He was arrested and, after being kept in detention for some months, was tried for the unlawful carrying of arms and sentenced to six years of imprisonment. The British government resented the treatment as not only cruel and unjust towards Mr Russell but also disrespectful towards the British nation and so demanded the dismissal of the officials implicated and 1000 damages as some compensation for the cruel injuries which had been inificted upon Mr Russell (State Papers, 1837–1838, p. 183). New Granada refused to comply with those demands, and the British representative, acting upon his instructions, called in the assistance of the West Indian fleet, but observed in his communication to the British naval officer in command that it was desirable to avoid hostilities and to endeavour to bring about the desired result by a strict blockade only. That seems to be the first occasion on which it had occurred to anybody that a blockade without war might serve the purpose of war. Precedent This precedent was shortly afterwards followed by another somewhat-similar case in which from April 16 to November 28, 1838, the French government blockaded the Mexican ports to coerce the Mexican government into acceptance of certain demands on behalf of French subjects who had suffered injury to their persons and damage to their property by insufficient protection by the Mexican authorities. The blockade of Buenos Aires and the Argentine coast from March 28, 1838 to November 7, 1840 by the French fleet, a coercive measure consequent upon vexatious laws affecting foreign residents in the Argentine Republic, seems to have been the first case in which the operation was notified to the different representatives of foreign states. The notification was given in Paris and Buenos Aires, and to every ship approaching the blockaded places. This precedent of notification was, a few years later (1845), followed in another blockade against the same country by Britain and France, and in one in 1842 and 1844 by Britain against the port of Greytown in Nicaragua. In 1850, Britain blockaded the ports of Greece in order to compel the Hellenic government to give satisfaction in the Don Pacifico case. Don Pacifico, a British subject, claimed 32,000 as damages for unprovoked pillage of his house by an Athenian mob. Greek vessels only were seized, and they were only sequestered. Greek vessels bonafide carrying cargoes belonging to foreigners were allowed to enter the blockaded