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Rh established with foreign countries, and a commercial marine, comprising over four thousand vessels (in 1850), almost monopolized the carrying trade of the Mediterranean, of the Black Sea, of the Sea of Azoff, and of the lower Danube. This development of the Greek marine, which threatened to take large proportions, excited the jealousy of England, and that power, under the Palmerston ministry in 1850, seizing a flimsy pretext of the stoning of the house of a Portuguese Jew, named Pacifico, by the street boys in Athens on Easter day, sent a powerful fleet under Admiral Parker to seek redress. They asked for a large indemnity and an apology from the Greek Government, claiming Pacifico as a British subject. On the refusal of the Greek Government to comply, the British admiral seized hundreds of Greek vessels and towed them to the Bay of Salamis. Most of them were loaded with perishable cargoes, and thus brought ruin to their owners. Greece had finally to yield.

By this time many enterprising Greeks had established themselves in the large commercial cities of Western Europe, as well as in Southern Russia, the lower Danube, Roumania, and Constantinople, and, having amassed great wealth, sent large sums to Greece from patriotic motives.