could be redeemed. The book was originally published in Dutch and Latin in 1650, and then in English (dedicated to Parliament and the Council of State) in 1652. In 1651 Ben Israel met Oliver St John and his envoys on their mission to secure an Anglo-Dutch coalition. The English were impressed by learning and manner, and advised him to formally apply for Jewish readmission to England. In 1653, at Oliver St John’s suggestion, Cromwell issued an official directive to authorise, "Menasseh ben Israel, a rabbi of the Jewish nation, well respected for his learning and good affection to the State, to come from Amsterdam to these parts." Fearing local anti-English opinion so soon after war, ben Israel turned down the invitation. But by the middle of the decade, Cromwell was taking advice from Marrano trader Simon de Caceres. At de Caceres suggestion, Cromwell dispatched Marrano physician Abraham de Mercado and his son Raphael to Barbados (which a few years previously had already started admitting Jews escaping from the Portuguese reconquest of Dutch Brazil), where he explored the possibility of Jews setting in Jamaica. There they would be offered full civil rights and even land grants. There is some difference of opinion as to Oliver Cromwell’s opinions regarding the readmission of the Jews. It has been pointed out that he held many of the same hopes regarding the readmission and conversion of the Jews as the millenarians. Paul Rycaut, later ambassador to the port of Smyrna recalled the Whitehall Conference, "When they all met, he (Cromwell) ordered the Jews to speak for themselves. After that he turned to the clergy, who inveigled much against the Jews as a cruel and cursed people. Cromwell in his answer to the Clergy called them ‘Men of God’ and desired to be informed by the whether it was not their opinion that the Jews were one day to be called into the Church? He then desired to know whether it was not every Christian man’s duty to forward that good end all he could?… was it not then our duty… to encourage them to settle ere where they could be taught the thuth…[sic]" It has also been pointed out that Cromwell held more practical beliefs. Cromwell believed that Jews could be used as skilled purveyors of foreign intelligence (which would assist his territorial ambitions). Further, toleration of Protestant sects made political sense for Cromwell as