ABSTRACT
The episode is significant in a number of respects. The Rock of Gibraltar had been in British possession since 1704, and despite a treaty commitment demanded of Britain by Spain not to permit "Jews or Moors" to establish themselves on the rock, the British authorities had winked at the establishment and development of a sizable Jewish community. Indeed, by the end of the eighteenth century Jews formed a major if not preponderant element of the civil population.z The great majority of these Jews had come from the neighboring kingdom of Morocco, where most of them still had family and business connections on which they depended for their livelihood. British Jews did not achieve full civil emancipation until the nineteenth century, but already in the eighteenth century Jews who
were natural-born British subjects enjoyed substantial civil and human rights, among them the protection of His Majesty's representatives when traveling abroad.
