e ha q deste esperar p meus peccados Vendome Com tao pouqo Remedio e tanto Nescessidade, Me acordei Com gpar Nunez de Cazar Com sua fa. O qual me paga o qe Me deve q sao 3500R e Me daa 500R em enxoval, destes 3500R me da em fazdas sem entrar Real em dro. destas offreci a Vm 1900R Nas baetas e que o Resto tomaria M algua da</page><page sequence="55">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 223 cazar Ou propriedades sobre q se litigava em Lxa de q ma dei ... a isso acuda se nao cobra e seria facil com a Autoridade de Vm Cobrar todo, que por falta de aver que Se a Vm lhe escreverio Outra Couza facame M de se tornar a informar de Roiz e se achar que em algua Couza, Me desvio da Verdade eu Me Jrei Meter Na prizao Em Nome de Vm e se todavia achar que he Como digo, Vm Costuma reparar e emparar os affligidos e Caidos por qe Me ha de querer destruir Maiormte Mostrando lhe Meu perto, e fazendo de Minha parte tudo o q' posso, que parece Resao qe Me fige algun Remedie pa lhe nao Ir pedir, hua Esmolla, e a cuidar qe lhe posso dar dr? lhe suvo assi. D me dexe lograr de remedio a minhas couzas E livre de meus inimigos qe Me nao dao Mais pa . . . enxoval em dote qe 3500R e esses em fazdas sem entrar Real nhua, e que nao sou poderoso pa lhes tirar 100R em dr? paCom elles se vir R? de Mercado de Amb? por estar acordado esperando por elles. Ha Mais de 9 mezes, qe esta he hua das Cauzas qe aqui Me trouxe. E pode ser espera aqui Reposta de Vm por qe ja qe despaldo do dote tanta parte p Pagar a Vm Nao queria depois entrar en trublas, E se todavia o Sor ou Vm Nao esta Contente Com meus trabalhos pdos quero figar soltr0 e Jr fazer algua Viajem, Como Meus Jrmaos pretindem, Mt0 facil me fora sr Hector Mendes se me quisera esquecer do qe a D. e a Vm me devo Nao dar tanta Satisfacao, e Irme Cazado, Ou soltr? Mas Nunqa D. queira qe dexe de mostrar, qe fiz o qe devia, maiormtea Vm a qe outra e mtas Vezes preco se informe Bern de Meu estado, E se achar qe lhe nao fallo Verdade, em tudo faca o qe for servido E eu Me Jrei metir Na prizao E confessarei o debido, E Nao Me Vallerei de nhu Lei da terra pa Me Livrar de tudo isso por facil qe me seya, Mas se for assi Como digo, Por qe ha Vm de qerer Minha perdicao E tendo de Costume a Levantar E ajudar Os qe Nao podem querer comigo usar termo alheo de seu Natural Assi qe desenganadamte digo a Vm q Mae Rseras baetas como lhe avizei, as quais sao de cousestre boas E de Rser E se Nao ... tenderem de pois o Por q'lha dou farei o q for Resao p Vm (a line here deleted illegible) se serva darme Reposta Com brevidade Pa Conforme isso, Me deliberar em meu estado E Busqar Vida dea Nosso sr a Vm muy Larga Com a prosperidade q desejo. (Last three lines crossed out and the following substituted partly in margin :) paoff sto eu me de bem cuido q a Vm . . . meus inimigos q o informe differentmte temo a D. e q nao qto o e alheo qe se o quisera Ne meu escrevera assi Translation Antwerp 23 September 1610. It is days since I had a letter from you, but I had one from my brother in which he told me that you had heard of my marriage, and that people were attributing much wealth to me, which was a reason why I should now pay you everything. What is happening is that (I sold to Gregorio Correa a debt of Pedro R(oi)z Vega who was in Bahia, who refused it, on account of having come at speed and of being now in Amsterdam, because for my sins there is nothing to be hoped for from that : deleted and the following substituted :) . . . Pedro R(oi)z Vega being come at speed from Bahia had no chance to take effect, and .. . that from your debt he would make ... to be in Amster? dam, there is nothing to be hoped for from that for my sins. And seeing myself with so little remedy, and in such need I agreed with Gaspar Nunez to marry his daughter; he pays me what he owes me, which is 3500R and gives me 500R as trousseau; these 3500R he gives me in goods without a single real coming in cash. Of these I offered you 1900R in baizes, and the rest I should take as some recompense for marrying?or properties about which litigation was taking place in Lisbon of which he . . . me, which for lack of someone who could aid in this matter is not being collected; and it would be easy with your authority to collect; and if he should write to you any? thing else, do me the favour to turn to inform de Roiz, and if you find that I deviate from the truth in any point, I shall go and put myself in prison in your name. And if after all you find it is as I say, you are accustomed to shelter and . . . the afflicted and fallen, why do you wish to destroy me ? Especially when I show you my heart, and do everything on my part that I can, which seems a reason why there should be for me some remedy so that I do not have to go and ask you for charity and to worry about being able to give you . . . money. May God thus allow me to enjoy some remedy for my affairs and free me from my enemies, who do not give me more for the .. . trousseau as dowry than 3500R and that in goods without a single real coming in ; and that I am not powerful</page><page sequence="56">224 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON enough to draw 100R for (? from) them in cash so that Roderigo de Mercado could come from Hamburg to reach agreement after waiting for them already more than 9 months?which is one of the reasons which brought me here and (deleted : and to see if I could free him from some embarrassments and there is something to be hoped for here) and perhaps he hopes here for a reply from you, because since I am unloading a sufficient amount from the dowry to pay you, he would not wish afterwards to enter into difficulties (?) And in any case if the Lord or you are not content with my past labours, I prefer to remain a bachelor and go off on some journey. As my brothers claim, it would be very easy for me, Sr Hector Mendez, if I wished to forget what I owe to God and you, not to give such satisfaction and to be off, married or single. But may God never wish me to stop showing that I did what I should, especially to you, whom I again and many times do beg should inform yourself well about my situation, and if you find that I am not telling you the truth in every? thing, do what seems fit, and shall go and put myself in prison and confess the debt, and shall not avail myself of any law of the land to free myself from all this, however easy it may be. But if it is as I say, why must you desire my ruin, when it is your custom to lift up and help those who cannot, to wish to use a term alien to your nature ? (deleted: particularly that I say that if you find . ..) As I say to you frankly to send me for the baizes as I notified you, which are of good . . ., and to be received and not held over; which I shall do because I give it to you which would be a reason why (deleted : you should see fit to give me a reply speedily to confirm (?) this, to consider me in my situation; and may Our Lord grant you long life with the prosperity which you desire), that .care that my enemies should (deleted : write the opposite to you) inform you differently how alien it is that if you had desired it neither would I write like this, and.to do what (deleted I beg) fo. 27. Draft of letter from (Simon de Mercado) in Antwerp to Francisco Mendes de Medeiros in Amsterdam. Sr franco mendes em anveres a 6 de out0 1610. Fara Vm muito bem de se nao encomendar aodiante de servidor tan descuidado como he simao de Mercado; digoo prq' a Carta q' me deu pa frco pinto tenho teguora comigo por me aver sido forcoco cheguar a esta vila. Cuido nao cause Vm dano a detenca, te domingo espero Ir pa Londres, e tanto q' cheguar a darey a q' vinha pa o sr frd0 d mercado. Se lhe deu por o achar entao aqui; e deitando isto de parte, me lembra encomendou Vm me enformase ameudo do estado de Manuel frs anjo o ql. chegou aqui avera 15 dias com seu f0 e vive na mesma pousada adonde stou. inda q' cada hu' come aparte mas mtas veses pratigamos descorendo sre Cousas q' vem a memoria ; e lhe prometo q' quando a tern do seu pasado estado vendolhe no presente, q chora como menino, disendo a Vm a ma verdade e pla q' se deve ao sr q' o pobre h?rnern estar a meu ver. E dito de todos probresimte e plomesmo Juramt0 que deixa de comer pao brango pr nao guastar, elle cuidando q' eu avia de ir ahi, me pedio q' q' priro de tudo pedisse ao sr belchior mendes perdao, se per Ventura escreveo algua cousa q' nao devia, afirmando foi mais levado da paixao q' de o pertender atentar por obra, confesandome q' escrevera materia fora da devida mas q' permita ds q' coutadas tenha elle as maos quando riser mal a nenhu' f0 de esg*. E sre tudo me notifigou seu enfelice estado e q' pedisse a Vm como a seu sangre lhe mandasse algua cousa, aoq' repliquey e disse se a pedia graciosamte ou por lha deveren, aoq' respondeo asi ds. me mostre meu sr gar de mercado com as lagrimas nos olhos q' lha mandase p mor de ds. algua' esmola com q' seu f? podesse mandar hua baeta pr en algua cousa se acupar q* eile prometio de nunqua jamais pedir nen de Vm diser, se nao as vertudes q* meresse quen neste tpo o aiuda dando de novamte por quite de todas suas qtas. Vm pode aguora faser a sua sre este particular q' de meu per he q' en nigen oje se pode enpreguar o faser bem pa ser aseito ao sr q' neste h?rnern Respeito aver sido na prasa de Lisboa tan levantado de tudo e de presente bayxo qt0 se pode afirmar. E eu me afirmo de minha pte q' se estivesse com Vme lhe disese o largo Rasoamento q' este h?rnern me contou de seus travalhos e miserias q' oje pasa, o entristijera a Vm de manra q' choraria Mais lagrimas das q* elle botava quando mo contava. Por Remate se Vm quer saber ao q' chegou manuel frs anjo se franco Rois serra lhe nao dese ?8 nao podia seu f? apareser diante da gente plo reintrato q' tratia consgo e com dito dr? se renovou en</page><page sequence="57">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 225 vestido e por falta de nao ter provicao de comprar camisas, as fas dalguns lansois grosos q* tern pa eile e seu f?.q tudo visto he cousa lastimo sima e chegua ao intima dalma a mim. lhe afirmo me tern cheguado p'q' sei eu de mim mesmo como quern he espementado de este mal o q chegua. asintise ds. melhore os tps e Restaure murancas dele den tanto dano. e cuido q' o dito anjo stara aqui te 2 meses e padiser a Vm nao sei sua vinda mas sei segunda a firma q' pode ser sua moiger que nesta p'falta da Se. Como nesta servi (?) domingo me parto pa Londres adonde tomareya ultima Resolusao se minha detreminaco q entendo sera faser algua viajen que o stimarey p me despedir destas ptes de hua ves e mtas enxas. Me encomendo en Vm e rogo q adonde que o sr susteja me tenhe p mt0 seu afeitoado q sendo . . . como . . . ou ao sr parejro bejo as maos e pedo oje o esta p propria. Ds gea Vs ms e aumte seu stado dando largos anos de vida Reversed : frco mendes de meiros Translation Antwerp, 6th October 1610. You will do very well in future not to rely on so careless a servant as Simon de Mercado. I say this because the letter that you gave me for Frco Pinto I have still with me, because I had to come to this city. I am taking care that the delay should cause you no damage; by Sunday I hope to go to London, and provided I arrive, I shall give it to whoever comes on behalf of Sr. Frd0 de Mercado. It was arranged for him to find it here then. And leaving this on one side, I remember that you charged me that I should inquire often of the state of Manuel Frs. Anjo who arrived here it will be 15 days ago with his son and lives in the same lodgings where I am. Although each of us eats apart, we often practice discussing on things which come to memory; and I promise you that when the subject of his past state comes to him in the present that he cries like a child; I tell you in very truth and word that it is thanks to God that the poor man exists for me to see. He is wretch edest of all and by the same oath he is leaving off eating white bread so as not to waste (money); and noting that I had to go there, he asked me first of all that I should ask pardon of Sr. Belchior Mendes if by chance he wrote something which he should not; affirming, more elevated by passion than claiming to attend to the task, confessing to me that he had written matter outside that which he was bound to, but may God grant that he have his hands cut off if he should ever do any harm to any Son of the Synagogue. And above all he described me his unhappy state, and that he asked you as his own blood to send him something; to which I replied and said, had he asked it graciously or be (cause) you owed it; to which he replied May God so shew me my Sr. Gaspar de Mercado, with tears in his eyes that you might send him some alms for the love of God with which his son might send some baize so as to occupy himself with something; that he promised never again to ask anything of you nor speak of you save for the virtues which he who helps him in this time deserves, giving him afresh quittance from all his (cares ?) You may now do your (part) concerning this individual, who owes it to my power that he can be employed today by none or (?) do good so as to be accepted by God, which I respect in this man for having been on the market at Lisbon so much raised by all, and at present as humbled as can be affirmed. And I affirm from my part that if I were to be with you, and were to tell you the broad reasoning which this man told me of his troubles and miseries which he is passing through today, it would so sadden you that you would weep more tears than he poured out when he recounted it to me. In conclusion if you wish to know what befell Manuel Frs. Anjo if Fran00 Serra had not given him ?8, his son could not have appeared before people because of the figure he cut (?); and with this money he renewed his suit, and for lack of having provision to buy shirts, he made them from some large sheets which he has for him and his son. Which when all seen is a most pitiful thing, and touches my inmost soul. I affirm to you he has me touched because I know from myself how one who is experienced of this evil is touched. May God grant better times and restore.from such damage. And I note that the said Anjo will be here for two months, and to speak (truth) to you I do not know of his arrival but I know according to the repute it could be his wife who caused it for lack of company.</page><page sequence="58">226 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON As I.ed in this, tomorrow I leave for London, where I shall take the last decision on my determination which I mean shall be to make some journey which I shall consider may send me away from these parts and from many embarrassments. I commend myself to you and ask that wherever the Lord . . . , you may hold me for your most affectionate.I kiss my patron's hands and ask . . today .. May God guard you and increase your estate, giving you many years of life. fo. 1. Order to sell Jewish Prayer Books and buy cloth. (Unsigned, unaddressed). V.M. me fara de me comp rar 5 giardas de pano mescla cousa boa que custe de 14 ate 16? sterlins Farme ha m. fazer de vender os 8 livros a saber 4 de jeguns e 4 de maamadot a 45 placas desta moeda cada hu tanto huns como outros, e ho resto do dr? dare a V.M. ou a quen me ordenar e p' que se fara dilligenca de se vender os livros nao lhe digo outro p' que estou serto fara V.M. como quen he? manguito do sr. diogo de Crasto ha de ser de veludo rouzo 3 an Translation. You will kindly buy me 5| yards of cloth good mixed stuff which costs ?14 to 16 sterling. Kindly sell the eight books, to wit, 4 of fasts and 4 of mahamadot1 at 45 placas of this currency each all alike, and the rest of the money I will give to whomsoever you direct and in order that the books be sold with promptitude I say no more to you but that I am certain you will do as one who is? Note in the hand of Simon de Mercado : Sleeve of Sr. Diogo de Crasto has to be of red velvet 3 ? . . . fo. 77. Simon de Mercado in Antwerp to Diogo de Crasto in Amsterdam. Diogo de Crasto a frco mendes de medeiros Em anveres 6 de outubre 1610. Amstra amstrdems amstra Ja de esta vila escrevy a VM e ate o presente estive aqui por ser asi nesco e aquiora hohe partime para Londres adonde tomarey a serta Resolusao en minha viayem. Ds ma escolha en mara q'milhor seya pa o servir, q' tambem sera pa me empreguar no q' VM me mandar. Abatendo VM as ?20 q* figuei devendo do protesto de ?320 da La q' pasei sr gar nunes e henriques alvares ma fara mandar a Londres e a resao por q' o quero he porq' possa mostrar ao sr frd0 de mercado q' aquela letra desia por gta do dito henrique Alvares as quais letras eu aseitava por Carta de Credito q' sua tinha e de lhe devo ao sr frdo de mercado algu* dr?, he justo q' o encontre com este q' me devem ditosgar nunes e henrique alvares. Quando Vm mo mandar este protesto venha por mar a mim mesmo (pa) frd0 de mercado meu irmao. lhe he nesco encomendar ahi Cousa q' esteya en selencio se o q5 lhe (.. ) q' a nigen a podia pedir q' guardasse mais o sagreto q' a Vm com qn esta inclinado ( . . ) Vm lha faca, e ma fara a mim muy gd0 e tenha a cousa por recomendada pa a seu (. . . ) er q' deve de ser de breve, de tudo qd0 por la pasar. E do amigo gareda gomes ( . . . a)visar encomendandome cousas de seu gosto porq' lhe afirmo o taxey grde ( . . . . )r lho dar. ds goarde a Vm. Amigo e servidor de Vm Simao de Mercado Endorsed. (at right angles) .... diogo de Crasto goarde (e)n (Amstro)damo 1 A daily prayer book containing the complete order of the Synagogue Service is known as a "mahamad". I am indebted to Dr. L. D. Barnett. c.b., for this information.</page><page sequence="59">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 227 sr frdo de mercado faca me Vm par ao sr frco mendes henriques la somma de querenta Livras de grosos q' sera bem paguas pro de majo frd0 de mercado A frdo de merquado que deos goarde facame Vm par ao sr fr? gomes a soma de vinte livras de grosos q serao ben pagas a pro de majo 1610 frd0 gomes duarte y de crasto frd0 querido frd0 gomes (scribbled several times) Translation. Diogo de Crasto at Frco Mendes de Medeiros Antwerp 6 October 1610 Amsterdam I have already written to you from this city and up till the present I have been here because it is so necessary and now today I have left for London where I shall take the certain resolution on my journey. May God aid me to decide it in a manner best suited to serve him, which will also be to employ me in what you shall send me. By abating the ?20 which I fixed owing from the protest of ?320 from Lisbon which I passed through Gaspar Nunes and Henrique Alvares, you will kindly send it to London; and the reason why I wish it is because I may show to Sr. Ferdo de Mercado that he may desire that bill as a guarantee of the said Henrique Alvares, which bills I accepted by letter of credit which may be his, and I owe some money from it to Sr. Ferdo de Mercado. It is right that he should meet with this what the said Gaspar Nunes and Henrique Alvares owe me. When you shall send me this protest, let it come by sea to me myself (for ?)Frdo de Mercado my brother. He must order there a matter which should remain in silence upon that which (.) he could ask no one better than you to guard the secret, with whom he is inclined (.) may you do it for him and you will make me much . . . ., and may keep the matter as recommended to your (.) must.be briefly ... . (?) by all to pass it. And of the friend Gareda Gomes (. please) notify me, ordering things to his taste because I assure you I taxed it great (.) and will give you it. May God guard you. Your friend and servant Simao de Mercado. Endorsed : (at right angles) Diogo de Crasto /. . preserve ...... (i)n (Amster)dam Sr Fernando de Mercado : please pay Sr Frdo Mendes Henriques the sum of forty pounds grossos which will be met on the first of May. Frdo de Mercado. To Frdo de Mercado whom God guard : please pay Frdo Gomes the sum of twenty pounds grossos which will be met on the first of May 1610 Frdo Gomes Duarte y ? de Csasto. fo. 7. Simon de Mercado in Antwerp to James Lopez in Amsterdam. (probably 6th October) .s de C(?) Des q' chegei aqui nao escrevy a Vm. por esperar faserlo com Aver na pratencao de Vm algu' bom fim.; o ql. seya ds louvado seguir (?) e se acordou por maos de gregorio Correa com o sr manuel vas q' ambos harao p parte de Vm en ?400 en q' entrao as q en bila resebera damburgo.</page><page sequence="60">228 PORTUGESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON Aya Vm q' a cousa figou de ambas las bandas bem, maximamte nao parresendo bem q' andasse a Cousa tanto aperconguada, queira ds, q' com a somma asimma recupere Vm mtas perdas, isto he entre Vm e osr fernando de mercado falando en mim particularmente me pode ter deoje adiante p mt0 esperando en ds. q5 dando tp? de si mostre eu de mim q' sou agradesido, soposto q' nao ser Como estou na sua boa graca. E se p' desgraca ma ouve algu' crm p* mim, Vm o releve como fas tudo com sua mta prudenca. A manha me parto pa Londres de donde nao sei se jrei ahi ou farei algo viayem, q' sera o mais serao que a verdade pareseya tpo, o q* soopedo a Vm q' en toda est (a) quer pde q' simao de mercado esteja o tenra servidor no Amor como a fd0 e en mandar coma p servidor e bem estimara esta com vm espsa prq' me oferese con largua pratique en seu servico fiando dto fim desta de min q* en todas as comodidades q' ouvesen de me enpreguar en cousas de meu C james lopes q' tivey de faser, q cofedo nao merese menos o bom zelo e boa cortesia de Vm q' he tal me tern a mt0 obriguado e he tanto q como digo nunqua faltarey no q' Vm me mandar. Cujas maos bejo e o mesmo as da sra barbara anriques com o quern Vm largos @ se guose. Translation. Since I arrived here I did not write to you hoping to do it when I had some good result to your claim; which God be praised follows (?) this agreement by the hands of Gregorio Correa with Sr. Manuel Vas, which both will make on your behalf for ?400. In this there enter the (moneys) which he will receive in the city from Hamburg. Note that I fixed the matter well from both sides particularly as it did not seem well that the matter should get so poisoned (?). May God will that with such a sum you may recover many losses, that is between you and Sr. Fernando de Mercado. Speaking particularly for myself you may from now on take me as much hoping in God that given time I may show from myself that I am grateful, supposing that I should not be in your good graces as I am. And if to my misfortune, you hear some., you will pardon it as you do every? thing with your great prudence. Tomorrow I leave for London, whence I know not if I shall go thither or make some journey which will be, or rather shall be what in truth time will show, which I pray you that in all this .... that Simao de mercado may be served in love like Fernd0 and in sending like R (your) servant; and you will esteem well, it is express with you, because I offer myself with long practice in your service, trusting in the said result of this of mine(?) in all commodities that there may be (?) to employ myself in the affairs of my C. (? Compadre) James Lopes which I have had to do, which I trust deserves no less your good zeal and good courtesy, which is such (that) you hold me much obliged, and is so great that as I say I shall never fail in what you may send me. I kiss your hands and the same to those of Sra. Barbara Anriques with whom may you enjoy many years. Draft letter from Fernando Nunes (alias Simon de Mercado) to Diogo Gomes Duarte. Snr. Diogo guomes duarte, Vm pode asentar os guastos feitos com a castanha q mandou a gregorio Correa e a caixinha mandada a frd0 lopes milao a gda do sr frd0 de mercado. figando eu agradesido pla M : q' me fes de mandar bue cem olvidado q' lhe mereso. Eu me parto desta vila pa londres de donde nao sei a serta resolusao q' tomarey en minha viagem. ds ma religuara en manra q' milhor seya pa o servir q sera pa tambem me empreguar no q Vm me mandar. Cuyas maos muitas veses bejo. (scribbled) A frd0 de mercado q ds ge A frd0 nunes q' ds ge. frd0 nunes. frd0 demercado A frd0 de mercado q' ds A frd0 nunes q' ds goarde goarde en anveres frd0 de mercado Amsterdam Reversed : Sr frd0 de Sr frd0 de mercado se a vm lhe pareser pode escrever a de frdo lopes milao porq' ds. querendo me parto ate as 5 hora na mare e logo irey. La goarde ds. a VM frd0 nunes. ao 13? (?)</page><page sequence="61">PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON 229 Translation. At. Sr. Diogo Guomes Duarte You may approve the expenses made with the chestnut which I sent to Gregorio Correa and the box sent to Frdo. Lopes Milao care of Frdo de Mercado, as I remain obliged for the kindness which he did me in sending good ones without it being forgotten what I owe him. I quit this city for London whence I do not know what certain resolution I shall take on my journey. May God bind me in the manner which will be best to serve him; which will be also to employ me in what you send me. I kiss your hands. Frdo Nunes (alias of Simon de Mercado) (scribbled) To Frdo de Mercado whom God preserve. To Frdo Nunes whom God preserve, Antwerp. To Frdo de Mercado whom God preserve, at Amsterdam. Reversed : (postscript) Sr Frdo de Sr. Frdo de Mercado, if it seems (good) to you, you may write Frdo Lopes Milao's (letter) because God willing, I am off at 9 o'clock to sea and go forthwith. God keep you Frdo Nunes 13th fo. 4. Simon de Mercado (in Antwerp) to Manuel Rodrigues Vega (in Amsterdam) Sr Manuel Rois Vega chegei a esta vila d anveres com saude, a mesma tenha VM com os gostos e felices susesos q deseja ey de ir daqui pode ser pa mais longe q' he deferente resolusao doq' levava quando de Vm me apartey, porq' cuidey de ir outra ves ahi oq' nao farei, t. . q' ds me faca as m.s. q' pode, ha morer e viver e tanto pa Vm como pa mim, nos vem bem me mande hu escrito de sua da somma doq' me deve q' cuido sera antes mais de ?290 de gros q' menos sem q' Vm o digua ao sr frd0 de mercado e mi mandara aqui en carta pa mim debaixo de gregorio correa. Vm fara la agta pla ultima q' lhe mandei &amp;tazara a ms fadas fasendome bem das 2 o feitio q tazara mais os aneis noq' for resao. E se Vm nao achar tanto me mde escrito de tudo o q' me achar deve q' sendo mta deferenca irei de volta ahi e levarei as qtas cemigos. E eso faremos mas findo no he . . . pa. fdo fdo Translation. St Manuel Rodrigues Veiga I reached this city of Antwerp in safety?may you have the same with the pleasures and fortun? ate outcomes which you may desire. I have to leave here, perhaps for farther away, which is a different resolve from that which I made when I left you, because I was anxious to go there again, which I shall not do . . . that God may grant me the graces he can, there's dying and living, and as much for you as for me ; they view us well. Send me a note of yours for the sum you owe me, which I note before will be more like ?290 grossos rather than less, without telling it to Sr Fd0 de Mercado, and send it here by letter for me under (the address of) Gregorio Correa. You will do the agency (?) for the last (lot) which I sent you, and will assess it with great trouble, doing me well for the two, the manufacture which you will assess more, (and) the rings as far as there is reason. And if you do not find so much send me a note of everything which will find me. If there is much difference I shall have to go back and carry the complaints (?) with me, and we shall make this more finely. f7do pdo P</page><page sequence="62">230 PORTUGUESE JEWS IN JACOBEAN LONDON Unnumbered. Fernando de Mercado to (? James Lopes) (Copy in the hand of Simon de Mercado). Nunqua sperey menos de meu C James Lopes e temme (?) tanto obriguado com o termo q' meu yrmao me escrevo figou com eile q' nao sei como lhe de as devidas gracas q. com diser figo no condesimto das q' lhe fes pa as servir no q' me mandar. E me lembara sempre e a todas minhas cousas pa nao perderemos nhua ocasiao de seu servico e tudo o q' Vm fes ou fiser a dito meu yrmao Simao de Merquado en qt0 aqui estou me obrigo como principal, eu espero entrada da Coresma mudarme pa essa terra. AVm de milhor mostrarey a Vm o quan reconhesido figo da M q. me fes na asistencia q fes a dito meu yrmao p lo q' outra e mtas veses lhe bejo mil veses as maos a q n sr ge muitos annos en compa da sra Barbara Henriques a q pesoa* a esta por sua. Translation. I would never expect less from my C. (? Compadre) James Lopes and to hold myself so much obliged with the terms my brother writes to me he fixed with you, that I know not how to give you the thanks due to you save in saying this I remain in understanding of those things he did to serve you in what you shall send me. And I shall always remember in all my affairs that we shall not lose a single opportunity of serving you. Everything which you did or might do to my brother Simao de Merquado while I am here obliges me as principal. I hope at the beginning of Pentecost to transfer to this country, to you I shall better show how grateful I remain to you for the kindness you did me in the help you gave my aforesaid brother. For which again and many times I kiss your hands a thousand times. May Our Lord grant you may enjoy many years in company of Sra Barbara Henriques. He who .... is yours. Unnumbered. Scribbled notes in the hand of Simon de Mercado. Sr Frdo gomes facame Vm. paguar ao sr Henrique alvares a somma de courenta gar ds. se guoze Vm longos dias en compa do sr Frdo de Mercado de quem veja honrara e e grandiosa gerasao. Como p Vm lhe foi pedido e pro da todo desejando acresentido o segundo pareseja . . . q coresponder .... parte pla . . . . oferesseme ao serviao de Vm, entendrendo q' sempra nele starej prontisimo. Cuja pts con . . . mtas estes tengas os ma p largo a . . . . q ds foi servido farlhe noq ponga elle sua bend0 a a N Sr no q t Translation. Sr. Fernando Gomes : please pay Sr. Henrique Alvares the sum of forty ..... God grant, may you enjoy long days in company with Sr. Fernando de Mercado from whom may you see honourable and illustrious progeny. I would offer myself to your service, understanding that I shall always be most ready in it understanding that I shall always be most ready in it. (illegible salutations). Other items in Dossier 778 not inspected: fo. 12 Letter from Brussels signed Francisco el Bispo to A. Gomes at Antwerp, fo. 15/6 Caution given by Valentine Fernandez Anjo and Bento Gomes on behalf of Henrico Alvares. fo. 39 Evidence submitted by Luis Vaz in his case against the Procurator General.</page></plain_text>