Familieminder

— 109 — from the town of Marchena near Seville in which they were settled. Early in the seventeenth century when the increased vigilance and severity of the Inquisition stimulated a great emi­ gration of Marranos or crypto-Jews from Spain, one of the Mar- chenas fled with his family to Amsterdam where he resumed the ancient name of his family and was known in the Synagogue as Abraham Mocatta. His son, Antonio Nunes Marchena otherwise Moses Mocatta was an active worker in the Jewish community and a promoter of Jewish learning. Very soon after the Resettlement in 1655 there were Mocattas in England, two of whom bore the name of Moses. One died during a visit to Lisbon in December 1737. The other was appa­ rently an earlier settler, and was connected with one of the Dutch families. It is from him that in the female line the present Eng­ lish Mocattas are descended. This Moses Mocatta was a merchant of Camomile Street, a pious Jew and an active member of the Synagogue. He died in 1693 while on a visit to Amsterdam leaving a widow, Rebecca Mocatta, who was also his niece, and three daughters and two sons. By his will which is dated January 11, 1693 he made various bequests amounting to about 25,000 guilders, and divided the lesidue of his estate equally between his sons and daughters. To his two sons, Isaac and Abraham, he bequeathed besides his Sepher Torah with its mantle and ornaments and his library of Hebrew books »that they may study them and meditate the law of God«. His younger son Abraham succeeded him and became a mer­ chant of some wealth and repute. He was admitted one of the twelve Jew brokers on the Royal Exchange in 1710 succeeding Gaspar d’Almej^da, and retired in 1749 in favour of his grandson Abraham Lumbrozo de Mattos. With the death of Abraham Mocatta in his house in Bevis Marks in 1751 the English branch of the Mocatta family became extinct in the male line. By his wife Grace, a daughter of Abra­ ham Levy Ximenes, Abraham Mocatta had one daughter Rebecca Sarah, who predeceased him in 1737. By Rebecca Sarah’s second