Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums · 1900-01-01 · Heft 5 · p. Seite 277

Die englische Intervention z. Gunstend. böhmischen Juden i. J. 1744. 277 concealed, when at Pressburg she could not pass from tlie town to 11er palace, but through tlie very street that was thronged by that people, & the first Order she gave upon her arri- 1ral at Prague the year before last, was that no Jew should presume to enter into the precinct of the palace during her residence there, but as to the supposition of some rash vow, that obstacle miglit be removed, one would tliink, by a papal absolution, the Pope having by his Nuntio been as solieitous ״for the repeal of the edict, as the Elector of Mentz, or the King of Poland, or any other catholic Prince whatever. In the meanwhile it is denied that the rigorous sentence is occasioned, tho’ it may be liastened, by the part which some of the Jews may have held more or less in the late troubles <& invasions of Bohemia. It is affirmed that the design of diminishing at least their numbers which are grown to too great a head in Bohemia and Moravia, & particularly in. the town of Prague has been long time thought of, & may be as well practised with respect to those countries, as it has been formerly witli respect to the Austrias and Silesias; that is a necessary act of state to send away such as for want of lawful employments can be deemed little better than beggarly burthens to the state, .& to own the truth, my Lord, an idea of the German Jewish Nation in general is not to be taken from the opulent & industrious appearance of prosperity in their brethren at London, Amsterdam, & elsewliere. So that the whole ministry is most certainly .against the manner of the present proceedings, jret nobody seems to be against the necessity of coming to some sort of regulation or other. One principal difficulty lay in the precipitation with which the edict & the rigorous execution of it were published & enjoined, and in hopes that [time] & voluntary reflection might work out their own better effects, we thought we had gained something in obtaining a respite of one month oiily for the evacuation of Prague, which had been fixed for the last day of February. The most that the whole ministry could extend their wishes to was, as it was said, chiha il tempo ha la, vita. But your Lordship will have heard, how unfortunately, or as some think, how designedly that respite arrived so late, that most of the families had been leaving the town from day to day under an apprehension of military execution, ■if waiting for the last nioments. The greatest difficulty is to remove the impression of private flatterers, who are supposed to inculcate how far princes weaken their authority by