However, the British ignored this provision. Although the Jews had been expelled from England in 1290, Oliver Cromwell had consented to their readmission in 1655. The admission of Jews was one of the infractions against the Treaty of Utrecht that the Spanish used (others were the admission of Moors, the extension of fortifications and the alleged smuggling from Gibraltar) to consider that the British had abrogated the Treaty. In 1727, the Spanish unsuccessfully laid siege to the city. In 1729, the British and the Sultan of Morocco reached an agreement whereby the sultan's Jewish subjects were legally permitted to reside in the colony. Jews were given the right to permanent settlement in 1749, when Isaac Nieto, the new community's first Rabbi, came to the colony from London and established congregation Sha'ar HaShamayim, the oldest synagogue in Gibraltar, otherwise known as the Great Synagogue. At that date there were already 600 Jews in Gibraltar, who constituted one third of the civilian population. Three more synagogues, all of which still function on Shabbat and feast days, were built as years went by: Nefutsot Yehuda and Ets Hayim in 1781, as well as the Abudarham Synagogue in 1820, named after Solomon Abudarham. The Jewish population continued to grow, reaching its peak in the mid-19th century.