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. 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. Immediate antagonism James Mayer de Rothschild had been visiting Athens during the Greek Orthodox Easter (which was on April 4) to discuss a possible loan, and the city government decided to ban the traditional custom of burning the effigy of Judas, thinking that Rothschild might be offended by the tradition. As Scott reports it: It appears that it was then the custom at Athens to burn on Easter Sunday the image of Judas Iscariot. As, however, Lord Rothschild, a British subject of Jewish faith, was visiting Athens at this time, the Greek government forbade the custom. This was attributed by the populace, not to the presence of Lord Rothschild, but to the influence of Don Pacifico. Hence the outrages to his person and property. Some of the Greek population in Athens, angered at the cancellation of their customs, rioted before the house of the Portuguese Consul-General. It was claimed by Pacifico that the crowd was infiltrated by the Greek police, and that among its inciters was one or more sons of the Greek Minister of War. Three days after the incident, Don Pacifico himself wrote to Sir Edmund Lyons, British Minister Plenipotentiary to Greece: It is with much grief that I feel myself obliged to communicate to your Excellency a dreadful event which has happened to me, and as an English subject to beg your protection. Last Sunday, Easter-day, at about 12 o'clock, a crowd of people, amongst whom were some soldiers of the gendarmerie, just come out of church, presented themselves at the door of my house, which they very soon battered down with large pieces of stone. These brigands, in number about 300 or 400, entered my house, and swearing dreadfully, began beating my wife, my innocent children, and my son-in-law. After having