to England was fought in a pamphlet war. Conservative opponents including William Prynne opposed the return while the Quaker Margaret Fell was in favour. Christian supporters believed the conversion of Jews was a sign of the end times and the readmission to England was a step towards that goal. This method of debate had the advantage of not raising anti-Semitic feelings too strongly; and it likewise enabled Charles II, on his Restoration in 1660, to avoid taking any action on the petition of the merchants of London asking him to revoke Cromwell's concession. He had been assisted during his exile by several Jews of royalist sympathies, such as Andrea Mendes da Costa (Chamberlain of Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II), Antonio Mendes (the physician brother of Andrea, who had cured Catherine of erysipelas while in Portugal) and Augustine Coronel-Chacon. In 1664 a further attempt was made by the Earl of Berkshire and Paul Ricaut to bring about the expulsion of the Jews, but the King-in-Council assured the latter of the continuance of former favour. Similar appeals to prejudice were made in 1673, when Jews, for meeting in Duke's Place for a religious service, were indicted on a charge of rioting, and in 1685, when thirty-seven were arrested on the Royal Exchange; but the proceedings in both cases were put a stop to by direction of the Privy Council. The status of the Jews was still very indeterminate, with the Attorney-General declaring that they resided in England only under an implied licence. As a matter of fact, the majority of them were still legally aliens and liable to all the disabilities that condition carried with it. Help from and to Jews abroad William III is reported to have been assisted in his ascent to the English throne by a loan of 2,000,000 guilders from Francisco Lopes Suasso (1614–1685) (of the well-known Lopes Suasso family), later made first Baron d'Avernas le Gras by Charles II of Spain. William did not interfere when in 1689 some of the chief Jewish merchants of London were forced to pay the duty levied on the goods of aliens, but he refused a petition from Jamaica to expel the Jews. William's reign brought about a closer connection between the predominantly Sephardic communities of London and Amsterdam; this aided in the transfer of the European finance centre from the Dutch capital to the English capital. Over this