St. Eustatius is home to a significant Jewish community, mainly merchants and a few plantation owners with strong connections to Holland.

Ten days after the island surrendered to the British, part of the Jewish community, together with Governor de Graaff, are forcibly deported, being given only twenty-four hours' notice.

Rodney is particularly hard on the Jews.

The harshness is reserved for the Jews alone as he does not do the same to French, Dutch, Spanish or American merchants on the island.

He even permits the French to leave with all their possessions.

Rodney is concerned that his unprecedented behavior will be repeated upon British islands by French forces when events are different.

Rodney imprisons all the adult Jewish males (one hundred and one) in the West India Company's weighing house on the Bay.

Those who are not immediately shipped to St. Kitts (thirty-one heads of Jewish families) are held there for three days.

He loots Jewish personal possessions, even cutting open the lining of their clothing to find money hidden there.