Three months later, however, he and two friends had to undertake the very unpleasant task of informing the rev. gentleman that, in their opinion, he would not be able to obtain any money from the trustee, and a sum of money had to be given him to enable him to return to Jerusalem.
With a sorrowful heart at the result of his mission he left England. "But never," he writes in a letter addressed to Mr Montefiore from Jerusalem, "will the recollection of the great kindness, sympathy, and attention which I have met from yourself and my many friends be effaced from my memory."
This misappropriation of trust funds intended for poor students in the Holy City roused the utmost indignation in the community. It was deemed a sacrilege, and the strongest terms of reprobation were expressed against the individual who had thus outraged the feelings of humanity.
"There can be no doubt," said Mr Montefiore many years later, speaking on the same subject, "that trusts connected with charitable or strictly religious institutions are more liable than others to be, if not strictly speaking misappropriated, at least misdirected, though it may probably be unintentional, more especially when the religious views of the trustees differ from those of the testator. The trust in this particular instance being connected with the study of a language held in esteem by all religious denominations, the act becomes much aggravated, nay, unpardonable."
The fervent attachment which Mr Montefiore evinced to the Holy Land did not in any way interfere with his devotion to England.
I have already pointed out to the reader the great zeal which he manifested for the defence of his country when serving as a volunteer, and on all occasions he continued to declare that he was ever ready to fulfil his duties by going on active service.
In common with his brethren in all parts of the world, he felt it most painfully that, in a country like England, where so many well-meaning citizens evinced their sympathy with the sufferers from oppression, he as a Jew should still be debarred from many of those rights and privileges to which every loyal subject is fully entitled.
The sacrifices which the Jews all over Europe had made during the war of 1815, by shedding their blood in defence of the country in which they lived, and by their liberal contributions to the funds for the relief of the wounded, and the support of the soldiers' widows and orphans, had been acknowledged and appreciated.
In Holland and France the Jews were fully emancipated, filling high municipal offices in their respective districts, whereas in England the Jews who, since the year 1753, when the Ministry was compelled to withdraw the Naturalisation Act, after it had passed the House of Lords, had been in vain endeavouring to secure their civil rights, thought that the time had now arrived when they might hope to be more successful in the just demands they made upon an enlightened assembly of legislators in both Houses of Parliament.
On June 26th Mr Montefiore went with Mr I. L. Goldsmid to the Duke of Norfolk to meet various committees of Dissenters and Catholics, for the purpose of consulting as to the best mode of obtaining privileges for the Jews. They there met Messrs Blount, C. Butler (Catholics), Foa, Bowany, and Aspenhill (Dissenters), and interchanged views on the subject of obtaining relief from all religious disabilities. Similar meetings were held in other localities which were attended by several members of the community, the result being, as is well known, the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act.