Jewish merchants

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Jewish merchants

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Andrew and Chr Munez (alias ?Meyenberg)


Christopher Boone and the Munez/Meyenberg family

The London merchant Christopher Boone was deposed on the behalfe of the Amsterdam based Jewish merchants, Andrew and Christofer Munez, alias Meyenberg.

Christopher Boone (b. c. 1615, d. 1686) was from Taunton, in Somerset origin. He worked as a factor in Seville in the 16XX, prior to returning to London. He was brother or cousin of Thomas Boone, also a merchant, and were both involved in the Spanish trade.

Both Christopher and Thomas Boone appear frequently in the correspondence of the Spanish merchant, John Paige.[1] Paige was associated with Maurice Thompson in the 1650s in several ventures in the East Indies. Thomas Boone had been involved with Maurice Thompson in the late 1640s in advancing the Asssada plantation off Madagascar.

Christopher Boone's deposition in a case involving the Dutch ship the Hare in the Fields makes mention of the restrictions on trade for Jewish merchants in Spain. He was later resident at St Leonard, Bromley, Middlesex (1666) and at All Saints, Lee, West Kent (1686).

  • "The said Andrew and Christofer were of the Jewish Profession of Religion and therefore not free to trade in Spaine"


- HCA 13/71 f.220r Case: On the behalfe of the foresaid ?Meyenberg alias Andrew and Chr Munez, touching goods embeazled out of the hare in the ffeild ; Deposition: 4. Christofer Boone of London Merchant, aged 38 yeeres: Date: XXXX[2]

The Hare in the field

There are a number of additional traces of the Hare in the field in various printed primary source, which would merit being followed up:

  • Letter dated 'Nieuport, the Dutch ambassador in England, the gressier Ruysch':


Referring to "secondly, the excess which is daily committed in bringing in ships and goods belonging to the said subjects into the ports and harbours of England, as well by private men of war, as the ships in the service of this state", the Dutch ambassador went on to state: "To the second, concerning some particular complaints, I desired, that the ship the Hare in the Field, also the Frog, might both be released, being both of Middleburgh..."[3]
  1. The letters of John Paige, London merchant, 1648-58: London Record Society 21 (1984), pp. IX-XXXIX; p. 70, 93
  2. This is the footnote text
  3. Thomas Birch (ed.), A collection of the state papers of John Thurloe, Esq., vol. 3: DEcember 1654 to September 1655(London, 1742), pp. 749-750