CHAPTER XIX DON PACIFICO. HE name of Don Pacifico was as familiar to the world some THE quarter of a century ago as that of M. Jecker was about the time of the French invasion of Mexico. Don Pacifico became famous for a season as the man whose quarrel had nearly brought on a European war, caused a temporary disturbance of good relations between England and France, split up political parties in England in a manner hardly ever known before, and established the reputation of Lord Palmerston as one of the greatest Parliamentary debaters of his time. Among the memorable speeches delivered in the English House of Commons, that of Lord Palmerston on the Don Pacifico debate must always take a place. It was not because the subject of the debate was a great one, or because there were any grand principles involved. The question originally in dispute were unutterably trivial and paltry; there was no particular principle involved; it was altogether what is called in commercial litigation a question of account; a controversy about the amount and time of payment of a doubtful claim. Nor was the speech delivered by Lord Palmerston one of the grand historical displays of oratory that even when the sound of them is lost send their echoes to "roll from soul to soul." It was not like one of Burke's great speeches, or one of Chatham's. It was not one calculated to provoke keen literary controversy, like Sheridan's celebrated "Begum speech," which all contemporaries held to be unrivalled, but which a later generation assumes to have been rather flashy rhetoric. There are no passages of splendid eloquence in Palmerston's Pacifico speech. Its great merit was its wonderful power as a contribution to Parliamentary argument; as a masterly appeal to the feelings, the prejudices, • and the passions of the House of Commons; as a complete Parliamentary victory over a combination of the most influential, eloquent and heterogeneous opponents. Don Pacifico was a Jew, a Portuguese by extraction, but a native of Gibraltar, and a British subject. His House in Athens was attacked and plundered in the open day on April 4, 1847, by an Athenian mob, who were headed, it was affirmed, by two sons of the Greek Minister of War. The attack came about in this way. It had been customary in Greek towns to celebrate Easter by burning an effigy of Judas Iscariot. In 1847 the police of Athens were ordered to prevent this performance, and the mob, disappointed of their favorite amusement, ascribed the new orders to the influence of the Jews. Don Pacifico's house happened to stand near the spot were the Judas was annually burnt; Don Pacifico was known to be a Jew; and the anger of the mob was wreaked upon him accordingly. There could be no doubt that the attack was lawless, and that the Greek authorities took no trouble to protect Pacifico against it. Don Pacifico made a claim against the Greek Government for compensation. He estimated his losses, direct and indirect, at nearly thirty-two thousand pounds sterling. Another claim was made at the same time by another British subject, a man of a very different stamp from Don Pacifico. This was Mr. Finlay, the historian of Greece. Mr. Finlay had gone out to Greece in the enthusiastic days of Bryon and Cochrane, and Church and Hastings; and he settled in Athens when the independence of Greece had been established. Some of his land had been taken for the purpose of rounding off the new palace gardens of King Otho; and Mr. Finlay had declined to accept the terms offered by the Greek Government, to which other landowners in the same position as himself had assented. Some stress was laid by Lord Palmerston's antagonists in the course of debate on the fact that Mr. Finlay thus stood out apart from other landowners in Athens. Mr. Finlay, however, had a perfect right to stand out for any price he thought fit. He was in the same position as a Greek resident of London or Manchester whose land is taken for the purposes of a railway or other public improvement, and who declines to accept the amount of compensation tendered for it in the first instance. The pecularity of the case was that Mr. Finlay was not left, as the supposed Greek gentleman assuredly would be, to make good his claims for himself in the courts of law. Neither Don Pacifico nor Mr. Finlay had appealed to the law courts at all. But about this time our Foreign Office had had several little complaints against the Greek authorities. We had taken so considerable a part in setting up Greece that our ministers not unnaturally thought Greece ought to show her gratitude by attending a little more closely to our advice. On the other hand Lord Palmerston had made up his mind that there was constant intrigue going on against our interests among the foreign diplomatists in Athens. He was convinced that France was perpetually plotting against us there, and that Russia was watching an opportunity to supersede once for all our influence by completely establishing hers. Don Pacifico's sheets, counterpanes, and gold watch had the advantage of being made the subject of a trial of strength between England on the one side, and France and Russia on the other. There had been other complaints as well. Ionian subjects of her Majesty had sent in remonstrances against lawless or highhanded proceedings; and a midshipman of Her Majesty's ship Fantôme, landed from a boat at night on the shore of Patras, had been arrested by mistake. None of these questions would seem at first sight to wear a very grave international character. All they needed for settlement, it might be thought, was a little open discussion and the exercise of some good sense and modera tion on both sides. It cannot be doubted that the Greek authorities were lax and careless, and that acts had been done which they could not justify. It is only fair to say that they do not appear to have tried to justify some of them; but they were of opinion that certain of the claims were absurdly exaggerated, and in this belief they proved to be well sustained. The Greeks were very poor, and also very dilatory; and they gave Lord Palmerston a reasonable excuse for a little impatience. Unluckily Lord Palmerston became possessed with the idea that the French minister in Greece was secretly setting the Greek Government on to resist our claims. For the Foreign Office had made the claims ours. They had lumped up the outrages on Ionian seamen, the mistaken arrest of the midshipman (who had been released with apologies the moment his nationality and position were discovered), Mr. Finlay's land, and Don Pacifico's household furniture, in one claim, converted it into a national demand, and insisted that Greece must pay up within a given time or take the consequences. Greece hesitated, and accordingly the British fleet was ordered to the Piræus. It made its appearance very promptly there, and seized all the Greek vessels belonging to the Government and to private merchants that were found within the waters. The Greek Government appealed to France and Russia as Powers joined with us in the treaty to protect the independence of Greece. France and Russia were bch disposed to make bitter complaint of not having been consuited in the first instance by the British Government; nor was their feeling greatly softened by Lord Palmerston's peremptory reply that it was all a question between England and Greece, with which no other Power had any business to interfere. The Russian Government wrote an angry and indeed an offensive remonstrance. The Russian Foreign Minister spoke of "the very painful impression produced upon the mind of the Emperor by the unexpected acts of violence which the British authorities had just directed against Greece;" and asked if Great Britain, "abusing the advantages which are afforded to her by her immense maritime superiority," intended to "disengage herself from all obligation," and to "authorize all Great Powers on every fitting opportunity to recognize towards the weak no other rule but their own will, no other right but their own physical strength." The French Government, perhaps under the pressure of difficulties and uncertain affairs at home, in their unsettled state showed a better temper, and intervened only in the interests of peace and good understanding. Something like a friendly arbitration was accepted from France, and the French Government sent a special representative to Athens to try to come to terms with our minister there. The difficulties appeared likely to be adjusted. All the claims except those of Don Pacifico were matter of easy settlement, and at first the French commissioner seemed even willing to accept Don Pacifico's stupendous valuation of his household goods. But Pacifico had introduced other demands of a more shadowy character. He said that he had certain elaims on the Portuguese Government, and that the papers on which these claims rested for support were destroyed in the sacking of his house, and therefore he felt entitled to ask for 26,6187. as compensation on that account also. The French commissioner was a little staggered at this demand, and declined to accede to it without further consideration; and as our minister, Mr. Wyse, did not believe he had any authority to abate any of the now national demand, the negotiation was for the time broke off. In the meantime, however, negotiations had still been going on between the English and French Governments in London, and these had resulted in a convention disposing of all the disputed claims. By the terms of this agreement a sum of eight thousand five hundred pounds was to be paid by the Greek Government to be divided among the various claimants; and Greece was also to pay whatever sum might be found to be fairly due on account of Don Pacific's Portuguese claims after these had been investigated by arbitrators. This would seem a very sat |