Don Pacifico affair

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The Don Pacifico affair was a diplomatic episode which occurred in 1850 and concerned the governments of Greece, the United Kingdom and Portugal, and is considered an example of gunboat diplomacy. The affair is named after David Pacifico, a Jewish British subject born in Gibraltar. He had previously been Portuguese consul-general to Greece, dismissed from his consulship for exceeding his authority repeatedly during 1842, but he continued to reside in Athens.^[1]

The dispute began in 1849 after Pacifico's house was attacked and vandalised by a mob that included the sons of a government minister, while police, according to Pacifico's claims, watched and neglected to intervene.