JUSTIN MCCARTHY WITH APPENDIX AND INDEX Twenty-four Photogravure Portraits IN FOUR VOLUMES VOLUME II. 1847-1857 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE LIBRARY OF FREDERICK G. IRELAND GIFT OF MRS. CATHAR F ADAMS ELKIN DECEMBER 6, 1934 A HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES. CHAPTER XIX. DON PACIFICO. Don THE name of Don Pacifico was as familiar to the world some quarter of a century ago as that of M. Jecker was about the time of the French invasion of Mexico. 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 was 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 4th, 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 order to the influence of the Jews. Don Paci fico's house happened to stand near the spot where 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 |