In 1847, shortly before Easter, Baron de Rothschild visited Athens. He arrived just as the Athenians were preparing for their annual custom of burning an effigy of Judas Iscariot, usually accompanied by anti-Semitic attacks. In honour of the Baron’s visit and because they were negotiating the repayment of a loan he had made, the Greek government decided that this year they would ban the effigy burning ceremony. They instructed the police to prevent the conflagration from taking place.
The people of Athens were furious. Convinced that the 60 year old Don (or David) Pacifico had persuaded the government to impose the ban, an angry mob descended on his house. Among the crowd was the teenage son of the Minister of War and several of his aristocratic associates. The mob broke down Don Pacifico’s front door, attacked his wife and daughter, ransacked the house, stole the family’s valuables and set the building on fire. Pacifico sent for the police but when they arrived they stood by for three hours and watched.
Don Pacifico was a Jew. He was the Portuguese consul in Athens but had been born in Gibraltar and was therefore a British subject by birth. When his home was ransacked he wrote to the British Minister in Athens, Sir Edmund Lyons, complaining that the mob had not only attacked and robbed his family, they had stolen 7,500 drachmas which had been deposited with him by the Jewish community of Italy for the proposed construction of a synagogue. They also, he said, destroyed documents that he was relying on in order to pursue a claim against the Portuguese government.
Pacifico asked Lyons to request the British Government to intervene on his behalf. He asked for compensation both for the loss of his property and for the destruction of the documents that supported his claim against the Portuguese. Altogether his claim amounted to just over £31,000.
Sir Edmund Lyons made representations to the Greek Foreign Minister but received no reply. So he contacted Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Minister, sending him a full breakdown of Pacifico’s alleged loss. It included loss of rent on his house, the value of the claim he could no longer bring against the Portuguese and an indemnity for the injury to his reputation. It also demanded compensation for three cushions worth £25 each, four serviettes at a cost of £15 and various other household items valued at inflated prices.
Lord Palmerston was outraged when he heard what had happened to Don Pacifico. He told Sir Edmund Lyons to insist that the Greek government pay Pacifico’s claim in full, together with interest at 10% and a further £500 as compensation for the insult and suffering to which the family had been subjected.
The Greek government expressed regret at what had happened but flatly refused to pay Pacifico’s claim. They assured Palmerston that there was no antisemitic persecution in Greece and declared that they could not take responsibility for the assault on his house and family. They said that Pacifico’s remedy was to bring a civil action in the courts. They refused to bring a criminal charge against the members of the mob, saying that since Pacifico had complained to the British embassy instead of the police it was now impossible for them to trace the wrongdoers. Nor would they charge the one known offender, the son of the Minister for War, because his father was now Prime Minister.
Nothing much happened for a couple of years, until the British fleet was sent to the Mediterranean to support Turkey in a diplomatic incident with Austria and Russia. Palmerston wrote to Thomas Wyse, the new British Minister in Greece, telling him that the navy would shortly be passing the Athenian port of Piraeus. He told Wyse to tell the Greek government that if they did not settle Pacifico’s claim (and a few other related matters) the navy should despatch a boarding party to seize gold from the Greek government to the value of the sums claimed.
The British fleet arrived at Piraeus in October 1850. Thomas Wyse told the Greek government that unless the claims were paid the navy would act. When the Greeks suggested mediation Wyse instructed the Admiral in charge of the fleet to seize a Greek ship. A few days later he blockaded the port of Piraeus, making it impossible for Greek ships to set sail. When this had no effect, Palmerston sent an order from London to seize the entire Greek merchant fleet.
The other European powers were outraged. France, Russia, Sweden, Austria and Turkey all protested that Britain was behaving high-handedly and damaging European trade; not only did they all have goods trapped at sea, they could no longer charter Greek ships. Queen Victoria made her displeasure known. Even the Cabinet, of which Palmerston was a member, was uncomfortable with his actions. The French recalled their ambassador to London; there was talk of war in the air. Palmerston said he regretted any inconvenience, but he was not prepared to yield an inch.
Palmerston’s gun boat diplomacy did force Greece to the negotiating table. They eventually agreed to pay £6,400 of the £8,500 that Palmerston was demanding for loss and damage to Pacifico’s property. Separately, a commission was set up, with the French acting as mediators, to look into Pacifico’s demand for £21,000 as compensation for not being able to continue his claim against the Portuguese. The commission threw out his claim, saying that he’d had the chance to pursue it in person long ago and had failed to do so. They did however award him £150 for personal injury.
That, however, was not the end of the matter. Palmerston came under severe attack in Parliament and the press. The fact that Pacifico was a Jew was never far from the surface. In the House of Lords Pacifico’s claim was described as ‘an audacious combination of audacity and mendacity, of all that is ridiculous and disgusting’. Pacifico himself was described as not respectable, of only taking care of his own interests, of being educated only in the ‘art of making accounts’. In the House of Commons, Disraeli described Pacifico’s claims as ludicrous and suspicious, another member condemned Palmerston for supporting a ‘Portuguese Jew’.
The House of Commons called for a debate. It lasted for four days. Palmerston got up to speak at 9.45 on the second evening and spoke until 2.20 the next morning. He had a glass of water and two oranges beside him but he touched neither. In the most memorable speech of his life, he declared that just because Pacifico was a Jew did not mean that he was fair game for any outrage. Just as an ancient Roman ‘held himself free from indignity when he could say Civis Romans Sum [I am a Roman citizen], so also ‘a British subject in whatever land he may be shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.’ It was probably the most outrageous piece of Victorian jingoism ever expressed in Parliament. As he sat down cheering erupted on the Commons benches and in the galleries. The press reported his speech and the country loved it; it became a constant topic of conversation everywhere. Palmerston’s star had never risen so high.
In his 2008 book Don Pacifico: The Acceptable Face of Gunboat Diplomacy the historian Derek Taylor argued that Pacifico was a victim of prejudice rather than a conman. It rather appears that he was both. Even The Jewish Chronicle, never afraid to come to the defence of a Jew, made no bones about the exorbitant nature of Pacifico’s claim: ‘He charged £150 for a bedstead, £30 for the sheets of his bed, £25 for two coverlets….. He had always lived in a humble way and was never supposed by his neighbours to possess jewels and goods of such value. He certainly did not err on the side of modesty in presenting his demand.’
The Pacifico Affair marked a turning point in the nature of antisemitism in Britain. Pacifico had not only been attacked as a Jew in Athens, he had been subjected to antisemitic abuse in England. For many people Palmerston’s greater offence had not been the sending in of gunboats, it had been the fact that he had come to the defence of a Jew. And yet ultimately it was Palmerston’s defence of a Jew which contributed, indirectly, to his popularity in the country. And became a factor in the changing attitudes to Jews in Britain, a change which led them to be fully emancipated by the end of the 19th century.
As for Don Pacifico, he left Greece and moved to England. He took a house in Bury Street in the City of London and attended Bevis Marks synagogue. When he died in 1854 he was buried in the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Mile End.
I always enjoy your articles and books, but have a question about current affairs.
The new government of Israel is planning to redefine who is a Jew, and apparently many people will no longer be Jewish.
I thought anyone whose mother is Jewish is Jewish. I suppose this may come from the middle ages, when so many Jewish women were raped, and it was not possible to say who many fathers were.
What is the traditional rule for deciding who is Jewish?