Don Pacifico Affair

Incident in 1850 in which British foreign secretary Lord Palmerston was criticized in Parliament and elsewhere in Europe for using British naval superiority to impose his foreign policy. Palmerston sent gunboats to blockade the Greek coast in support of the claim of a Portuguese merchant, David Pacifico, who was born on Gibraltar (and thus a British subject), for compensation from the Greek government after his house was burned down in anti-Semitic riots.

This action brought diplomatic protests from the governments of France and Russia, who had also guaranteed Greek independence.

Palmerston successfully defended his action in Parliament, but fell from power the following year, 1851.