than the value of the Greek Royal Palace, while the Greek government also considered this to be an affair of the Judiciary, not the Executive branch. On August 31, 1848, David Pacifico again wrote to Lyons, mentioning that sixteen months had passed since the incident and satisfaction had not been forthcoming. Moreover, he had been forced to abandon his house during the Easter celebrations of 1848; and he drew to the attention of Lyons that several years earlier two Jews had been massacred at Patras, and likewise the synagogue at Negroponte had been burned down. After additional exchanges of letters among all the parties, on October 15, 1848, Don David Pacifico appealed again to the British Government to obtain the settlement of his claims. Already on December 3, 1849, Lord Palmerston had decided to take definitive action to settle the problems caused by Greek intransigence. King Otto and his government, in addition to refusing to settle claims of British citizens, had stopped payments for the loan of 1832. Palmerston wrote to Sir Thomas Wyse, the British Minister in Athens, I have desired the Admiralty to instruct Sir William Parker to take Athens on his way back from the Dardanelles, and to support you in bringing at last to a satisfactory ending the settlement of our various claims upon the Greek Government. You will, of course, in conjunction with him, persevere in the suaviter in modo as long as is consistent with our dignity and honour, and I measure that time by days – perhaps by some very small number of hours. If however, the Greek Government does not strike, Parker must do so. In that case you should embark on board his fleet before he begins to take any hostile steps, in order that you and your mission may be secure against insult. He should, of course, begin by reprisals; that is, by taking possession of some Greek property; but the King would probably not much care for our taking hold of any merchant property, and the best thing, therefore, would be to seize hold of his little fleet, if that can be done handily. The next thing would be a blockade of any or all of his ports.... On January 22, 1850, Admiral Sir William Parker reported that all the vessels of the Greek government had been detained, but that the machinations of the French Minister Thouvenot and the