it prevented disorder and promoted harmony. He justified the readmission of the Jews using this same tolerant approach, as well as believing that it would improve trade (he saw the Jews as an important part of Amsterdam’s financial success). Competition with the Dutch for trade and the increasingly protectionist commercial policy that led to the Navigation Act in October 1651 made Oliver Cromwell want to attract the rich Jews of Amsterdam to London so that they might transfer their important trade interests with the Spanish Main from the Netherlands to England. The mission of Oliver St John to Amsterdam, though failing to establish a coalition between English and Dutch commercial interests as an alternative to the Navigation Act, had negotiated with Menasseh Ben Israel and the Amsterdam community. A pass was granted to Menasseh to enter England, but he was unable to use it because of the First Anglo-Dutch War, which lasted from 1652 to 1654. 1655 and 1656: Informal resettlement achieved The years 1655 and 1656 were to prove decisive in the history of the resettlement of the Jews in England. The first of these was the visit of Menasseh ben Israel and the second was the case of the Marrano trader Antonio Rodrigues Robles. Menasseh Ben Israel's petition Menasseh ben Israel’s son Samuel had arrived in England accompanied by trader David Dormido in 1653 to investigate the possibility of the resettlement of the Jews. In May 1655, he was sent back to Amsterdam in order to try to convince his father to visit England. The rabbi came to England in September 1655 with three other local rabbis, where they were lodged as guests of Cromwell. There he printed his "humble address" to Cromwell. (When ben Israel began his stay in London it is reckoned that there were about 20 New Christian families living in the city.) As a consequence, a national conference was summoned at Whitehall in the early part of December, which included some of the most eminent lawyers, clergymen, and merchants in the country. The lawyers declared no opposition to the Jews' residing in England, but both the clergymen and merchants were opposed to readmission, leading Cromwell to stop the discussion to prevent an adverse decision. Nonetheless, some change to official policy must have occurred, because the diarist John Evelyn wrote in his diary on 14 December, "Now were the Jews admitted". Ben Israel stayed in