Documents suggest that, although small in number at the time, Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution from the
Inquisition developed a small community in
London around the late 16th century, largely known from contemporary
Spanish and
Portuguese sources writing about English Catholic ambassadors' repeated complaints of Jews from this community meeting to celebrate
Passover and
Yom Kippur in London. Toward the middle of the 17th century a considerable number of Sephardic merchants settled in London and formed there a secret
congregation, at the head of which was
Antonio Fernandez Carvajal. They conducted a large business with the
Levant,
East and
West Indies, Canary Islands, and
Brazil, and above all with the
Netherlands, Spain, and
Portugal. They formed an important link in the network of trade spread, especially throughout the Spanish and
Portuguese world by the Sephardi or secret Jews (see Commerce). Their position enabled them to give
Cromwell and his secretary,
John Thurloe, important information as to the plans both of
Charles Stuart in Holland and of the Spaniards in the
New World (see L. Wolf, "Cromwell's Secret Intelligencers"). Outwardly they passed as Spaniards and Catholics; but they held prayer-meetings at Creechurch Lane, and became known to the government as Jews by faith. Creechurch Lane and, later in 1701, the
Bevis Marks Synagogue in 1701 become the first Jewish religious places since the
Edict of Expulsion of 1290. In the following three centuries, Sephardic Jews communities established near the major European sea ports like
Amsterdam and London, helping the
Marranos who were expelled from the
Spanish Inquisition to rise up new merchant activities. ==Puritans call for the Jews' return==